Philosophy 219
Spring 2009
PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE FICTION
Course Syllabus
For this is an experience which is characteristic of a philosopher, this wondering:
this is where philosophy begins and nowhere else.
--Plato, 4th century B.C.
I think a better name for most ambitious science fiction is ‘philosophical fiction.’
--Robert J. Sawyer, sf author, 2003
There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.
--Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Date 42779
Instructor:
Office:
Professor Randy Jensen
VPH-211C
E-mail:
Phone:
rjensen@nwciowa.edu
712-707-7069
Office hours: MWF 10:40-11:40 or by appointment. But please drop by any time to talk about
whatever you want—to discuss how you’re doing in this class, to compare notes on your favorite
book, film or show, to ponder life, the universe, and everything, or whatever! You should also
feel free to e-mail me if that’s easier than stopping by. I’d love to get to know you as more than
a face in the room, but it’s mostly up to you whether that happens or whether you remain
relatively anonymous.
Course description: Philosophy (Φ) and science fiction (sf) are kindred spirits. Both are
inspired by a sense of wonder and force us to see what’s familiar in new and surprising ways.
Thus, it’s unsurprising that sf, or something like it, has been part of Φ from the beginning: Plato
imagines a ring that turns people invisible. Descartes argues that it’s possible we’re the victims
of some massive deception and that reality isn’t as we think it is. John Locke discusses a
scenario in which a prince and a cobbler trade souls—or do they trade bodies? This is surely the
stuff of a great many sf stories! It’s also no surprise that sf writers and filmmakers have
borrowed many ideas and themes from Φ. Consider the writings of Philip K. Dick, the various
Star Trek television series, or the recent Matrix trilogy of films, for example. In this class we’ll
explore the sometimes strange territories that lie at the intersection of Φ and sf. Cue voiceover
from Rod Serling: You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight
and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of
imagination — Next stop, the Twilight Zone....
On our journey we’ll explore some of the following familiar sf topics: virtual reality, space
travel and time travel, extraterrestrial life and intelligence, artificial life and intelligence, the
technological alteration of human nature (e.g., cloning, genetic engineering, cybernetics,
transhumanism, posthumanism, and so on), the impact of technology on society, and much,
much more. Reflection on these topics will provoke all kinds of fascinating and difficult
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philosophical questions about the nature of reality, the existence and nature of the divine, the
limits of human knowledge, the relationship between mind and body, the meaning of free will,
the notions of personhood and personal identity, the nature and foundations of morality, and the
meaning of life and death. Φers and sf creators are often driven by the very same questions.
Required reading: You’ll need to purchase one book either from the bookstore or online:
Sci-Phi: Philosophy From Socrates to Schwarzenegger, by Mark Rowlands (St. Martin’s Press,
2003). This book does a wonderful job of exploring deep philosophical issues in the context of
sf films. It’s not primarily meant as an academic work—although it’s clearly written by an
academic. Rather, it’s aimed at a popular audience, at “the general reader,” whoever that is. As
a result, Rowlands’s tone is more informal than the typical Φ book. In fact, he tries to reach his
intended audience by being very casual and hip, sometimes even by using language that some
folks might find offensive. I have no wish to cause offense, but this is really the best book of its
kind. So we’re using it. And part of why I think that’s a reasonable thing to do is that the films
and books we’ll often be talking about also include such language. I suppose what I’m saying is
that this course is sometimes rated R, for language, violence, scenes of sexuality, and other
potentially disturbing elements. This shouldn’t shock any of us, since sf tends to push on all the
boundaries, even ones we weren’t even aware of.
We’ll also read a number of other things: some philosophical essays and some sf short stories.
These will be made available to you via Synapse Content. You’ll also read a novel as part of a
group project, and that’s something you’ll have to buy, borrow, or whatever, although it’ll be
cheap. But more on that later. As you might guess, we’ll watch some things, too, films,
television episodes, etc. There’s really an enormous amount of stuff to read and see here, so
we’ll have to see how much we can cram into just one semester.
