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SAN DIEGO MESA COLLEGE
PHIL 111
CRN: 91688
SPRING 2014
INSTRUCTOR: PROF. NINA ROSENSTAND
PHILOSOPHY IN LITERATURE
Study guide, final exam May 19
Prof. Rosenstand’s office: MV2404
Office hours: MTWTh May 19-22 11:15-12:30 and by appointment
Messages to Prof. Rosenstand: (619) 388-2407
E-mail: nrosenst@sdccd.edu (e-mails will be answered during Prof. Rosenstand’s office hours.)
Website: http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/nrosenst
Monday May 19: Final exam 9.35
Wednesday May 21: Final meeting 9:35. Be on time! Finals and papers will be returned. No-shows lose 2 points off their
final exam.
FORMAT OF FINAL
Use a scantron Form #882 and a pencil #2. Total possible points: 60. This test is worth 60 percent of your final
exam.
Plagiarism policy: Using open books, electronic devices or notes during the test, or consulting with other
students, will result in an F on the test, and will be reported.
There will be 15 True/False questions; each correct answer is worth 2 points.
There will be 15 Multiple Choice questions; each correct answer is worth 2 points.
CHECK THE WEBSITE FOR POSSIBLE CHANGES TO THE READINGS.
READINGS:
Steinbech, East of Eden Part 4
Film: East of Eden clips: The ice plant; Adam confronts Cal; Cal visits Kate; the birthday gift
Game of Thrones and Philosophy, articles #7, 9, 11
Course Reader pp.: Rosenstand TMTS Ch.13, excerpt: Narrative Identity (tentative)
KEY CONCEPTS:
Steinbeck: East of Eden (the novel)
PART 4:
Ch.34: Philosophical insert: “There is no other story” than the story of the choice between good and evil; we
should try to live our lives so our death brings no pleasure to the world. Virtue is eternal, vice always has a new
face.
Ch.37: The lettuce venture
Ch.38-48: Lee tells Cal he has freedom to choose—he has both Cathy and Adam in him. Aron becomes a spiritual
idealist (but disregards Abra and his family). Cal invests in beans, with Lee’s money.
Ch.49: The Thanksgiving $15,000 present from Cal to Adam. Adam rejects Cal’s gift. Later: Aron joins the army.
Ch.50-54: What happened in-between: Cal takes Aron to see Kate; Aron reacts; Cal: not his brother’s keeper.
Adam has his first stroke.
Ch.55: Aron dies in the war; Adam is dying of a second stroke; Cal confesses his guilt; Lee asks Adam to forgive
Cal; Adam’s final word to Cal: Thimshel
Recap: Cal/Cain’s gift is rejected, Father prefers Aron’s/Abel’s gift. Cal/Cain causes Aron’s/Abel’s death.
Aron/Abel/Adam has no offspring.
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East of Eden (the 1955 film)
 The Ice Plant scene: Adam favors Aron over Cal, Cal is brooding and jealous
 Adam tells Cal that he has a choice, he doesn’t have to be bad
 Cal asks Cathy/Kate for a loan, and learns why she left Adam. Is Cal like her?
 The Birthday Gift: Adam prefers Aron’s gift and rejects Cal’s gift (created with Kate’s money), Cal
breaks down and runs away.
A Philosophical Reading:
Key Themes: Good and evil, free will vs. determinism, and each main character a representative of a moral
philosophy
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C-A theme: the C-characters kill the A-characters, even Charles against Adam (leaving A-males
childness).
Kate/Cathy has always used others “merely as a means to an end”: Egoism
Adam always thinks in terms of doing the right thing, not about good consequences: Kantian deontology
Samuel spends his life helping people be happy: Utilitarianism (happiness)
Lee is the thinker, of impeccable character. Suggests developing good habits: Virtue ethics; Lee also
focuses on free will: existentialism
The power of choice: Timshel, “thou mayest”
Will Hamilton, the businessman, represents the profit side of utilitarianism
Cal, a C-character, believes himself to be destined to be evil
Aron and Cal are initially opposites: good (unselfish, obedient) and evil (selfish, disobedient)
Abra is opposed to Cathy, female principles of good vs. evil [says Steinbeck]
Aron wishes to be virtuous, but at the end, comes across as egoistic
Cal, at the end, is not evil, just human: He makes choices. The C-A pattern is broken.
Free will vs. determinism: Timshel vs. genetics
GAME OF THRONES AND PHILOSOPHY
Youtube clip from Season 1: Ned Stark goes to King’s Landing; Cersei is plotting; Ned Stark is beheaded.
Clip from Season 3, episode 5:
Tywin Lannister makes plans for the entire family, against their will: Tyrion will marry Stark’s daughter Sansa
(who suffered a horrible engagement to Joffrey before she was dumped), and Cersei will be forced to marry Ser
Loras, a knight from a powerful family. Purpose: to strengthen the family power, using his own family members
as pawns (merely a means to an end). Tywin Lannister is not an egoist as much as a utilitarian, wielding power to
create peace and prosperity, at the cost of his offsprings’ happiness.
