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PHL 1002A Western
Philosophy 2 CRN 27483
Monday Wednesday
1130am-1250pm RC 323
E-mail: perringc at
dowling.edu [All email to me should have
"PHL1002" in the subject line]
Office Phone:
244-3349
Office: 330B RC
(next to the computer lab)
Office Hours: MW 10:00-11:30 AM, T 11:30AM-100PM
Textbook: A
Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Texts and Interactive Guides, by
James Fieser and Norman Lillegard. (
Grade assignment:
First paper: 10%
Second paper: 20%
Third paper: 30%
Attendance and
participation: 10%
Presentation: 10%
Personal reflections
(6): 20%
Aim of the course: This course will introduce you to some of
the central philosophical themes in western thought from the seventeenth
century up to the twentieth century. You
will learn skills of reading carefully, reading out loud, comparing different
world views, analyzing arguments, clarifying ideas, making careful
distinctions, finding the strengths and weaknesses of arguments, assessing the
plausibility of claims, constructing your own arguments, defending and
strengthening your own arguments, discussing controversial ideas with other
people, presenting ideas to a group, expressing your ideas and criticisms of
others in writing, and formulating your own arguments in writing. Ultimately, this course should help you to
think for yourself, express yourself, and better understand the ideas of other
people. Hopefully, it should also give
you some understanding of the philosophical foundations of western civilization.
Attendance: If you need to miss a class, you should
notify me by phone or email before the class.
Your attendance grade will suffer significantly if you miss classes
without excuse. If you miss classes, you
should request make-up work from me. To
get full credit for attendance, you need to be in class on time, be there for
the full class time, and you need to be awake and paying attention to the
class. If you have to miss class for a
legitimate reason, you should provide me with some evidence for your excuse.
Participation: You should participate in class discussion, both answering questions that are put to the class, raising questions when you do not fully understand an idea or a part of the text, or what someone in the class says.
Keep copies of all your writing. For any paper or piece of writing, there is a chance that I will mislay it. So you must keep a copy of everything that you give me. If your copy is electronic, you should keep your copy in at least 3 different places (floppy disk, hard drive, memory card, jump drive, etc) in order to minimize the danger of losing it in a computer crash or hardware failure. If you give me something handwritten, you should photocopy or scan it first.
Due dates: Work is due on the day stated in the
schedule. You can give it to me in
class, in my office if I am there, in my mailbox, or by e-mail or using
turnitin.com by midnight. If you are
unable to make a deadline, you should tell me and explain why. If your work is late without excuse, you may
be penalized.
Plagiarism
detection and prevention:
All papers should be submitted via Turnitin.com or sent to me by email as an
attachment in MS Word or RTF. I cannot
accept files in MS Works. If you cannot
do this, then you can give me a disk with your work on it I will give you information about how to use
Turnitin.com. Note that I view any form
of academic dishonesty very seriously, and if I find that you have engaged in
any significant form of plagiarism or cheating I will fail you in this course
and report my action to the Dean of Students.
The class ID for
turnitin.com is "1250210"
Password:
"socrates"
Presentation: You
must sign up to do a presentation in by the end of the second week, W Feb
9. You can do a 5-minute presentation on
your own, or a 10- minute presentation with another person. If you do a joint presentation, you will both
get the same grade. You can use
Powerpoint to do your presentation, but it is not required. However you do your presentation, you must
keep it lively and interesting, and you should not simply read out from a
pre-written text. You should provide
some information that is not available in the course textbook. Your presentation will
be assessed using the form available by clicking here.
Personal Reflections: These should be at least 400 words, in
grammatical English. They will not be
graded, but I will give you some feedback on them. You either get credit for them or you
don't. They are not meant to be
academically challenging, but are meant to give you the opportunity to link the
topics of the class to your own life and ideas you have about how best to make
decisions. It is up to you how much of
your own personal experience you include, but you are encouraged to link your
own life with philosophical discussions.