Let me stress one more thing before moving on. From my point of view, your own encounter
with our texts (written or visual) is just as important as what I might say or what we do in class.
I’ll be absolutely delighted if you learn a lot more outside of class than you do inside it. Of
course, that can only happen if you make it happen….
Graded work: As Rowlands stresses, Φ is not merely a subject you learn about. It’s something
you do. And you do it when you read, when you think, when you listen, when you talk, when
you write. As it turns out, grades can actually get in the way of this, because we tend to focus on
the evaluation rather than on the doing and we aim to please the evaluator rather than simply
doing our own thinking. But we’re stuck with grades. And, if we’re honest, in our college
culture, most of us need them to motivate ourselves. I try to structure the work in my classes so
that everything that’s graded also gives you the opportunity to do some Φ. This means that the
work for this class requires serious thought! No mindless exercises, as far as I can help it.
Here’s the rundown:
1. Take-home exam. This is just what it sounds like. We’ll do it fairly early in the semester, so
it can give us all a picture of how clearly you’re grasping the course material. This is the closest
thing to a “straight philosophy” exercise that we’ll do. I’ll send you home with a series of very
specific questions about the readings and the lectures. You’ll answer them. Expect questions
such as “Explain Φer X’s argument that blah-blah-blah” or “Present one objection to Φer Y’s
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argument that bleh-bleh-bleh.” Although this assignment only asks you to work with material
we’ll have covered in class, and you’ll have the readings and your notes to work with, you may
be surprised at how hard it can be to give clear and precise explanations in Φ. The tasks I’ll ask
you to perform on this take-home exam are the “building blocks” you need to do the more
challenging and intriguing work we’ll be doing later on. The take-home exam will be due on
Friday, February 6.
2. Journal. It’s important that you write frequently, both in and out of class—because some of
our best thinking is done when we’re writing. For this reason, I’m asking you to have an official
“journal” for this class and I’m asking you to bring it with you to class every day and to have it
handy any time you’re reading for our class. What will you write in this journal?
 Sometimes I’ll ask you to do some written reflection in class as a way of sparking
discussion, and you’ll do that in your journal.
 Sometimes I’ll ask you to do some writing in preparation for class, and you’ll do that in
your journal, too.
 As you read, you should write down your thoughts and questions. It’d be great to come
to class with some stuff in your journal that you’d like us to talk about!
 If you’re watching a movie or a show, and something strikes you, put that in your journal.
Do you now have a “vocational” reason to watch some sf? Yes, you do. Why do you
think I teach this class? ;-)
 During class, if a question strikes you but you don’t want to ask it, get it in your journal
so you don’t forget it! Or if you have a thought you want to chase down later, write it
down.
 If you’re puzzled or frustrated after class, write down what you’re thinking.
 And all kinds of other stuff, too….
Basically, any thoughtful reflection you do about sf and Φ can be included in your journal. The
only things I do not want to see in your journal are:
 Notes from class. If you’re just copying what I’ve said or written, don’t put that in your
journal. Why? Because it’s not your thoughts, right?
 Drafts of exams or papers. You can think and strategize in your journal, but don’t
actually compose your papers therein.
 Drooling fanfic or other writing about sf that is lightyears away from Φ… I don’t mean
to discourage you from writing stories about the adventures of your WoW character, but
they probably don’t belong in your journal.
 Writing that’s not relevant to this class. Don’t put “filler” in your journal. And work out
your relationship issues somewhere else….
The writing you do in this journal is for you, not for me. The point here is not for me to see if
you’re “getting it right,” but rather for you to do some thinking on paper. In an ideal world, this
is something you’d do for its own sake rather than for a grade. Of course, we aren’t in the ideal
world, are we?
I’ll collect journals just twice, once at midterm for a “practice run” (although it’ll count) and then
again at the end of the semester. If you’ve produced a sufficient number of thoughtful journal
pages on both occasions, you’ll get an A in this category. I hope to give out lots of them.
