History of the Department

 

Courses in "Moral Philosophy" were part of the prescribed curriculum at Gettysburg College through most of the latter part of the nineteenth century. They were usually taught by the President of the College who was also Professor of Intellectual and Moral Science. At that time what we now call Philosophy was called Moral Science or Moral Philosophy and included much of what we would now call Psychology and Sociology.

Charles F. Sanders (Professor of Philosophy from 1906-1941) was the first Professor of Philosophy per se. The William Bittinger Chair in Intellectual and Moral Science was transferred from the President of the College to Dr. Sanders in 1913 and renamed the William Bittinger Chair of Philosophy.

Norman E. Richardson joined the faculty as the Department Chair in 1945. His courses included a very popular Introduction to Philosophy, Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, and Philosophy of Religion. He was active in developing the General Education Course in Western Civilization. Upon retirement in 1979 he was the first recipient of the Lindback Award for excellence in teaching. Upon his death in 1990, the Norman E. Richardson Memorial Lectureship was established.

W. Richard Schubart joined the faculty in 1950 with a dual appointment in philosophy and sociology. From 1959 he taught full time in philosophy. He taught courses in Ethics, Aesthetics, Twentieth-Century Philosophy and History of Modern Western Thought. He always emphasized the history of ideas and their historical context. He retired in 1981.

Chan L. Coulter joined the faculty in 1958 and served as Department Chair from 1979 until his retirement in 1995. His distinguished career in teaching included courses in History of Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Religion, and several interdisciplinary courses. An endowed award for excellence in philosophy was established in his name upon his death in 1999.

Today the Philosophy Department continues to flourish with six full-time faculty, several adjunct faculty and more than sixty philosophy majors. Several new courses have recently been added to the curriculum: Philosophy of Peace and Nonviolence; The Nature of Space: Philosophical Revolutions in the History of Physics; Deliberative Democracy; Philosophy and Psychiatry; Philosophy of Human Rights; Philosophy of Film; Philosophy of Mind; Philosophical Perspectives on Justice; Philosophy and Gandhi; Wrong Science, Bad Science and Pseudo Science; Philosophy of Yoga; Ethics and Economic Life; Philosophy of Music and From Babylonia to the Big Bang.