What Philosophy Is
80-100
Fall, 2007
Teaser Trailer
1. Have you ever wondered if Socrates could beat Superman in a fight?
2. Does God speak to you at night, telling you to take your little cousin up to Squirrel Hill and prepare him as a sacrifice?
3. Do you ever ponder whether your life is real or just part of a computer simulation created to calculate the ten billionth digit of pi?
4. Do you ever question whether Shakespeare's Hamlet or Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is the superior work of art?
Find answers to these and other burning questions this fall in What Philosophy Is.
Your Instructor
Name: David Gray, Graduate Student Extraordinaire
Office: Baker Hall 143
Work Phone: 412-268-8148
Email: degray@andrew.cmu.edu
Your Teaching Assistants
 |
 |
Name: Ruth Poproski, Canadian Office: Baker Hall 143 Email: rpoprosk@andrew.cmu.edu |
Name: Dan Malkiel, Southern Gentleman Office: Baker Hall 161A Email: dmalkiel@andrew.cmu.edu |
Course Description
In this course, we will explore some of the fundamental problems that have engaged philosophers for thousands of years and assess the various solutions they propose. Unfortunately, there is no simple and precise definition of the subject-matter for philosophy, as it covers many different disciplines. For this course, we will look at five branches within philosophy and some basic problems they each address: ethics, theology, metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics. In class discussion and recitation, students are encouraged to present and critically examine their own views on these issues. While these problems may initially appear obscure and possibly unsolvable, our responses to them profoundly shape our lives and how we understand ourselves and our place in the world.
Important Handouts
Schedule
| Date |
Topic |
Readings |
| Aug 27 | Introductions |
None |
| Aug 29 | Ethics and Religion | Plato, Euthyphro from Stephen M. Cahn (ed.), Philosophy
for the 21st Century (P21C) pp. 13-24 |
| Aug 31 | Recitation | Lewis Vaughn, Chapter 1 from Writing Philosophy (WP), pp. 3-20 |
| Sept 3 | No Class! | Labor Day - Woo Hoo! |
| Sept 5 | Moral Conventionalism | Ruth Benedict, “Anthropology and the Abnormal” (handout) James Rachels, “The Challenge of Cultural Relativism” from (P21C), pp. 594-602 |
| Sept 6 | Movie | The Shop on Main Street |
| Sept 7 | Recitation | Lewis Vaughn, Chapter 2 from (WP), pp. 21-42 |
| Sept 10 | Moral Subjectivism | David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (handout) James Rachels, “Subjectivism in Ethics” (handout) |
| Sept 12 | Egoism | Plato, Republic (handout) Ayn Rand, “Value Yourself” (handout) James Rachels, “Egoism and Moral Skepticism” from
(P21C), pp. 603-609 |
| Sept 14 | Recitation | Lewis Vaughn, Chapter 3 from (WP), pp. 43-54 |
| Sept 17 | Hedonistic Utilitarianism | Jeremy Bentham, “The Principle of Utility” (handout) Robert Nozick, “The Experience Machine” from (P21C), pp. 580-581 |
| Sept 19 | Eudaimonistic Utilitarianism | John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism from (P21C), pp. 575-579 E.F. Carritt, “Criticisms of Utilitarianism” (handout) |
| Sept 20 | Movie | Crimes and Misdemeanors 7:00pm in SH 125 |
| Sept 21 | Recitation | Lewis Vaughn, Chapter 4 from (WP), pp. 55-84 |
| Sept 24 | Kantian Moral Theory | Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (handout) |
| Sept 26 | Torture and “Dirty Hands” | Michael Walzer, “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands” (handout) |
| Sept 28 | Recitation | Lewis Vaughn, Chapter 5 from (WP), pp. 85-95 |
| Oct 1 | The Ontological Proof of God's Existence | Saint Anselm, “The Ontological Argument” from (P21C), pp. 24-25 Immanuel Kant, “Critique of the Ontological Argument” from (P21C), pp. 27-28 William L. Rowe, “Why the Ontological Argument Fails”
from (P21C), pp. 32-35 |
| Oct 3 | The Cosmological Proof of God's Existence | Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Five Ways to Prove the Existence of God” from (P21C), pp. 35-36 Michael Martin, “The Cosmological Argument” from (P21C), pp. 37-39 |
