Text: Primis' (A Division of McGraw-Hill Publishing Company) "Philosophy," a text designed specifically for this course for the fall 2000 and spring 2001 terms. The front cover of the book is very colorful; a window in the front cover shows the name of the course, the name of the instructor, and "University of Central Florida." The text is a compilation of primary works in philosophy. The ISBN is 0-390-18141-2. A different version of the text has been used in previous semesters. Some parts of it are relevant to this course. At least 5 works do NOT appear in the older text and at least one work has been omitted from the new one. I do not recommend using the old text.
Course Requirements, Grades, Attendance Policy, and Related Issues:
Requirements: Three examinations/tests are required and determine your grade for the course. Tests may be primarily "objective" in format, though any questions may be in essay or explanatory format. Tests will be announced prior to their administration (as well as listed in the syllabus schedule, below). Tests will be based on readings and lectures completed or assigned prior to the date of their administration. All tests are sectional tests. Tests count equally in determining your final grade for the course.
Click here for important information about academic integrity.
Grades and Grading Scale: A, 90-100; B, 80-89; C, 70-79; D, 60-69.
Attendance Policy: Attendance is strongly encouraged and expected but it is not considered in determining your grade for the course. You do not get "credit" for showing up for class - being in class is (one would think) a given. Much of the material covered in class may not appear in the text. Though I will not take attendance on a regular basis (or at all), your participation in class and your attentive presence can and will make a very significant difference in your appreciation of the issues, problems, theories and subject-matter we will discuss - and in your grade. If you miss a class, you are responsible for obtaining notes and any other information or assignments you missed. Office hours are held to clarify issues, to provide assistance, and otherwise attend to academic matters relevant to this course. They are not held to repeat a lecture already given in class.
Missed Tests: If you are not present on a day on which the first or second test is administered and if you have missed class for a good, legitimate, and verifiable reason, you may make it up within 2 class meeting days of its initial administration. Be aware that a test taken late may be in a different format from the one given on the original test date. After 2 class meeting days, you may not take the test and must either forfeit the grade (in other words, you will receive a "0" for that test) OR you must write a 15-page paper due no later than 1 week after the administration of the test you missed. Paper topics must be approved by the instructor and the finalized paper must be typed and double spaced, containing appropriate references, ordinary font size, and substantial content. If you miss the first or second test without a good, legitimate and verifiable reason, your only options are to write a paper (described above) or receive no credit. There is no provision for making up the last examination. Don't miss it.
Extra Credit: Extra credit is NOT available.
Note 2: The schedule below is meant only as a guide. Changes and alterations in the schedule, scheduled topics, or test dates may be necessary to facilitate completion of all major sections listed below. Also note that additional material may be added from time to time, either through lectures, Internet sources (such as additions and links within this syllabus), journal articles, or any other appropriate sources. If they are to be added, they will be announced in class or noted in this syllabus as needed.
Schedule:
NOTE:
All works listed below appear in the text in the order in which they are
listed here.
Review
Questions are listed in links,below. Others will be added
from time to time.
Note
on Review Questions: Review questions are designed for review
of major concepts presented throughout the course and do not necessarily
reflect actual content, format, number or sort of questions that will appear
on examinations.
The
link below was created for use in this course as an on-line
forum for discussion of review questions between and among people
registered for this course. I occasionally check the message board
and perform maintenance on it, but do not necessarily contribute to your
on-line discussions. When you use the board, use
your REAL NAME and put your e-mail address in the appropriate field.
Anonymous postings or notes posted with the use of an alias should not
be used on the board and will be deleted by the board's administrator.
Please do not use any person's name but your own when you post messages,
answers to review questions, questions of your own, or any comments.
PART ONE: PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
8/23: First class meeting; overview of requirements, readings; general background
8/25, 8/28: Plato's Euthyphro; Plato's Apology; Plato's Crito - The nature of philosophical inquiry.
Review Questions - 3 works of Plato
8/30, 9/1: St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas - from Anselm's Proslogion and Aquinas' Summa Theologiae: The Ontological and Cosmological Arguments for the Existence of God.
9/4: LABOR DAY HOLIDAY
9/6, 9/8: Paul Edwards and William Paley - A critique of the Cosmological Argument and Paley's presentation of The Teleological Argument for the Existence of God.
9/11, 9/13: William James and Blaise Pascal - The Rationality of Religious Faith in "The Will to Believe" and Pascal's Pensees.
9/15, 9/18: G.W.F. Leibniz and Richard Swinburne - Theodicy and the Problem of Evil from Leibniz's "Theodicy" and Swinburne's "The Problem of Evil".
Review Questions on Anselm, Aquinas, Edwards, Paley, James, Pascal, Leibniz and Swinburne
9/20: EXAM 1 Review Questions Sets 1 and 2 are relevant to this exam.
9/22, 9/25, 9/27: Plato, from Republic - the Nature of Reality; and Rene Descartes from Meditations on First Philosophy- Rationalism; the means to complete and certain knowledge, the nature of reality.
9/29, 10/2: John Locke, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Empiricism; Human Knowledge; Matter; God.
10/4, 10/6: George Berkeley, from Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous - Empiricism; the denial of the existence of matter in the universe; Reality
10/9, 10/11: David Hume, from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - skepticism; the nature of causality.
10/13: Charles Sanders Peirce, "The Fixation of Belief" - the means to adequate knowledge (and how not to go in search of it)
10/16, 10/18: Baron d'Holbach, from "The System of Nature" - Determinism; and William James - The Dilemma of Determinism.
Review
Questions on Plato, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, d'Holbach, and James
Additional
Review Questions on Descartes and Berkeley
10/20: EXAM 2 Review
Questions Sets 3 and 4 are relevant to this exam.
ETHICS, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
10/23, 10/25: Aristotle - Aristotle's Ethical
Theory and Aristotle's Political Theory, from Nicomachean
Ethics and Politics
Aristotle's
Works
10/27: Epicurus - Letter to Menoeceus
10/30, 11/1: Kant - Kantian Deontology, from Foundations
of the Metaphysics of Morals
Kant's
Works
11/3, 11/6: Mill - Utilitarian Ethical Theory, from Utilitarianism
11/8: Nietzsche - a Critique of Traditional Notions of Morality
11/10: VETERAN'S DAY HOLIDAY
11/13: Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance"
11/15: Annette Baier, "What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory?"
Review Questions on Aristotle, Kant, Mill and Nietzsche
Review Questions on Baier and Held (V. Held's article has been omitted from the text)
11/17: Plato, from Republic - the Nature of Justice and the Creation of the Perfect Political State
11/20, 11/22: Hobbes, from Leviathan - Hobbesian Ethics and Politics - an argument that human beings are essentially egoistic; social contract theory of government
11/24: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
11/27: Locke, from Second Treatise
of Government - a classical theory of property and human rights,
social contract theory.
Locke's
Works
11/29: Mill - On Liberty
- arguments against censorship and the curbing of individual freedoms
See
the previous link to Mill.
12/1: Karl Marx, from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
12/1: Henry David Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
12/4: Wollstonecraft - from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Review Questions on Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Mill and Wollstonecraft
EXAM 3 Review Questions sets 5, 6, and 7 are relevant to this exam.
This page was last updated on 08/11/2000.