Grading: As a rough guide, I assign the following
meanings to grades:
A - excellent
B - good
C- effort made but
major problems
D - some
understanding and effort made, but deep confusion
F - little
understanding and little effort made, or complete lack of understanding.
Extra credit and
make-ups. I will sometimes allow students to get extra
credit by attending talks, exhibitions or performances at Dowling College and
writing a 2-page summary or reflection connecting the event with philosophical
themes. Occasionally I allow extra
credit by writing an extra paper. If you
get a B- or less on a paper, I will allow you to rewrite it and raise your
grade somewhat if you significantly improve it.
Classroom
Etiquette. All cell phones ringers should be turned off
and you should never talk on your cell phone in class. You should not eat any food in class,
especially food that others will notice through sound or smell. You should turn up on time to all
classes. Prepare yourself before class
so you don't need to take a bathroom break.
However, if you do need to leave the classroom briefly, choose a moment
when it will not disrupt the class much.
You should not take a long break during the middle of class: if you do,
you may be counted as absent Even if you are tired, you should stay awake and
keep your eyes open. Your attention
needs to be on the class, and you should not do other reading or work during
the class. If your attention is not on
the class, you may be counted as absent.
You are free to express your views and question the views of others,
including your professor, and you can be passionate about your opinions. However, you must always treat others in the
class with respect; you can criticize the views and arguments of others, but
you cannot criticize them as persons.
You should also make sure you are not dominating classroom discussion to
the exclusion of other class members.
|
Date |
Topic/Reading
|
Reflection/Presentation
Topics |
|
M Jan 31 |
Introduction |
|
|
W Feb 2 |
Descartes. Meditation I. You can find the text
online: Meditations I- III
available at http://www.phil.uga.edu/faculty/wolf/desI-III.htm or Meditations I-VI in a
text file at http://www.textfiles.com/etext/NONFICTION/descartes-meditations-746.txt%20or%20in%20HTML or in HTML at http://www.msu.org/intro/content_intro/texts/descartes/descartes1.html (Note that these are all
the 1911 translation by Elizabeth Haldane) |
|
|
M 7 |
Excerpts from The Matrix
|
First Reflection Due: Do you care whether your religious, ethical and
metaphysical beliefs are true? Could
any evidence or events lead you to change them? Explain using particular
examples. |
|
W 9 |
Meditation II
|
|
|
M 14 |
Distinguishing good
arguments from bad |
|
|
W 16 |
Meditation III
|
Second Reflection Due: Describe a time when you
realized that some of your beliefs were mistaken. What can you learn from the event to make
sure that you do not make the same kind of mistake again? |
|
W 23 |
Meditation VI
|
|
|
M 28 |
Locke. HIP Ch 8, pp. 403-415 |
Paper 1 due
|
|
W Mar 2 |
HIP Ch 8, pp. 415-427 |
|
|
M 7 |
HIP Ch 8, pp. 427-435 |
|
|
W 9 |
|
Third Reflection Due: Do you think that the
scientific image of reality conflicts with our common-sense beliefs about
reality? Do you think our common sense
beliefs must be correct, or could science show that our common sense beliefs
are mistaken? |
|
M 14 |
Hume. HIP Ch 8,
pp. 463-471 |
|
|
W 16 |
HIP Ch 8, pp. 471-480 |
|
|
M 21 |
HIP Ch 8, pp. 491-497 |
|
|
W 23 |
Kant. HIP Ch 9,
pp. 516-525 |
Paper 2 due
|
|
M 28 |
HIP Ch 9, pp, 525-533 |
|
|
W 30 |
HIP Ch 9, pp. 533-540 |
Fourth Reflection Due: What skills have you
improved from class sessions, doing the reading, and writing papers? What concerns do you have in preparing to
write your final paper? Do you feel
that you now have the necessary skills? |
|
M Apr 4 |
Hegel. HIP Ch 9,
pp. 540-548 |
|
|
W 6 |
HIP Ch 9, pp. 548-555 |
|
|
M 11 |
Kierkegaard HIP Ch 9, pp. 555-564 |
|
|
W 13 |
HIP 564-571 |
|
|
M 18 |
Nietzsche. HIP Ch 9,
pp. 593-603 |
Fifth Reflection Due: Have you experienced any
crises in your life where you have had to make a difficult decision? Do you feel that you made a rational
decision? How did you decide what to
do? |
|
W 20 |
HIP Ch 9, pp. 603-613 |
Draft of paper 3 due |
|
M May 2 |
Review for writing final
paper |
Meet in computer lab. |
|
W 4 |
|
Presentations
|
|
M 9 |
|
Paper 3 due
Presentations
Sixth Reflection Due: How has this course changed
the way you think? What value do you
now see in a philosophical approach to life? |
|
W 11 |
|
Presentations
|
|
|
|
|
Links:
· Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Descartes by Douglas Burnham and James Fieser
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Descartes' Life and Works by Kurt Smith
· Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on John Locke
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on John Locke
· Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding
·
Hume's
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Berkeley by Lisa Downing
· IEP Entry on Berkeley by Daniel Flage
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Hume by Ted Morris.
