WESTMONT COLLEGE
Department of Philosophy
PHI XXX: 19th & 20th Century Philosophy
Instructor: XXX
Course Description and Guidelines
I. Course Description:
A. Closest Current Westmont College Catalogue course description: “A critical survey of major Western
philosophers from Descartes to the present. Includes emphasis on abstract reasoning.”
B. Proposed New Westmont College Catalogue course description: “A critical survey of major Western
philosophers from Hegel to Quine. Includes emphasis on abstract reasoning.”
C. Description of the course’s role in the major: This is an upper-level course in philosophy and is one of three
courses students can take to satisfy the “History of Philosophy” philosophy major requirement (students need to
take two out of three courses offered in this area to satisfy this requirement).
D. The over-arching theme of this course is the career of Western philosophy from the early 19th century through
the late 20th century. Particular sub-themes may include: 1) absolute idealism and existentialism, “new realism”,
pragmatism, phenomenology, logical positivism and analytic philosophy as reactions to it; and 2) the emergence
of Anglo-American “analytic” philosophy and “continental” philosophy as distinct approaches to philosophy.
II. Course Objectives:
A. Relative to the Westmont Philosophy Major:
Here are the Philosophy Department’s official “Student Learning Outcomes”:
Knowledge: Students will be able to explain important philosophical positions, concepts, arguments, and
themes.
Skills: Students will be able to construct structurally solid arguments and to critique faulty ones appropriately.
Virtues: Students will both value and acknowledge the limits of rational inquiry. In other words, they will
display both the love of wisdom and Socratic humility.
In this course, students will build on their lower-level philosophical training, and continue to acquire the
above knowledge, skills and virtues, especially in relation to 19th and 20th C European philosophy.
B. Relative to the Reasoning Abstractly GE Requirement:
Students in this course will be able to recognize, construct, and evaluate abstract arguments and explanations,
analyze abstract concepts, and solve abstract problems.
III. Course Guidelines:
A. Class requirements:
PHI-103?
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B. Grading: Your grade will be based on two 2,000 word essays, a final exam, and a set of frequent, short
quizzes on reading assignments. Each of these components will count 25%. You must provide an accurate word
count at the end of your essay, and you must keep to the word limit: essays of more than 2,000 words (including
quotations and footnotes, but not bibliography) will not be accepted for marking.
C. Essay Submission Procedure: Essays must be typed or word-processed and handed in to me in class, unless
otherwise specified. Late essays will lowered by one third of a grade (e.g., from ‘B’ to ‘B-’) for the first day late (i.e.,
any time after the end of the assigned class period) and an additional third for each additional day (i.e., 24 hour
period) late. An explanation of the criteria by which I assess essays will be distributed separately.
D. Cheating: cheating, including plagiarism, will result in an automatic ‘F’ for that assignment and referral to the
College authorities.
E. Plagiarism: plagiarism is the presenting of someone else’s work, verbatim or paraphrased, intentionally or
unintentionally, as your own. If you have studied for a paper or exam with another student and there is, as a result,
the slightest chance that your answers may resemble theirs, you should indicate in your paper or exam that you have
done so and identify them by name. (E.g., in a footnote, you might say, “I have discussed some of these ideas with
Phyllis Stein.”)
F. Missing Exams: a missed exam will result in failure of that exam, unless prearranged with me.
G. Getting Help: If you want to discuss any aspect of the course, please see me during one of the Office Hours
posted on my door, or fix an appointment to meet at another time. If you have any kind of problem that is preventing
you from working on this course, speak to me or to your Personal Advisor or to anyone you feel you can approach.
For help with writing assignments, the “Writer’s Corner” is a good first stop.
H. Disability: Students who have been diagnosed with a disability (learning, physical or psychological) are strongly
encouraged to contact the Disability Services Office as early as possible to discuss appropriate accommodations for
this course. Formal accommodations will be granted only for students whose disabilities have been verified by the
Disability Services office. These accommodations may be necessary to ensure your full participation and the
successful completion of this course. Contact the Director of Disability Services, Sheri Noble (x6159,
snoble@westmont.edu) as soon as possible.