Obviously, if you haven’t written enough pages, your grade will be lower. Likewise if what
you’ve written doesn’t appear thoughtful. I won’t be grading your journals carefully, allotting
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points for this or for that. But I will skim them to get a rough sense of their innards. I’ll know
you’ve done a good job on your journal if I have a hard time skimming and I am drawn into what
you’re writing. However, sometimes it’s fairly obvious that someone has sat down and scribbled
dozens of pages, maybe even all at once, without much thought. That won’t turn out well, and of
course it won’t help you to do the kind of thinking that’s our goal, either.
How much is enough here? As a rough guide, you should plan on writing 4-5 pages a week in
your journal. Does that sound like a lot? It won’t be, if you do the writing you’ll be asked to do
in class and if you get into the habit of writing a bit while you read. And that’s a good habit to
get into. Also, this is not formal writing, of course, since it can consist of questions, a series of
random thoughts, a few more organized paragraphs, etc. Such writing fills pages faster than a
formal essay. A final thought here: if you have ginormous handwriting, you should plan to
write more. If you write in teen tiny letters, please try to write a bit larger so that it can be read. If
your writing is a total mess, please try hard to be legible. If you’re a cyborg—a synthesis
of human being and laptop computer, it’s fine for you to do this electronically and you can email me your journal in one document rather than printing it out.
3. Vignette: Each of you will be given 5 minutes at the beginning of a class period to show us a
clip from film or television or read us an excerpt from a novel or story. Your goal is not merely
to find a piece of sf that’s cool to look at (or to listen to), but to come up with something that’ll
provoke some philosophical speculation and discussion. You should use most of the allotted
time simply to present the vignette, but you should conclude with a very brief explanation of why
you selected it. Is it raising a question? Or answering one? Does it say something about an
issue we’ve discussed? Or does it point ahead to an issue we will discuss? Hunt for a vignette
that will make us think, and say a few words about how and why it does so.
You’ll be graded on your choice of vignette and on your very brief commentary. At the end of
this syllabus there’s a vignette schedule. To make this easy, I’ve simply given everyone a date.
You are expected to deliver as expected on your date unless you trade with someone else. On
your assigned day, please arrive at class a bit early to get set up, e.g. to get your DVD ready to
play or whatever.
4. Φ & sf film paper. This is your first stab at doing the sf and Φ thing. You’ll pick a film (or
a television episode) and identify a philosophical problem it seems to address, whether explicitly
or implicitly. I’ll be glad to help you think about possible films and topics. You shouldn’t
automatically pick your favorite film here, since it may not be the one that makes you think the
most. Look for a film or episode that makes you scratch your head for a while. This’ll be a
shortish piece, somewhere in the ballpark of 3-4 pages. That means you can’t be too ambitious,
right? So on the sf side, you can’t deal with the entire Star Wars canon, and on the Φ side you’ll
need to get pretty specific about the philosophy you want to talk about. This essay will be due
on Friday, February 27.
5. Φ & sf novel group project. This is the first of our two major projects. As the title makes
plain, you’ll do this project in a group and you’ll focus on the philosophical content of a sf novel.
Your ultimate goal is to run a 30 minute class session on your book. Let me explain how we’ll
do this.
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First, we need to get you into groups and we need to get each group a novel. In terms of
group size, I’m thinking 4-6 people. In terms of book choice, it’s crucial that you pick a
book that is good fodder for philosophizing. I’ll create a list of suitable books, but I’ll be
happy to hear your suggestions, too. I’d like to start by letting you all try to organize
yourself into groups. If you’ve got a book you’re dying to work on, see if other folks in
the class want to join you. If you’ve got a few people you’d like to work with, then you
should get together and brainstorm about what book you’d like to do. Each group should
do a different book, and it’ll be first come, first served. You need to be in a group with a
book selected by Friday, February 13.
