Philosophy
1120 – General Philosophy Office Hours: MW 1:00-3:00
Summer
Session 2002 Office: LC2S; Phone: 2316
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 your own views and to
support them with reasoned arguments.
Course
Texts
The
following books are (or will be) available at the bookstore: Plato, Five Dialogues; Rene Descartes, Discourse
on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy; David Hume, Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion; Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols. Other course readings will be
photocopied. Please bring the text
to be discussed to class with you every time.
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 learn
from other people’s critical reactions.
Assignments and Grading
Reading assignments
I expect you to
find time (several hours, at least) 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 (about a page) 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
Occasionally 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. One paper will be
due Monday, July 8, the other Monday July 22.
Each paper will count for 15% of your grade. Please keep copies of all the work you hand in.
We will have two take-home exams -- one at the end of the
second week, one at the end of the fourth. Each exam will be due the Monday
after it is handed out. Each exam will
count for 15% of your grade.
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.
Reading Schedule – Summer Session 2002
Note: Because we are cramming an entire four-semester-credit course into four weeks, we will be moving at a very rapid pace. There are 42 hours of class time in a normal semester; we will have only 30. Each day’s class period will need to cover the same ground as a week of classes during a normal semester. And you will need to put in nearly as many hours each week as you would during a whole month of a regular semester.
Date |
Reading |
|
|
7/1 |
First Class |
7/2 |
Plato – Apology, Crito |
7/3 |
Plato – Euthyphro, Meno |
7/8 |
Plato – Phaedo |
7/9 |
Descartes – Meditations One and Two |
7/10 |
Descartes – Meditations Three and Four |
7/11 |
Descartes – Meditations Five and Six |
7/15 |
Hume - Dialogues, Parts I-VI |
7/16 |
Hume - Dialogues, Parts VII-XII |
7/17 |
Nietzsche – Twilight, pp. 3-49 |
7/18 |
Nietzsche – Twilight, pp. 50-92 |
7/22 |
Readings from 20th century philosophers to be chosen in light of student interests |
7/23 |
|
7/24 |
|
7/25 |
|
|
|
Updates to this schedule and study questions for the
readings will be available on my web site at http://www.woldww.net/classes/.