SYLLABUS  

DISTANCE LEARNING (OPEN COLLEGE)

PHILOSOPHY 2010

FALL 2002

Introduction

PHI 2010, or Intro to Philosophy consists of a survey of different subjects or branches within Philosophy, such as epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, etc., consolidated in a single course. Each one of these topics is very important for the understanding of philosophy. Each subject deals with independent realms of human cognition and sensibility. Intro to Philosophy—aside from its academic importance in the social and the natural sciences—can be of great benefit in your daily life, as well as a challenge to normal everyday thinking.

Goals

• To become familiar with contemporary trends in philosophy.

• To explore key disciplines within the philosophical landscape, such as epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, ontology and aesthetics.

• To create and stimulate a philosophical spirit, which consists of open debate, conversation, as well as the ethics of dialogue.

• To further critical thinking strategies in order to deal with the challenges posed by the professional and academic world.

• To apply philosophical knowledge to who you are, how you think and what you do.

Objectives

1. Doing philosophy means examining problems in a detached manner; allowing objectivity, reason, plurality become the ground on which to base our judgment. That philosophical spirit needs to be defined and stimulated.

2. Critical thinking is a way of reasoning. It analyzes the world with tools that in principle constitute our building blocks to make sense of the world. These tools need to be identified and refined.

3. Once we gain a minimum of philosophical rudiments, we’ll be able to implement this know-how in concrete life-experiences (be it moral decisions, natural sciences, social sciences or criticism). This course is geared to confront actual contexts, and not just abstractions, which is a common misconception about philosophy.

Evaluation

1. Grades A, B and C stand for outstanding (100-90), good (90-80) and average (80-70) respectively. D is below average (60-50). F means not enough work to justify credit for the course.

2. Your grade for this course is based on

3. No make-up exams or incompletes. Dates, times and room assignments for the Midterm and Final review Seminars will be mailed, or called 237-3123 for this information.

Journals, Study Guides & Special Projects

Keep a journal to record responses to your Study Guides, SPECIAL PROJECTS, journal topics, philosophical terms and definitions, questions, problems, and comments or personal examples. Try to write in it at least three times each week. Describe events you observe or experience and their philosophical implications. Illustrate philosophical issues or questions with drawings, cartoons, newspapers or magazines (articles, editorials, advertisements). Work on ideas and make notes for your journal and bring it with you -in case you may have any questions—to Open College seminars. Do not send responses to study guides. Use them to reinforce your reading and to review for exams. The Special Projects at the end of each chapter are important in that you can work with some of the ideas you have already studied in the chapter. Try to think of concrete examples from your own experience when you answer these sections. Remember the JOURNAL is for your own use. You don’t have to turn it in.

Policies

Late papers will be returned unread and ungraded. Plagiarism should be avoided. Read in detail and then try to explain the ideas in your own words. Cite your sources from the book (or any other) as set forth in the guidelines.

Some Useful Tips

1. Read in a good study environment. Preferably study alone, minus noises and distractions, at regular times with all the necessary text and references and NO INTERRUPTIONS.

2. Read slowly and attentively. Speed-reading techniques are not good. Philosophy requires very alert and careful analysis. Let what you read sink in. Pause to mediate and reflect.

3. Write down the concepts you don’t understand in your journal. Try to work with them while finding additional information. Also, e-mail questions you may have to my e-mail address above. As you will discover, we can have a fruitful philosophical dialogue.

4. Read more than once if necessary. In Philosophy the arguments are more important than what is being argued for.

5. Discuss the readings with friends, family and other students. Probably this is the best way to bring the material lo life. Debating and discussing is the best way to internalize philosophical positions.

Course Outline & Topics

MIDTERM PHILOSOPHY 2010

STUDY GUIDE I

AUGUST 26 - (CHAPTERS 1 - 7)

Please do not mail responses to this STUDY GUIDE. Record them in your journal, and use it to help you prepare for the Midterm Exam. It is important that you try to answer these questions in your journal. They represent the main topics you will encounter during this course. Some of them are more difficult than others. Try to be comprehensive in your answer. When you try to answer the questions, don't use shortcuts. Try to use explanatory power.