I. Courtesy: All members of the class should treat each other courteously at all times. This includes, among other
things not snoozing, texting, facebooking, websurfing, reading newspapers, looking at your smartphone or doing work
for other classes during our class period. You may use your laptop in class for taking notes, but do not log on to the
internet during class.
IV. Course Texts:
A. S. Cahn, ed., Classics of Western Philosophy, 6th ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002)
B. Wallace Matson, A New History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 2nd ed.,(New York: Cengage , 1999)
C. E.D. Klemke and H. Geirsson, eds., Contemporary Analytic and Linguistic Philosophies, 2nd eds., (Amherst,
NY: Prometheus Press, 2000)
D. Additional photocopied texts.
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V. Sample Syllabus: PHI-102, “History of 19th and 20th Century Philosophy”
Topics
Readings
1. Preliminaries
Two Types of Idealism?
2. Hegel
Excerpt from Phenomenology of Mind, Cahn, 994-1006
3. Hegel
Matson, ch. 42
4. Mill
“The Psychological Theory of the Belief in an External World” additional
5. Mill
“The Utilitarians”, Matson, ch. 45
6. Bradley
Excerpt from Appearance and Reality additional
7. Royce
“Reality and Idealism”, Klemke, ch. 1
8. Royce
“Reality and Idealism”, Klemke, 1
Reactions to Idealism I
9. Schopenhauer
Excerpt from World as Will and Idea additional
10. Schopenhauer/Nietzsche
“The Will in Germany”, Matson, ch. 46
11. Nietzsche
Excerpt from Twilight of the Idols, Cahn, 1078-94
12. Nietzsche
Excerpt from Genealogy of Morals additional
13. Kierkegaard
“The Present Age”
14. Kierkegaard
“Existentialism”, Matson, ch. 49
15. Kierkegaard
Excerpt from Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Cahn, 1107-14
16. Sartre
“The Humanism of Existentialism”, Cahn 1167-81
17. Camus
“An Absurd Reasoning” from The Myth of Sisyphus additional
18. Essay # 1 Due
19. Husserl
Excerpts from The Idea of Phenomenology
Reactions II: Pragmatism and the New Realism
20. Peirce
“Pragmaticism”, Klemke, ch. 3; “Pragmatism” Matson, ch. 47
21. Peirce
“How to Make our Ideas Clear”, Cahn, 1106-16 (also Klemke, 2)
22. James
“What Pragmatism Means”, Cahn, 1117-28
23. James
“The Will to Believe”
24. Holt et al
“The Program and Platform of Six Realists”, Klemke, 4
Reactions III: Early Analytic Philosophy
25. Moore
“The Refutation of Idealism”, Klemke, 6
26. Moore
“The Refutation of Idealism”, Klemke, 6
27. Moore
“Proof of an External World”, Klemke, 9
28. Russell
“Facts and Propositions”, Klemke, 10; Matson, ch. 48
29. Russell
“Particulars, Predicates and Relations”, “Metaphysics” Klemke, 11-12
30. Essay # 2 Due
Reactions IV: Logical Positivism and its Critics
31. Ayer
“The Elimination of Metaphysics” (LTL I), Klemke, 13
32. Ayer
“The A Priori”, “The Function of Philosophy” (LTL II – III), Klemke, 14-15
33. Ayer
“Critique of Ethics and Theology” (LTL VI), Klemke, 17
34. Quine
“Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Klemke 26
35. Quine
“Two Dogmas”, Klemke 26
Wittgenstein, Oxford Philosophy
36. Wittgenstein
Matson, ch. 50
37. Wittgenstein
Philosophical Investigations, Questions 1-64, additional
38. Ryle
“Systematically Misleading Expressions”, Klemke, 18
39. Austin
Excerpts from Sense and Sensibilia, Cahn 1182-1098
40. Austin
“Performative-Constative”, Klemke 27
Deconstructionism
41. Derrida
Excerpt from Of Grammatology additional
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