PHL 1002C Western Philosophy 2 Honors Section CRN 30069

Dr Christian Perring, Department of Philosophy, Dowling College

MW 10:00-11:20AM, Spring 2007

RC 312

E-mail: perringc (at) dowling (dot) edu [All email to me should have "PHL1002" in the subject line: you need to use your Dowling email account to write to me]

Office Phone: 244-3349

Office: 330B RC (next to the computer lab)

Office Hours: MTW 100-230PM or by appointment

Textbook:

A Passion for Wisdom: Readings in Western Philosophy on Love and Desire, edited by Ellen Feder, Karmen MacKendrick and Sybol Cook (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004)

Grade assignment:

First paper: 10%

Second paper: 23%

Third paper: 35%

Attendance and participation: 10%

Presentation: 12%

Personal reflections (4): 10%

Aim of the course: This course will introduce you to some of the central philosophical themes in western thought from the seventeenth century to the end of 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.

Reading assignments: Each week, one chapter, or part of a chapter, of the textbook is assigned for reading. You must do the reading before that week. You should be familiar with the main ideas in each assigned chapter, and you should make notes of those parts that are hard to follow.

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 can do a make-up by writing a 500 word summary of the assigned reading for the day you missed.

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. Participating on the discussion board on Blackboard can help your grade.

Paper Topics (Tentative and subject to revision)

Paper 1. At least 600 words.

Paper 2. At least 1200 words. You should find at least one academic source of information that is not part of the assigned reading.

Paper 3. At least 1800 words. Answer ONE question. You should find at least two academic sources of information that is not part of the assigned reading.

Late papers risk penalties.

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 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. See the Dowling College Library page for Avoiding Plagiarism.

The class ID for turnitin.com is "???????" [to be announced later]

Password: "socrates"

Presentations or Debates: You must sign up to do a presentation or a debate by March 14.

Presentations: You can do a 10-minute presentation on your own, or a 20-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. For your presentation topic, you can choose one from the schedule below, or you can propose a topic to me. Note that your presentation should leave two minutes at the end for a question and answer period. I will use the rubric available at

http://www.phschool.com/professional_development/rubrics/oral_presentation.pdf

to assess your presentation.

Debates: Debates are between two people. They must agree on a question to be debated. Person A has 5 minutes to present his or her view. Then person B has 2 minutes to ask A questions about the ideas presented during which A can respond. Next, B presents his or her views for 5 minutes, followed by another 2 minutes of question and answer between A and B on the ideas just presented. Then we have 4 minutes of questions from the rest of the class, directed at both A and B. Finally, A and B have a minute each to sum up their ideas. I will use the rubric available at

http://www.winona.edu/AIR/documents/classdebate.pdf

to assess each person in the debate.

Personal Reflections: These should be at least 500 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 do so link your own life with philosophical discussions.

Classroom Etiquette.

· All cell phones ringers should be turned off and you should never talk or text 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.

· 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.

· 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.

· You have a responsibility to contribute to the community of the class. You should participate and help your classmates to understand ideas.

Schedule

Date	Topic	Reading	Presentation Topics	Work Due
1/29	Introduction
1/31	Modern Philosophy: Descartes	The Passions of the Soul	Descartes' life and philosophy
2/5		From her correspondence with Descartes, Elisabeth of Bohemia.
2/7	Hume	“Of Chastity and Modesty” from the Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume.