Phil 1: Introduction to Philosophy
Important Dates
Midterm: Wednesday, May 3rd
Second Paper Due: Wednesday, May 31st
Final: Tuesday, June 13th
Sections
Monday 10-10:50am, Girvetz Hall 1119
Wednesday 4-4:50pm, Phelps Hall 1440
Friday 8-8:50am, Phelps Hall 1448
Office Hours
Monday, 2-3:00pm, South Hall 5706
Wednesday, 2-3:00pm, South Hall 5706
Friday, 2-3:00pm, South Hall 5706
Week 1
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Understand what philosophy is and what its various divisions are.
- Get a feel for reading philosophy.
- Understand the different kinds of arguments given in philosophy and how they are evaluated.
Links:
Week 2
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Understand the transition from the medieval to the modern era, specifically the changes in philosophical thinking.
- Understand the distinction between natural and revealed religion.
- Understand what Hume's philosophical agenda is.
- Understand the cosmological argument
- Understand the objections Hume raises to the argument in his Dialogues.
Links:
Lecture on the cosmological argument. While not the exact argument Hume is considering in his dialogues, it remains close enough to be helpful to look at:
Week 3
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Write your first paper for the course.
- Understand how arguments from analogy work and how to evaluate them.
- Understand the argument from design.
- Understand the objections to the argument.
Links:
Week 4
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Study for the midterm next week.
- Understand why the theory of evolution may be thought to undermine the argument from design.
- Understand the fine-tuning argument.
- Understand the objections to the argument.
- Understand the distinction between qualitative and numerical identity.
- Understand what it means for personal identity to consist of continuity of conscioussness through memory.
- Understand how Locke's account contrasts with that of other philosophers.
Links:
Week 5
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Understand the objections to Locke's account of personal identity.
- Understand the background (both historical and philosophical) to Plato's works.
- Understand the divine command theory.
- Understand what a Socratic definition is.
- Understand the various definitions of piety raised in the dialogue and why they ultimately fail.
- Understand the Euthyphro dilemma, and why it poses a problem for the divine command theorist.
Links:
Week 6
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Understand the moral concepts that will be used in this portion of the course (read the Timmon's article for this).
- Understand what ethics is concerned with (and just as importantly, what it is not).
- Understand what consequentialism holds and what its relation to utilitarianism is.
- Understand what the greatest happiness is and how one applies it in ethical thinking.
- Understand the objections to consequentialism.
Links:
Week 7
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Start working on the second paper.
- Understand the three views on the moral status of abortion.
- Understand the traditional arguments for the immorality of abortion, and the way in which Thomson's argument is such a break from earlier debates.
- Understand Thomson's violinist case and what it's meant to show.
Links:
Week 8
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Understand the exploding house case.
- Understand Thomson's view on the right to life.
- Understand the people seeds case.
Links:
Week 9
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Understand Marquis' FLO account and what it's meant to show.
- Understand Marquis' four arguments for the FLO account.
- Understand Marquis' argument for the immorality of abortion.
- Understand the four objections to Marquis' argument.
- Understand how Marquis would respond to these objections.
Links:
Week 10
Recommended Goals for the Week:
- Study for the final exam.
- Understand what libertarianism is and what some of its implications are.
- Understand what, for Nozick, the minimal state is.
- Understand Nozick's three principles of justice in holdings.
- Understand what it means to say that justice is historical, rather than patterned.
- Understand the Wilt Chamberlain argument.
- Understand the six objections to the argument.