Second, obviously, you all need to read the book in question. You should have
completed your novel when we return from Spring Break, i.e. by Wednesday, March 18.
Third, you need to spend some time talking about the novel with your group. You should
schedule at least one face-to-face time to talk, preferably with food, before Friday,
March 27. You can also do lots of talking on e-mail. I’d advise you to begin by simply
talking about your book, as you would in a book club meeting.
Fourth, you should move to strategizing for your presentation. Your presentation should
start with some background on the author, move to a description of the book itself, and
then segue into a discussion of its philosophical implications. You are expected to use
either a handout or a powerpoint presentation here. In your strategizing, you should
divvy up tasks. It’s hard to write or organize as a group, so give each person something
to do. You should accomplish your individual tasks and circulate the results among your
group by Friday, April 17. Then you can send suggestions to one another and work on
revising the parts and assembling them into a whole.
Finally, it’ll be presentation time. We’ll reserve the fifteenth week of the semester for
our novel presentations, i.e. the week of April 27-May 1. When it’s your turn to present,
please provide me with a written description of who did what. You may do this as a
group, but any individual is also free to give me a separate description. I realize group
projects can sometimes be interesting, so if you feel that the presentation doesn’t
accurately reflect your own work on the project, or you feel you need to tell me that
someone hasn’t done her part, please let me know about that.
6. Final project. You have two options here:
 Option A is to write an essay (in the neighborhood of 6-8 pages) that explores some
philosophical topic in the context of a small set of sf stories (films, books, or whatever).
 Option B is to write a sf short story (in the neighborhood of 10-12 pages?) that explores a
philosophical question in a fictional context. As an appendix to your story, I’ll ask you to
include a paragraph or two that describes what you think you’re up to, philosophically
speaking.
By the time you begin to work on this final project, you should have plenty of models of each
variety to look at. Of course, you aren’t expected to compete with professional writers, either in
sf or in Φ, but you should strive to do the same kind of thing they’re doing.
This is another project that needs to happen in stages. Thus, we’ll follow a timeline:
 Submit an idea for your project by Friday, March 20. Just a few sentences will do.
 Create a more detailed plan for your project by Friday, April 3. Lay out the stuff you
gotta do to get it done. What sf will you use? What moments or themes in that sf? What
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philosophical questions are you going to address? What philosophy will you read to help
you do that?
Write a draft of your project by Wednesday, April 22. Get feedback from at least two
other people in the class. Ideally, you should trade projects with someone, since that
creates some reciprocity. When you give feedback to one another, be specific and
critical—in a helpful way. Please be swift in giving feedback to one another!
Turn in the finished version of your project by Wednesday, May 6, along with the earlier
materials (idea, plan, draft) and a brief writer’s memo in which you tell me who read your
paper (two names, right?), what they said, and how you responded to what they said.
Yes, that means you should do some significant revisions. You will be graded on process
as well as product here.
Note: these two projects occupy much of the course. At certain points, both of them will be in
your heads. You have plenty of time to do a great job on each as long as you don’t procrastinate.
One obvious reason for the timelines I’ve sketched out is to prevent you from waiting until the
last minute, as far as I can. I hope you can view these two assignments as what they’re meant to
be – serious and engaging projects that require lots of time and energy – rather than seeing them
as tasks to be put off as long as possible.
7. Final exam. The new Star Trek film is scheduled to be released on May 8, the last day of the
semester. We’ll schedule an outing to see it at a time when a lot of us can make it. If you can’t
see it at that time, find another time to see it. Our final exam is scheduled for Tuesday, May 10,
from 8-10 a.m. Before the end of that period, i.e. at 10:00 a.m., you must submit one paragraph
in which you tell me what you thought of the film. What? That doesn’t sound like a final exam?
Yeah, that’s kind of the idea.
