Philosophy
1120 – General Philosophy Office
Hours: M W F, 9-10
Fall Semester 2003 Office: LC143S; Phone: 2604
Professor
Tom Atchison Email: tatchison@gw.hamline.edu
Course
Objectives
·
To
introduce students to some of the questions philosophers have traditionally
asked (questions about what we know and how we know it, about what is real, about
what is valuable and about how we should live) and to some of the answers they
have proposed, and to see how these issues bear on our current circumstances
and way of life.
·
To
introduce students to some of the skills and methods used in philosophical
inquiry, skills and methods that may be useful in other sorts of inquiries as
well. These include the ability to read
a text carefully, sympathetically and critically, the ability to analyze and
criticize arguments, and the ability to articulate one’s own views and to
support them with reasoned arguments.
Course
Texts
The
following books are (or will be) available at the bookstore: Simon Blackburn, Think; Plato, Trial
and Death of Socrates; Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy;
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding John Locke, Second
Treatise of Government; David Johnston, ed., Equality. Any other course readings will be
photocopied. They will be handed out in
class at least a week before they are to be discussed. Please bring the text to be discussed to
class with you every time.
Class website
I maintain a simple
website where I post course handouts and information. The URL is http://www.woldww.info/classes/
Course
Description
During the first part of this course
we will let Simon Blackburn guide us on a tour through some of the greatest
(short) hits of Western philosophy. The
works we study will deal with questions about what we can know and how we can
know it (including what, if anything, we can know about right and wrong), what
is real and what is merely appearance or illusion, what reasons there are for
believing (or disbelieving) in God, in miracles, in life after death, and in
free will and about the nature of the human mind and its relation to our
bodies. The second part of the course
will consider some fundamental questions of political philosophy. We will begin with another short classic
(John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government) and then consider a more
contemporary set of essays on the nature of equality: In what sense is it true
that “all men [and women!] are created equal”? What is involved in treating
people as equals? What sorts of
policies would do justice to the ways in which we are or should be equal (and
to the ways in which we are not)? Does the pursuit of greater social equality
threaten to undermine liberty or fairness?
I cannot promise we will answer any of these
questions to your satisfaction. They
are, for the most part, very difficult questions. What we can hope to do is to learn something about how various
historical and contemporary thinkers have answered them, and to become somewhat
more careful and critical in our own efforts to answer them.
Conduct of the Course
Class time will be devoted largely to discussion, some in
small groups, some all together. I will
occasionally lecture, more often I will answer questions as they come up in
discussion, and even more often I will try to help you figure out how to answer
your questions yourself.
Much of our discussion will focus on understanding and
evaluating the texts. This will work
well only if you have done the assigned reading carefully -- often twice or
three times -- and given it some thought.
In philosophy we are interested not in the information that can be
extracted from a text, nor simply in the conclusions or opinions that an author
expresses; we are primarily interested in understanding and assessing the reasoning
that an author uses to try to establish or support those conclusions. This requires a very careful sort of
reading.
The point of struggling with these difficult texts is not
only to understand what some great minds have produced. A guided tour through the Museum of Great
Ideas is a very good thing, but not the best thing that philosophy has to
offer. Better is the opportunity to
learn to think for yourself. The texts
can serve as models of careful and/or creative thinking, as challenges to our
prejudices and assumptions, and as starting points for our own reflections. But the only way to learn to philosophize is
to enter the conversation yourself. In
this way a course in philosophy is more like a course in drawing or sculpture
-- a studio art course -- than like a course in art history or art appreciation. You can’t learn to draw by just watching
other people draw, and you can’t learn to do philosophy by just listening and
reading. You have to express your views
and expose them to other people’s critical reactions.
Assignments and Grading
Reading assignments
I expect you to
find time (an hour or two) to do the reading for each class and to come
prepared to discuss it. Come to class
ready to say what you found interesting, what you found confusing, silly, or
just plain wrong, what seemed to you to be the most important claims made, and
what arguments or justifications were offered for those claims.
20 % of your grade will be earned by submitting brief (1/4-1/2 of a double-spaced, typed page, perhaps just a few sentences) responses to the readings for each class. These must be turned in at the beginning of the class period to be counted. They can contain questions, objections, observations and/or reactions to the reading for that class. I will not grade these, but I will reject any that do not seem to be based on a reasonably conscientious reading of the assignment for that day. You can miss a few of these and still earn an ‘A’ for this part of the course work, but missing more than a few will be penalized on the following schedule: 90% completed = A; 80% = B; 70% = C; 60% = D; less than 60% = F. I will also notice and reward particularly perceptive or thoughtful response papers.
Class discussion
Most weeks we will have guided small group discussion
projects. The purpose of these projects
is to open discussion and to focus it on particular issues. They are also
intended to be "mini-labs" in which to practice the skills of careful
reading and evaluation of reasoning.
The projects are done in class in groups of 3-5 and take roughly
20-45 minutes to complete. Each group
should keep notes on its discussion, sign the notes and hand them in at the end
of each class session. Often groups
will also report orally on their discussions.
If you miss a discussion project, you should get hold of
the instructions, write out responses to the questions on your own, and hand
them in as soon as you can. 10% of your
grade will be determined by the number of discussion projects you complete
satisfactorily (on the same schedule as the response papers above.)
10% of your grade will also be determined by my
evaluation of the quality of your participation in class discussions. Just showing up and paying attention earns a
C for this component; occasionally making helpful contributions earns a B;
regularly making helpful contributions earns an A. Helpful contributions include: asking pertinent questions,
answering questions asked by the instructor or by other students, expressing
your views about the texts or topics we are discussing, responding (relevantly
and respectfully) to the views expressed by others.
Essays
You will be asked to write two short (3-5 page) essays
during the semester. Each paper will
count for 15% of your grade. Please
keep copies of all the work you hand in.
We will have two one-hour, in-class exams -- one at
mid-semester, one during the scheduled final exam period. Each exam will count for 15% of your grade.
Grading
criteria
I try hard to base my evaluation of your work on your
understanding of the reading, the quality of your reasoning and questioning,
and the clarity and effectiveness of your expression of your thoughts, not
on whether or not I agree with your philosophical theories, ideas, or opinions.
All work submitted for this course
must be your own. Plagiarism is the
academic ‘sin’ of presenting someone else’s work as your own. It is plagiarism if you copy something
verbatim (word for word) from a published source, from the Internet, or from
another student. It is still plagiarism
if you rearrange, paraphrase, condense, or summarize someone else’s work
without making clear to your reader what is your contribution and what is taken
from your source. If the exact wording comes from your source, then use
quotation marks. If the idea comes from
someone else, give him or her credit for it. The way to do this is to cite
your sources. There is a clear and
detailed explanation of various forms of plagiarism and of proper citation
practices at http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~tales/02-1/plagiarism.html. I will give a grade of ‘F’ to any student
who submits plagiarized work for this course.