Philosophy 1000 C: Course Outline, fall 2004.
Instructor:
Bryson Brown
TH 222
329-2506
brown@uleth.ca
Office Hours:
Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30-1:30 and by appointment.
Text: Feinberg, ed. Reason and Responsibility (Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2005)
This course is a wide-ranging introduction to philosophy. Since most high schools don’t actually
teach philosophy, you probably have only a vague idea of what that means. I hope you’ll have a clearer
one when we’re done—but learning what philosophy is requires actually doing some philosophy, not just
learning some kind of definition. Still, I’ll begin here by trying to say something helpful about what we’ll
be doing here.
One way to approach philosophy is to study some of the topics philosophers have written about.
Our text, like many introductions to philosophy, is organized this way, with selections of writings gathered
by topic. Beginning with God and his (her?) existence, the problem of evil and the nature of faith,
Feinberg’s book continues with essays about knowledge and evidence, the nature of mind, determinism and
free will, and ethical thought.
The readings often present conflicting positions on these issues. These differing positions connect
with one ordinary way of talking about philosophy: When we say things like, ‘My philosophy on that
is…’, ‘ …’ states our position or point of view; often we also recognize that other people may well not
agree; it’s not obvious what the right answer to a philosophical question is. This leads to the widespread
mistake of thinking that having a philosophy is just a matter of having opinions about deep, dark issues,
issues so hard to settle convincingly that it often seems one opinion is just as good as another. But there’s
more than just position-mongering going on in philosophy.
The central aim of philosophical writing is to give arguments, to defend some positions and to
criticize others. Unlike (for example) electoral politics, arguments in philosophy are not just window
dressing or verbal tom-foolery. The aim is not just to persuade (still less to fool) people: These arguments
are meant seriously, to show that some position is right or another wrong. That doesn’t mean they will
always make sense to you—the people we’ll be reading are very clever, and it’s not always easy to
understand how their arguments are meant to work. In addition, there are big differences in the background
assumptions that philosophers of different times and different cultures bring to their work. So a big part of
what you will be learning here is how to identify and interpret arguments, tracing them back to the
fundamental ideas that lie beneath them and figuring out whether they really work or not. This means that
you will need to read these papers in a very different way—not just for what the author says and whether or
not you agree with her, but to understand why these authors say the thing they do, and whether you think
their reasons are good or bad.
This means that philosophy is not a spectator sport. It’s not about cheering for the thinkers you
agree with, and booing the ones you don’t. There can be bad arguments for good positions, and there can
be very interesting, persuasive, challenging arguments for bad positions. One of the worst things you can
say about a philosopher is this:
He never understood an argument whose conclusion he didn’t like.
A philosopher who can’t understand her opponents positions and arguments can’t make a useful
contribution to the conversation. Doing philosophy is not just shilling for your own opinions—it’s making
a case for them, and responding constructively to the arguments of your opponents. Explaining, criticizing
and defending arguments requires a real understanding and engagement with them.
An argument (in this serious sense) is not some kind of verbal fight. It has to do more than charm
the audience, or place the author’s position in a flattering light. A good argument presents evidence for its
conclusion—evidence that is persuasive (if not convincing) even for those who reject the conclusion, or
who are reluctant to accept it. Of course in philosophy, everything is up for discussion and examination—
so, though I will rely on your having a good, common sense grasp of what we mean by ‘evidence’ and
when it justifies drawing some conclusion, we will also be putting our ideas about evidence under the
microscope and trying to see just how they work.
One disadvantage of introducing philosophy by means of topics is that we can lose track of
history: The authors in each section range from ancient philosophers (especially Plato and Aristotle)
through the medievals (often also theologians) and early moderns (including major figures in early modern
science—Galileo, Rene Descartes, G.L. Leibniz and others), to contemporary figures still working today.