| Oct 4 | Movie | The Seventh Seal |
| Oct 5 | Recitation | Lewis Vaughn, Chapter 6 from (WP), pp. 96-102 First Paper Topic Handed Out |
| Oct 8 | The Teleological Proof of God's Existence | David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Parts II, V, and XI, from (P21C), pp. 40-42, 50-52, 67-71 |
| Oct 10 | The Problem of Evil | Richard Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil” from (P21C), pp. 72-81 |
| Oct 12 | Recitation | Bring a Rough Draft of First Paper |
| Oct 15 | The Paradox of Faith | Genesis 22:1-14 (handout) Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (handout) |
| Oct 17 | The Death of God | Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Death of God” (handout) First Paper Due at 11:59:59 PM |
| Oct 18 | Movie | Winter Light |
| Oct 19 | No Recitation! | Mid-Semester Break - Woo Hoo! |
| Oct 22 | Free Will and Determinism | Peter Van Inwagen, “The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism” from (P21C), pp. 420-428 |
| Oct 24 | Determinism and Responsibility | Harry G. Frankfurt, “Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” from(P21C), pp. 414-420 |
| Oct 25 | Movie | Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead |
| Oct 26 | Recitation | None |
| Oct 29 | Radical Doubt and the Cogito | Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy from (P21C), pp. 101-108 |
| Oct 31 | Skepticism and Common Sense | G.E. Moore, “Proof of an External World” from (P21C), pp. 137-139 |
| Nov 1 | Movie | Rashômon 7:00pm in SH 125 |
| Nov 2 | Recitation | None |
| Nov 5 | Wittgenstein on Certainty | Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty from (P21C), pp. 140-151 |
| Nov 7 | Knowledge as Justified True Belief | Edmund Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” from (P21C), pp. 161-162 |
| Nov 9 | Recitation | None |
| Nov 12 | Reliabilism | Alvin I. Goldman, “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge” from (P21C), pp. 163-175 |
| Nov 14 | The Conditional Theory of Knowledge | Robert Nozick, “Knowledge and Scepticism” from (P21C), pp. 176-188 |
| Nov 15 | Movie | The Thin Blue Line 7:00pm in SH 125 |
| Nov 16 | Recitation | None |
| Nov 19 | Art and Society | Plato, Republic (handout) Aristotle, Poetics (handout) Second Paper Topic Handed Out |
| Nov 21 | No Class! | Travel-to-the-Turkey Day - Woo Hoo! |
| Nov 23 | No Recitation! | Eat-Those-Leftovers Day - Woo Hoo! |
| Nov 26 | The Standards of Taste | David Hume, Of the Standards of Taste from (P21C), pp. 813-823 |
| Nov 28 | Aesthetic Judgment | Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment from (P21C), pp. 823-832 |
| Nov 29 | Movie | Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? 7:00pm in SH 125 |
| Nov 30 | Recitation | Bring a Rough Draft of Second Paper |
| Dec 3 | Aesthetics and the Good | Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (handout) |
| Dec 5 | What is Philosophy? | Plato, Republic (handout) Aristotle, Metaphysics (handout) Voltaire, “The Good Brahmin” (handout) Second Paper Due at 11:59:59 PM |
| Dec 6 | Movie | Ikiru 7:00pm in SH 125 |
| Dec 7 | Recitation | None |
| Dec 17 | Final Exam | 5:30 - 8:30 PM in DH A310 |
Course Texts
- Philosophy for the 21st Century. Edited by Stephen M. Cahn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Lewis Vaughn. Writing Philosophy: A Student’s guide to Writing Philosophy Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Useful Links
Routledge Encyclopedia
of Philosophy -- http://www.rep.routledge.com/index.html
Sweet online resource! Go here first. There is also a CD-ROM version available
from CMU's Hunt Library.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
-- http://plato.stanford.edu
Another good online encyclopedia for philosophy.
Answers
1. Scholars still debate on who would be superior -- Superman or Socrates -- but as Jeremy puts it, “I bet Socrates could confuse the hell out of Superman.”
2. That God! What a joker!
3. Mmmm pie!
4. I'll just say that only one of these has a prominent place in my apartment...
I love Apache! So should you!