Text #7: “Lord Eddard Stark, Queen Cersei Lannister: Moral Judgments from Different Perspectives”
Ned Stark represents virtue ethics: honesty, charity, love for his children. He can’t imagine a non-virtuous
approach.
Cersei Lannister represents ethical egoism (but also egoism for her son, Joffrey). We don’t know her mind, only
through the eyes of others (Season 1): she schemes, connives, kills, all for Joffrey and her own reputation.
Both Ned Stark and Cersei act on false information; it will cost Ned his life. [It will eventually cost Cersei her
happiness]
From your notes:
Epistemology = theory of knowledge
Typical question: How can we know that our experience corresponds to reality?
Metaphysics = theory of the fundamental nature of reality
Dualism: two forms of reality, usually mind and matter
Monism: one form of reality
Two monistic theories: idealism (only mind exists) and materialist (only matter exists)
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Text #9: “Wargs, Wights, and Wolves that are Dire: Mind and Metaphysics, Westeros Style” pp.115-123
Metaphysics: The study of reality.
The mind-body problem: is there just physical matter, or is there also mind? We can’t experience others’ minds,
only our own.
Except in GoT where a human can be a “warg,” transferring their consciousness into the bodies of direwolves,
other animals, and even humans. Bran Stark is a warg, sharing his consciousness with his direwolf Summer.
Descartes believed only humans were conscious and had souls—that animals were merely physical, and had no
souls.
Today we can’t deny that animals have some form of consciousness; (1) they react like we do. Jon Snow expects
a certain behavior from fellow humans as well as from his direwolf Ghost. (2) Physically, animals are similar to
humans (because we are also animals).
[So: If materialism is true, we and nonhuman animals have similar brain functions. If dualism is true, we and
animals have similar mind experiences.]
Text #11: “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow: Epistemic Humility Beyond the Wall” pp.142-150
Epistemology: The study of what we know.
Ygritte: “You know nothing, Jon Snow”—nothing of beyond the Wall. The danger beyond the Wall in assuming
that things are like south of the wall. Social and political orders are different (the wildlings are “free”).
Epistemic humility: recognizing what we don’t know, and what we should know.
Jon Snow can’t accept his own knowledge of Ghost. Samwell can’t believe he has courage. Arya Stark, on the
other hand, redefines herself all the time to save her own life. Bran also recognizes his ability as a warg.
Three-pronged criteria for knowledge: Justified True Belief (JTB)
You (1) have to believe something, (2) what you believe has to be true, and (3) what you believe has to be
justified. But what is it to have a justified belief? Sometimes you think you can be sure, but you’re wrong [Ned
Stark went to King’s Landing thinking that the Lannisters had murdered his mentor, but it was deliberate false
information; it cost him his life.] So it is very hard to be completely certain; we have to make do with reliabilism:
the more reliable, the more valuable. We have to include testimony by others, “epistemic trust,” even if it means
that sometimes we’re mistaken.
Course Reader: Ch.13, “The Ethics of Self-Improvement: Narrative Identity” (tentative)
Paul Ricoeur: We should seek our narrative identity and learn to see our own life as a story.
3 features characterize telling one’s life story: 1. The story is selective; 2. the story is incomplete; 3. the story is
fictional, implying causality
Erik Erikson: When we are mature, we should have obtained ego integrity.
Ricoeur: that can be obtained through seeing one’s life as a story.
Rewriting our past can change our future
Paul Ricoeur: Narrative time, the time within the story
Rosenstand: The Narrative Zone is where we learn lessons from world literature and films, and learn to tell our
own story.
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GAME OF THRONES (Basic background information, useful but not required on final)
Main characters (a short list)
Eddard (Ned) Stark: Head of House Stark, reluctantly becomes the Hand of his old friend King Robert.
King Robert Baratheon dies (is murdered), leaving the throne to his eldest son Joffrey.
King Joffrey Baratheon , an evil boy, is not the son of Robert, but of an incestuous relationship between his
mother Queen Cersei Lannister and her twin brother Jaime Lannister, so he is not a true heir to the throne.
Ned Stark threatens to reveal Joffrey’s background, and is beheaded by Joffrey after recanting his accusations for
the sake of his daughters’ safety.
Tyrion Lannister, Cersei’s and Jaime’s brother, a dwarf with high intelligence and a sense of honor
Tywin Lannister: Head of House Lannister, father of Cercei, Jaime and Tyrion. Always thinking of the family’s
power and reputation first. Tywin has contempt for all three children, but most for Tyrion.
Jaime Lannister: Will do anything for Cersei, including kill children. Jaime finds a moral compass over time.
Jon Snow: Ned Stark’s “bastard” son, a knight of the Night’s Watch on the ice Wall, guarding against dangers
from the north.
Bran Stark: Ned’s son who was thrown from the tower by Jaime Lannister. Has warg capability.
Arya Stark: Ned’s daughter who is a tomboy and likes sword fighting.
Ygritte: Jon Snow’s Wildling girlfriend from beyond the Wall
Samwell Tarly: Jon Snow’s friend in the Night’s Watch