8. Participation. It’s a cliché that you’ll get out of a class what you put into it. But it’s true
nonetheless. Thus, I hope all of you will seriously invest yourselves in our ongoing explorations
of Φ & sf. Since we have to be in this business of giving and receiving grades, it’s fitting that
such investment be recognized in the course grade, and so 10% of your grade depends on
“participation.” What is participation? In a nutshell, it’s whatever you bring to the table here.
It’s the time and energy you spend reading, or thinking, or listening, or writing. It’s the
contribution you make in the classroom, whether in small groups or (especially!) in our efforts to
have a dialogue in “the big room.” It’s the conversations you have in the hallways, or the dorms,
or wherever, with whomever. All of that. Of course, as you may be thinking, I’m in no position
to evaluate your participation if it’s understood in this way. So you’ll have to do it. At the end
of the semester, you’ll give yourself a grade in this category. I will provide you with some
guidelines for doing so, however, so that you’re not entirely in the dark about what to do. Let me
say a few things here to get us started on the right path:
 Attendance is very important. As a philosopher might put it, good attendance is a
necessary condition for a good participation grade. I’m not going to take attendance,
since this is college, after all, but you should have a decent grasp of your attendance
record over the term. You get one or two unexcused absences for the semester “for free,”
and any more such absences will cost you, with your participation grade lowering with
each one. Thus, if your attendance is spotty, if you miss a class every week or two, then
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you should plan on giving yourself a C (at best—assuming your involvement in the class
is very good in other respects) in participation.
Other obvious necessary conditions for a good participation grade include paying
attention in class and doing the assigned reading and writing—when it’s assigned. But
all of these together are not a sufficient condition for a good participation grade, however.
If you do all of these things, i.e. if you meet the minimal obligations of a student, I’d peg
your participation grade at a B- or so.
If you want to give yourself a B or higher in participation grade, you should talk in class.
Or you should talk a lot to people outside of class. Or you should talk to me in my office
or by e-mail. Or you might spend some time on the blog. Or you should spend a lot of
time on the reading, doing more than the minimum. Or you should be doing some extra
reading. Or you might take our larger projects really seriously. Or… You get the idea,
right? There are countless ways to be involved as a student in this class, and those of you
who take this challenge seriously should give yourselves very high marks for your
participation.
My hope is that most of you do very well in this category. It’s nearly entirely under your
control, right? If you put in the work, it’s guaranteed to pay off (something that isn’t true
of all of our academic endeavors).
The upshot of all this?
Take-home exam
Journal
Vignette
Φ & sf film paper
Φ & sf novel group project
Final project
Final exam
Participation
15%
10%
5%
15%
15%
25%
5%
10%
I operate with a fairly traditional grading scale, on which 90 is the bottom of the A range, 80 is
the bottom of the B range, 70 is the bottom of the C range, and 60 is the bottom of the D range. I
don’t get more specific than that because at the end of the semester I like to have some flexibility
in the grades I assign – but only in your favor! Thus, an 80 will never receive lower than a B-,
but an 82 might get a B- or a B, depending on how the distribution looks. I also consider
improvement when deciding on your final grade, so that a really extraordinary final project can
count even more heavily than 25%.
Additional course policies:
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You must complete all of the assigned work to pass this class. If you don’t submit all of
the papers as well as a journal, you will receive an F.
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Plagiarism is a form of cheating. It’s dishonest. It is also a form of theft. It is therefore
a very serious moral wrong. To put it simply, plagiarism is presenting someone else's
words or ideas as if they were your own. Plagiarism can include (a) a simple failure to
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mention or cite a source, (b) a paraphrase that is far too close for comfort, and (c) blatant
word-for-word copying of sentences or paragraphs from either a primary or secondary
source or even from another student's paper. Cases of (c) nearly always involve bad
intent, but cases of (a) and (b) may sometimes result from sloppiness or ignorance.