You may mail/deliver your papers (if assigned) to the Distance Learning & Educational Technologies office -- Building Three, Room 3506 -- on the Wolfson Campus, before 1 p.m. on the due dates. Students who attend the Midterm and Final Review Seminars will have the opportunity to revise the focus paper after getting peer and instructor feedback. Late papers returned -- unread/ungraded.

Chapter 1

1- What was philosophy and what was a philosopher, for the ancient Greeks?

2- What makes a question a philosophical question today?

3- List three common characteristics of a philosophical question.

4- Describe some of the issues involved in the nature of change. What makes this a philosophical issue?

5- Give an example of how belief conflict generates philosophical thought.

6- Describe the traditional branches of philosophy.

7- List three benefits of philosophy.

8- What are two common myths about philosophy, and why are they myths?

9- Describe an argument and state the two basic ways an argument can go wrong.

SPECIAL PROJECT:

The project is designed to get you started thinking like a philosopher. See if you can generate some philosophical issues. You may think of one but I am offering one as a sample. Your significant other left you saying "I don't know if I love you anymore." You have two children, several pets, and both of you are in the early stages of your careers.

Chapter 2

1- Define metaphysics and epistemology. What is the connection between these two branches of philosophy?

2- What do the metaphysics of Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander have in common? How do they differ?

3- Give the two versions of Pythagoras's metaphysical views. Why is Pythagoras important for later metaphysicians like Plato?

4- Compare and contrast the metaphysics of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Why are they so important to later metaphysicians such as the particle theorists?

5- Compare and contrast the philosophies of Anaxagoras and Empedocles. How does atomism differ from the particle theories of Anaxagoras and Empedocles?

Chapter 3

1- What are Platonic forms? Include as many features as you can think of.

2- Explain the dialectic method. What was it intended to do, and how does it differ from the method of the Sophists?

3- Why did Plato think Forms exist in a separate realm from material objects?

4- What is Plato's basic argument against Protagoras?

5- Why does Plato reject the view that knowledge equals sense perception?

6- Why does Plato insist that true knowledge requires awareness and understanding of the Forms?

Chapter 4

1- What is the difference between actuality and possibility? (Think of what you think you'1l do tomorrow vs. what actually will happen and see the differences)

2- How does Aristotle explain change?

3- How does Aristotle distinguish universals from particulars?

SPECIAL PROJECT:

If a battle happened yesterday, then the proposition that a sea battle would take place on that day was true even a thousand years before it happened. But if it were true a thousand years before it happened that a sea battle would be fought yesterday, then it would seem to follow that it was unavoidable. The truth of the proposition necessitates that the battle will occur, which certainly does conflict with our ordinary belief that it could have been avoided had humans freely decide not to fight it. Can you guess what the solution is? Do some research and try to find out. What's your solution, if any?

Chapter 5

1- How did Plotinus' Neoplatonism differ from Platonism?

2- How did St. Augustine differ from Platonists and Neoplatonists?

3- Distinguish total skepticism from moderate skepticism, and academic skepticism from Pyrrhonic skepticism.

4- What is Sextus Empiricus' basic argument for Pyrrhonic skepticism in the Ten tropes?

5- What three reasons did Augustine give for rejecting total skepticism?

6- What is time for St. Augustine, and what's the relationship between God and time?

7- Explain how Aquinas differs from Aristotle in his metaphysics.

8- What is "soul," for Aquinas, and how does it relate to body?

SPECIAL PROJECT:

God is all-knowing, right? So, doesn't this mean that he knows everything, including every detail about future events? People are free to choose, right? So, doesn't this mean that they don't have to do what they do, that is, they could normally do something else? If God knows what I'm going to do before I do it, then it seems I must do it regardless any of any deliberating I may do. But, am I free then? Am I responsible? Comment on this point.

Chapter 6

1- Explain the basic tenets of dualism, and distinguish it from alternative views.