Sometimes this gives students (and even some professional philosophers) the impression that there is no
progress in philosophy—that it’s always the same old story, the same frustrating struggle between tired
opponents, none of whom is ever vanquished or victorious. But in fact things do change in philosophy.
While we may still end up applying our new ideas to some very old problems, we really have gained a
richer understanding of the problems over time. Finally, even though many of these problems still don’t
have solutions that are generally accepted, there are well-thought-out answers that deserve serious
attention, and there are half-baked ideas that don’t. So philosophy is not a matter of ‘anything goes’, and
some opinions are decidedly better than others.
Another source of frustration for students is that in philosophy everything seems perpetually open
to debate. This makes hard to get started when you try to build an argument of your own: there’s no safe
place to set your feet because there’s no simple collection of doctrines that beginning students can focus on
learning. But there is something for you to learn here (something you can be right—and wrong—about):
The arguments. Mastering these readings requires understanding the arguments, not learning which
conclusions are right. And you can show that you understand the arguments by discussing them,
explaining them, and responding to them with arguments of your own.
This (for me, at least) is what made philosophy interesting right from the first class I took. In
other fields (especially in the sciences) you will have to spend years learning the things that everyone
already agrees on—only then do you get to be part of the discussion, and argue about the things that they
still disagree about. But those issues, the live issues, are the real business of the field—without those
frontiers, the field would be dead, with nothing more to do. (Late in the nineteenth century some people
argued that physics had reached that point!) But in philosophy, we start out with questions that are still live
issues, and learn how to think creatively about them while studying some of the cleverest and deepest
thinkers who have ever lived.
Grading: Grades will be based on 2 essays (each worth 30%), a midterm and a final exam (each worth
20%).
Academic Offenses: Plagiarism and other academic offenses are described in the University Calendar.
The penalty in this course for a first instance of plagiarism will be a 0 on that assignment and notification
of the Dean’s office—other consequences may follow, as detailed in the Calendar.
Course Schedule, Philosophy 1000 C-- Fall 2004.
Week 1: Sept 9. Introduction to philosophy. Seeing how things hang together;
evaluating arguments; finding useful starting points.
Week 2: Sept 14, 16. I. Arguing about God. Do we know what we’re talking about?
Ontological and cosmological considerations. Readings: Anselm, Guanilo, Rowe,
Aquinas, Clarke, Rowe.
Week 3: Sept 21, 23. The problem of evil. Readings: Dostoevsky, Johnson,
Swinburne.
Week 4: Sept 28, 30. Belief, reason and faith. Readings: Clifford, Pascal, James,
Blackburn.
Topics for paper 1 distributed Sept 30.
Week 5: October 5, 7. II. What do we know, anyway? Skepticism. Readings:
Pollock, Chisholm.
Week 6: October 12, 14. Building a firm foundation. Readings: Descartes’
meditations 1, 2, 3.
Paper 1 due October 12.
Week 7: October 19, 21. Rebuilding a ship at sea. Readings: Kitcher on belief
without proof.
Sample questions for test 1 distributed October 19.
October 26: Test 1.
Week 8: October 28. III. Mind and World. Mind and body: dualism, idealism,
materialism. Readings: Swinburne, Jackson, Papineau.
Week 9: November 2, 4. Mind and machine. Readings: Turing, Searle.
Week 10: November 9. Personal Identity and Life after death. Readings: Locke,
Reid, Dennett.
Topics for paper 2 distributed November 9.
Week 11: November 16, 18. IV. Freedom and Determinism. Readings: Holbach,
Ayer.
Week 12: November 23, 25. Libertarianism, Compatibilism. Readings: Chisholm,
Frankfurt.
Paper 2 due November 23.
Week 13: November 30, December 2. V. Morality. Egoism, psychological and
ethical. Readings: Feinberg, Rachels.
Week 14: December 7, 9. Ethical Problems. Readings: Nussbaum, Singer. Sample
Questions for final exam distributed December 9.
Final Exam: Tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, December 15, 2:00- 5:00 p.m.