However, they are still serious offenses, lapses for which you will be held responsible, so
make sure that your words and ideas are your own or that you're clear whose words or
ideas they are and where they came from. Where they are not your own words or ideas,
make sure that you make this explicit in the appropriate way, e.g., by quotation, citation,
etc. In order to avoid some all-too-common problems with plagiarism within our class,
unless notified otherwise, you are prohibited from reading papers and exams written by
other students in this class (and this includes those written by previous students as well as
present students). However, it is a very good idea to have someone who isn’t in this class
read through your paper! In order to avoid some all-too-common problems with
plagiarism of other sources, you must list anything you look at while writing the paper on
a Works Consulted page, whether you make explicit reference to it or not. This includes
websites as well as books and articles. Students who fail to observe these policies will be
penalized, even if the cause is ignorance or negligence. Students who intentionally
plagiarize will receive a very serious penalty. Cases of type (c) will automatically
receive an F on the plagiarized assignment; especially egregious cases will receive an F
for the course. Cases of type (a) and (b) will receive a grade reduction the size of which
will depend on the seriousness of the offense.
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In order to provide an additional disincentive for plagiarism, you will be required to submit
your exams and papers to Turnitin.com, a website that checks for plagiarized materials.
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Obviously my main concern is with the content of your exams and papers rather than
their form. However, errors in spelling and grammar can often prevent you from saying
what you want to say clearly and effectively, especially in philosophy. And even where
they do not, they give the (hopefully mistaken) impression that you simply don’t care
about your work very much. I hope you’ll agree with me that at the college level we all
ought to be able to produce written work that is relatively clean and neat. Thus, any
paper that contains more than 3 obvious mistakes on any given page will receive an
automatic grade reduction of one step, e.g., from a B to a B-. Please proofread your
papers carefully so as to turn in your best work and avoid this penalty.
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While I will nearly always accept late papers, they will generally be penalized (and the
later the paper, the larger the penalty). You should let me know if one of your papers is
going to be late. It is much easier for me to be charitable about missing a deadline if you
talk to me about it beforehand. Please know that I never mind if you ask me for an
extension on a paper, but I will not give you extra time on a paper simply because you are
very busy: I assume all my students are very busy and it isn’t fair to give extra time to
you without giving it to others as well. But if you are sick or there’s a family emergency
or something like that, I can almost always give you extra time.
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If you receive a C- or below, you may rewrite your paper. The new grade will simply be
averaged with the old grade. (Of course, if you don’t make any significant changes in
your paper, you should not expect the grade to change substantially, either.)
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Since I’m receiving written work from 97 students this semester, I am unable to provide
detailed feedback on drafts of your papers. However, I will happily answer all your
questions and I’m usually able to glance at drafts and give you a few pointers.
Vignette Schedule
1/16
1/19
1/21
1/23
1/26
1/28
1/30
2/2
2/4
2/6
2/9
2/11
2/13
2/16
2/18
2/20
2/23
2/25
2/27
3/2
3/4
3/6
3/18
3/20
3/23
3/25
3/27
3/30
4/3
4/6
4/8
4/15
4/17
4/20
4/22
Jensen, Randy
Bartlett, Anna
Bearss, Caleb
Beeler, Martin
Burlea, Mihai
Crippin, Nicholas
De Haan, Timothy
Fleck, Kailen
German, Erika
Gutsche, David Russell
Hegeman, Philip
Heims, Baylie
Humphrey, Kristen
Katsma, Joel
Kosters, Beth
Kugler, Sarah
Latchaw, Robert
Lawrence, Holly
Lundell, Evan
McNellis, Brody
Menning, Alexander
Mugge, Taylor John
Norris, Jonathan
Ogren, Brandon
Papp, Emily
Sauerwein, Hannah
Sikkema, Daniel
Swart, Jeffrey
Valencia, Gumaro
Van Dyke, Timothy
Vander Molen, Matthew
Vander Stelt, Bryce
Verhoef, Adam
White, Gregory
White, Kelsey
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4/24
Wotherspoon, Noel
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