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.

 

Reading response papers

            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.

 

Exams

            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/.