2- Explain Descartes' method of doubt. His two skeptical conjectures, and how he uses them to perform an "epistemological detour" to the goal of metaphysical truth?

3- Why does Descartes mean by "substance," and why does he think there are two kinds? What are they, and how does he distinguish between them?

4- Why does the interaction between mind and body create problems for dualism?

5- How does Thomas Hobbes view reality and our perception of this reality?

6- What two problems about seeing a green lawn, for example, face a materialist theory like that of Hobbes?

7- Why did Anne Conway think everything is both physical and mental?

8- What is the ultimate substance for Spinoza, and how do the mind and matter relate to this substance?

9- Describe Locke's theory of representative realism.

10- Why did Berkeley reject representative realism, and what metaphysical conclusions did he draw from his rejection?

Chapter 7

1- How would Hume and Kant both agree and disagree concerning the role sense experience plays in the attempt to attain knowledge?

2- What is Hume's argument for skepticism concerning the self as an inner, unchanging, immaterial substance?

3- What did Kant mean when he claim that the mind's own organizing principles define the preconditions of all possible experiences?

4- Why does Kant think we can have metaphysical knowledge concerning the nature of reality as it exists independent of our experiences?

5- Describe Hegel's notion of reality as a system of conceptual triads.

6- How did Soren Kierkegaard disagree with Hegel?

7- What did Schopenhauer mean when he said that the essence of reality is will?

8- Why was Shopenhauer a pessimist about life?

9- How did Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of will differ from Schopenhauer's?

10- What did J. S. Mill mean when he said that an object is "a permanent possibility of sensation?"

SPECIAL PROJECT:

Do you belief in a self. And if the answer is yes, could you try to explain what that self is other than your name or history? Is it a substance, as Descartes pointed out? Or do you agree with Hume that there is not really a self any more than my own --always changing--experiences?

Midterm to Final Philosophy 2010

Study Guide II

Chapters 8-12

Chapters 8

1- What are some of the main themes of Existentialism?

2- How did Camus describe the existential predicament?

3- What did Camus think the best solution is to the existential predicament?

4- What did Sartre mean when he said that. For man, existence precedes essence?

5- What is anguish, according to Sartre?

6- What are the two ways of dealing with anguish, according to Sartre?

7- What, in general, does phenomenology attempt to do?

8- Why is modem man so alienated, alone, unhappy, according to Martin Heidegger in Being and Time?

9- What do the concepts of everydayness and chatter have to do with each other, according to the early Heidegger?

10- How did the later Heidegger recommend that we cope with the existential predicament?

SPECIAL PROJECT:

This one is a personal project with yourself. Perhaps you have experienced something called déjá vu. It's the experience of having experiencing what we are currently doing or experiencing, and it can be a very eerie feeling while it lasts. What if what you have done you have done countless times before? This is one of the thoughts Nietzsche had back in the 19th century, and explains why he is regarded (along with Kierkegaard) as one of the founders of 20th century existentialism. Is the idea of eternal recurrence frightening, troublesome, or uncomfortable to you? If so, why? If not, why not? Are them any things in your life you definitely wouldn't want to have eternally recur?

Chapter 9

1- How did Charles Pierce and William James differ in their ideas about what truth is?

2- What are some of the main features of John Dewey's instrumentalism?

3 - What was the verifiability criterion of meaning employed by the Vienna Circle of logical positivists?

4- What were the essential features of Bertrand Russell's logical atomism?

5- What attracted analytic philosophers like Russell and Wittgenstein to phenomenalism?

6- Describe the disagreement in epistemology between foundationalists and antifoundationalists?

7- What is the representational theory of truth, and why does Richard Rorty reject it?

8- Describe the philosophy of mind called interactionist dualism.

9- What does philosophical behaviorism maintain?

10- Distinguish identity theory from functionalism.

SPECIAL PROJECT:

Rent the 1977 movie Demon Seed (on video) by Julie Christie. In the movie, a brilliant scientist of the future creates a computer with almost limitless intelligence. The super-machine gets out of hand, however, when it decides that it wants to produce offspring and stalks the scientist's wife. If machines could do whatever people can do that convinces us that they are conscious and intelligent, should we accord them the same inner mental states or not? What is your impression in the movie and the possibility of artificial intelligence?

Chapter 10

1- What is the good life for Plato?

2- What is the good life, for Aristotle?

3- What is the good life, for an Epicurean?

4- Describe two components of Heloise's ethics.

5- How did St. Thomas Aquinas incorporate Aristotle's ethics with Christian ethics.

6- How does morality come into being, according to Thomas Hobbes.

7- What is the connection between facts and values, according to David Hume?

8- What determines the moral worth of an act, according to Immanuel Kant?

9- What is the difference between Bentham's utilitarianism and that of John Stuart Mill?

10- Describe Friedrich Nietzsche's distinction between master morality and slave morality.

SPECIAL PROJECT:

Most people are strongly motivated to do what they perceive to be in their own best interest. Isn't this a good thing? This view is called universal ethical egoism, in contrast with personal or individual ethical egoism, which says that I (the speaker) should do whatever is in my own best interest and says nothing of what people should do. Shouldn't a full-fledge ethical theory be about more than just how I should act? Think of a situation where your own view on ethics is at stake. A situation where you may act or not act but one choice seems better than another. Assess this action through the eyes of different moral theorists. Which one do you prefer and why?

Chapter 11

1 - How do Plato and Aristotle differ in their conceptions of what the sate is for and what forms it should take?

2- How does natural law differ from human law, according to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas? Which takes precedence, and why?

3- What's the point in forming a state, according to Thomas Hobbes, and what form should it take?

4- Why did John Locke, unlike Hobbes, favors a divided government and a right to revolution?

5- Compare Rousseau's early views on freedom and the state with his later ones.

6- How did Mary Wollstonecraft's views on women differ from Rousseau?

7- Briefly describe two central issues of constitutional law.

8- What are the mains tenets of classic liberalism?

9- How is 19th century utopianism both like and unlike classic liberalism?

10- Describe the main tenets of Marxism.

SPECIAL PROJECT:

What is your favorite political state? Do you favor a stronger or a weaker government? Try to come up with a different system of your own, but try to justify it from the point of view of the better justice (what is fair for the most people). In case you may not agree with such view, explain why is that the case.

Chapter 12

1- What argument did G.E. Moore give to support his claim that goodness can't be identical with pleasure (or any other natural property for that matter)?

2- What's a prima facie duty? How much such duties differ from your actual duty and what you do in a situation where they conflict, according to W.D. Ross?

3- What's the connection between justice, fairness, agreement, rationality, and self-interest for John Rawls?

4- What are you entitled to and what is a just society, according to the libertarian Robert Nozick?

5- What is Alasdair Mclntyre's narrative concept of the self, and how does it tie into his communitarian virtue ethics?

6- What's the basic difference between the first and the second waves of feminist thought?

7- Why do some feminists (like Ann Ferguson) support monoandrogyny, whereas others (like Joyce Trebilcot) support polyandrogyny, and still others (like Marilyn Frye) reject the angrogynous ideal completely?

8o What's the difference between the way boys and girls (and men and women) approach moral decision making, according to Caron Gilligan?

9- What makes some feminists suspicious of a care-centered feminist ethics?

10- Why doesn't Susan Moller Okin think the modern, middle-class family is a just institution?

Chapter 13

1- Why did St. Anselm think atheists contradict themselves?

2- What do St. Thomas Aquinas' first three ways have in common? Explain.

3- What objections can be made to Descartes' first proof?

4- Why did David Hume reject the design argument for the existence of God?

5- Why did Immanuel Kant reject the ontological argument?

6- Why did Leibniz think the principle of sufficient reason shows that there must be a God?

7- What's the basic similarity and the basic difference between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche when it comes to the issue of belief in God?

8- What did James mean when he described the issue of God's existence as live, momentous, and forced?

9- Why did logical positivists reject religious statements as meaningless?

10- Why does Mary Daly reject the traditional image of God as Father, and what new image does she recommend?