· IEP Entry on David Hume (1711-1776): Metaphysics and Epistemology
· Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Kant
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Kant's Critique of Metaphysics by Michelle Grier.
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Hegel by Paul Redding
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Kierkegaard by William McDonald
· IEP Entry on Kierkegaard by William McDonald
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Nietzsche
· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Existentialism
Paper 1:
>500 words.
Structure your paper by answering these questions.
a. What is Descartes' method of doubt?
b. How does Descartes use his method of doubt in his Meditations to confirm that our ordinary beliefs about the world are well justified?
c. Discuss how Descartes distinguishes beliefs that are justified and those that are not justified.
Paper 2:
>1000 words.
Answer ONE of these questions:
1. Locke writes, "Though our knowledge be limited to our ideas, and cannot exceed them either in extent or perfection; and though these be very narrow bounds, in respect of the extent of All-being, and far short of what we may justly imagine to be in some even created understandings, not tied down to the dull and narrow information that is to be received from some few, and not very acute, ways of perception, such as are our senses; yet it would be well with us if our knowledge were but as large as our ideas, and there were not many doubts and inquiries concerning the ideas we have, whereof we are not, nor I believe ever shall be in this world resolved." (Essay Book IV, Chapter 3, para. 6, page 426 of our text.)
Explain what this means, how Locke comes to this conclusion, and spell out the major steps in his argument.
2. Hume writes, "When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." (Enquiry, Section XII, page 492 of our text.)
Explain what this means, how Hume comes to this conclusion, and spell out the major steps in his argument.
Paper 3:
This paper must be at least 1600 words long. The draft is due on Wednesday April 20. The draft must be at least 800 words and ideally should be a version of the whole paper. The final version is due on Monday May 9. You must schedule a 30-minute meeting with me to go over your draft before you complete your final version. Late papers without extensions will be penalized.
This paper must contain at least one reference to a scholarly website, book or article, and it must use references to help the discussion of the topic. The paper must be in MLA format. (I recommend using the resources on the Library's Citation of Sources page to help you get the citation format correct: http://www.dowling.edu/library/links/citlink.shtm )
Answer ONE of the following questions:
1. Explain how on Kant's view, it is possible to have objective scientific knowledge of the causal interactions of physical objects even though we cannot know things-in-themselves. Make sure that you explain how Kant answers Hume's argument that we cannot perceive the causal necessity linking any two events and so cannot really know why one event causes another. Then spend at least one third of your paper discussing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the claims of Hume and Kant concerning our knowledge of the causal relationship between striking a match and the match lighting.
2. Compare the attitudes that Kierkegaard and Nietzsche have towards the pursuit of truth. Do they make claims and then provide evidence for them, and do they think that everyone else should try to follow the evidence? Spend at least a third of your paper discussing whether you think their approaches are convincing when it comes to ethical or religious knowledge.
Presentation Topics: