Introduction to Philosophical Thought

I invite you to visit me during my office hours and to talk with me via telephone and e-mail. I always welcome your comments and questions, and I am exceptionally happy to talk with you about the course material or about other philosophical or administrative matters.

Department office: ST 522

Department phone: 818.677.2757

Aims of the Course: This course is designed to give you the chance to explore some central issues in philosophy, and to show you how to use the tools of philosophy when considering those—and other—issues. The few issues we’ll explore will provide us with a subject matter on which to practice philosophy. And we’ll be more concerned with practicing philosophy than with the results of that practice—we are not overly interested in establishing as right any particular conclusion or point of view. We are, however, interested in introducing you to the philosophical tools that can aid you in exploring certain issues, in formulating your own thoughtful opinions about those issues, and in thoughtfully evaluating the opinions of others.

This course satisfies the “Philosophy and Religion” (C.3) section of the General Education Program. Courses in this section are designed to promote critical reflection on questions concerning the nature, meaning and value of human existence, the world in which we live, and our relations with one another. Students should understand the sources and limits of knowledge, and they should appreciate and be able to assess different world views and moral teachings that have played central roles in human culture.

Required Text: Perry, John, Michael Bratman and John Martin Fischer, eds. Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 4^th edition (Oxford University Press, 2007)

Attendance: Since you are responsible for any and all material presented in class, regular attendance is essential to doing well in this course.

The deadline this semester for dropping a course with only the instructor’s signature is Friday, September 14, 2007. After that date, according to CSUN’s regulations, withdrawals will require additional approvals and can be obtained only for “a serious and compelling reason.”
Moreover, “[c]hanges in academic schedules after the twentieth day of instruction, September 20, 2007, are rarely approved and only in cases where the student can provide written proof of extraordinary circumstances that have arisen from events beyond his or her control.”
“Students are solely responsible for enrolling or withdrawing from classes through SOLAR during Weeks 1-3 or through filing a Change of Schedule Petition during Week 4. Instructors cannot officially add or drop students.”

See “Change in Academic Schedule after Start of Classes,” online at http://www.csun.edu/a&r/soc/adjsched.html.

Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability, please identify yourself to me and to the University so that we can reasonably accommodate your learning and the preparation and evaluation of the work that you must do for this course. Please contact the Center on Disabilities, Student Services Building, Room 110, 818.677.2684 (Fax: 818.677.4929; email: [email protected]). For more information, visit the COD’s website at the following address: http://www.csun.edu/cod.

Evaluation: Your final grade in the course will be based on the following:

Exam 1

October 16

26.5%

Exam 2

December 6

26.5%

Other

4 short paper assignments

21 sets of responses to study questions

28%

21%

Grades: I will use the plus/minus grading system. Letter grades are assigned according to the following system:

100-92% = A	86-83% = B	76-73% = C	66-63% = D
91-90% = A-	82-80% = B-	72-70% = C-	62-60% = D-
89-87% = B+	79-77% = C+	69-67% = D+	59-0% = F

If your final grade falls just short of some higher grade, I will consider the quality of your participation as grounds for improving your final grade. I strongly encourage your participation, which can come in class, during office hours, by phone, or by e-mail.

Cheating and Plagiarism: I consider academic dishonesty a very serious issue. If you are unclear about what constitutes academic dishonesty or about the possible repercussions of and penalties for acts of academic dishonesty, please consult the California State University, Northridge Student Conduct Code at http://www.csun.edu/anr/soc/studentconduct.html. Moreover, I subscribe to and will enforce California State University, Northridge’s Policies on Nondiscrimination and Student Conduct, which include its policy on Academic Dishonesty and the Faculty Policy on Academic Dishonesty, as they are stated on pages 536-537 of its 2006-2008 Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog.

Exams: The exams are designed to determine whether you understand the lectures and the readings. Exam 1 will cover the material discussed from August 23^rd to October 9^th. Exam 2 will cover the material discussed from October 18^th to November 29^th. Each exam will consist of two parts. The first part of each exam will consist of a list of terms that we have encountered and employed. You will be asked to define – in one to three sentences – some of those terms. The second part of each exam will consist of a list of essay questions, and you will be asked to write an essay in response to some of those questions.

The essay questions that make up the second part of each exam will be taken from a set of essay questions that I will distribute prior to the exam. Included in this set of questions will be the questions that will appear on the exam, stated exactly as I will state them on the exam. Since you will at some point prior to the exam possess the exact questions that will appear on the exam, my usual eagerness to respond to questions regarding the course material will be understandably curtailed once I’ve distributed the questions. This is not to discourage you from talking with me—I always welcome your questions and comments, and before I distribute the exam questions, I am exceptionally happy to talk with you in detail about the course material.

You may take a make-up exam only if either (a) you have received, prior to the scheduled date of the exam, my permission to do so, or (b) you miss the exam due to a documented medical or family emergency.

Short Papers: The short paper assignments will require you to write a short essay of 500-1000 words (or about 1-2 pages). These assignments are designed to determine whether you comprehend the lecture material, whether you understand the readings from the text, and whether you are able to do a bit of clear and reasonable thinking of your own. I will not accept late submissions of the short papers.

Study Questions: The study questions for each assigned reading are due on the latest date that appears in the row with that reading on the Schedule. (For example, the study questions for Mill’s Utilitarianism are due on September 4^th.) Unless instructed otherwise, the study questions that you are to answer are those that appear in the textbook at the end of each assigned reading. I will not accept late submissions of your study questions. I will grade your responses to the study questions on the basis of (a) the accuracy of your claims about what the authors say and (b) whether your responses demonstrate a serious attempt to read and to understand the assigned chapters.

Extra Credit: I will assign no extra-credit work. There is nothing that you can do individually for extra credit. This means that you should concentrate on the credit assignments, making every effort to do as well as you can on the exams, on the short papers and on the study questions.

Schedule
Date	Topic	Readings
August 23	Course introduction
August 28 August 30 September 4	Ethics and society: Utilitarianism	Mill’s Utilitarianism, pages 492-508 Singer’s Famine, affluence, and morality, pages 527- 535
September 6 September 11 September 13	Ethics and society: Kantian ethics 1^st short paper due Sept 13^th	Kant’s Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, pages 536-552 O’Neill’s Kantian approaches to some famine problems, pages 553-559
September 18 September 20 September 25	Ethics and society: Aristotelian ethics	Aristotle’s Nicomachean ethics, pages 572-587 Hursthouse’s Virtue theory and abortion, pages 592- 606
September 27 October 2 October 4 October 9	Ethics and society: Justice and equality 2^nd short paper due Oct 4^th	Rawls’ A theory of justice, pages 607-620 Mill’s The subjection of women, pages 644-648 Appiah’s Racisms, pages 663-673
October 11	Review for Exam 1
October 16	Exam 1
October 18 October 23 October 25 October 30	God and evil 3^rd short paper due Oct 30^th	Anselm’s The ontological argument, pages 78-79 Aquinas’ The existence of God, pages 80-82 Paley’s Natural theology, pages 128-132 Perry’s Dialogue on good, evil, and the existence of God, pages 133-156
November 1 November 6 November 8	Minds, bodies, and persons: Personal identity	Perry’s A dialogue on personal identity and immortality, pages 368-388 Parfit’s Personal identity, pages 399-412 Dennett’s Where am I?, pages 412-420
November 13 November 15	Minds, bodies, and persons: Freedom, determinism, and responsibility	Chisholm’s Human freedom and the self, pages 421- 428 Hume’s Of liberty and necessity, pages 440-450
November 20	Knowledge and society 4^th short paper due Nov 20^th	Descartes’ Meditations of first philosophy, pages 171- 176
November 22	Thanksgiving Recess
November 27	Knowledge and society (cont’d)	Grau’s Bad dreams, evil demons, and the experience machine: Philosophy and The Matrix, pages 195- 202
November 29	Philosophy and the meaning of life	Wolf’s The meaning of lives, pages 62-74
December 4	Review for Exam 2
December 6	Exam 2

Note: Everything in this syllabus is subject to revision. I will announce any and all revisions in class and, in general, do my best to make sure that everyone knows about revisions. If you miss class, you must nevertheless submit assignments according to any revisions that I make to the Schedule. You should either make sure that you don’t miss class or find a sure way of becoming aware of any revisions that I make to the Schedule or to the syllabus.

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