PHILOSOPHY 111
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY: KNOWLEDGE AND REALITY
I. Basics
Meeting time: Tuesday/Thursday 3:40pm-4:55pm
Meeting place: HSS 68
Professor: E.J. Coffman
E-mail address: ecoffma1@utk.edu
Course website: http://online.utk.edu
Office: 816 McClung Tower
Office Hours: TBA
II. Texts
1. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau (eds.) Reason and Responsibility: Readings in Some
Basic Problems of Philosophy, 13th edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2008)
2. Online course packet available at our course’s site at Online@UT (http://online.utk.edu)
▪ Throughout this course, you’ll need to access Online@UT, as well as receive e-mail sent to your
UT e-mail account.
If you need assistance with this stuff, visit the OIT website
(http://oit.utk.edu), or give OIT a call at 974-9900.
III. Course Overview
A. Two main things we want
1. To explore a handful of fundamental philosophical questions about human knowledge and
behavior
2. To hone our critical thinking, reading, writing, and discussion skills
a. Ability to find, understand, and evaluate arguments developed by others
b. Ability to present and defend arguments of our own
▪ We’ll follow standard usage of the word ‘argument’ in the academic world. Here, an argument
is a line or chain of reasoning, a set of claims or statements related to each other in this way: one
of the statements—the conclusion—is supposed to be rationally supported by the remaining
statements—the premises.
▪ Philosophical questions (PQs) differ from other kinds of questions (e.g., scientific questions) in
that they combine these three features:
▫ PQs concern certain abstract yet deeply interesting and important concepts:
Knowledge, Intellectual Justification, God, Personhood, Causation, Action, Freedom,
Moral Accountability, Justice, and so on.
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▫ The main intellectual tool we use to explore PQs is our power of reason or rational
insight, a kind of “sixth sense” that’s distinct from the five “empirical” senses (vision,
touch, taste, smell, hearing).
▫ PQs resist final, definitive solution: as we’ll see both in assigned readings and in class
discussion, it’s often very difficult to achieve widespread agreement on the best answer to
a given PQ.
▪ Fortunately, our goals for this course do not include fully resolving all the philosophical debates
we’ll be exploring. Rather, our main aims are somewhat more modest: in addition to cultivating
your critical thinking and discussion skills, I want you to (1) understand some of the main
arguments philosophers have presented about the questions we’ll be exploring and (2) develop
your own reasoned—though not necessarily final—verdicts about the strength of those
arguments.
▪ This course will focus on some main questions in Epistemology (the branch of Philosophy that
focuses on the concepts of knowledge and intellectually justified belief) and Philosophy of Mind
(the branch of Philosophy that focuses on human minds and behavior).
▪ We’ll warm up by trying to figure out what (if anything) is wrong with a certain intriguing and
influential argument for the conclusion that your feelings never affect your behavior.
▪ We’ll then spend the rest of our course exploring these three fundamental philosophical
questions:
▫ Are there any facts we really know to be true?
▫ Is anyone ever intellectually justified in believing that God exists?
▫ Do we ever deserve moral praise or criticism for our actions?
▪ Here are the main things you’ll have a better understanding of at the end of our course:
▫ some main arguments for the conclusion that we don’t know any of the things we
believe, and some main replies to these arguments;
▫ two main deductive arguments for God’s existence, and the main objections to these
arguments;
▫ two main arguments for the conclusion that no one is ever intellectually justified in
believing that God exists, and the main replies to these arguments;
▫ the main argument for the conclusion that we never deserve moral praise or criticism for
our actions, and the main defenses of and objections to this argument.
▪ In addition, at the end of this course, you’ll be better able to find, explain, and evaluate others’
arguments, as well as present and defend arguments of your own.
B. How we’ll get what we want
1. In class: Interactive lecture; group discussion/activities; 3 essay exams (25% each =
75% of final grade)
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2. Outside class: Reading assignments; 10 Reflective Notes (25% of final grade); online
discussion
▪ Reading assignments
Your three main goals when reading material assigned for this course are to: (1) Identify the main
claims the author is arguing for; (2) Understand how the author argues for those claims; and (3)
Determine how strong those arguments are. If you try hard to do these three things, there will be
at least three good results: (1) You'll be familiar with the arguments discussed in class, and you’ll
be poised to make valuable contributions to our discussion (in a typical lecture, I’ll try to
explain—then raise some initial questions about or objections to—what I take to be the main
arguments developed in the day’s assigned readings); (2) You'll be able to do things like correct
my attempts to explain our readings’ main arguments, draw attention to important stuff I missed,
and so on; and (3) You’ll strengthen your ability to find, understand, and evaluate all kinds of
arguments (not just those about the particular topics we’ll explore in this course).
I’ll do a variety of things to help you achieve the three reading goals above. For starters, we’ll
spend the first couple weeks studying some essays that offer advice about how to find,
understand, and evaluate arguments in texts from any discipline. Those essays will also give
advice about studying Philosophy texts in particular. I’ll also use our course’s online discussion
board—the Knowledge & Reality Help/Discussion Forum, which is accessible through
Online@UT—to help you achieve the three reading goals. There, I’ll post various things that will
help you get the most out of the time you spend on a particular reading, including (1) my reasons
for assigning that reading; (2) a brief overview of the reading; and (3) some questions to guide
you to the most important things that happen in the reading.
▪ Reflective Notes (10 @ 2.5% each = 25% of final grade)
This requirement serves three important purposes: (1) It’ll help you achieve the three reading
goals mentioned above; (2) It’ll help prepare you to contribute to in-class discussion of the ideas
we’re exploring; and (3) It’ll strengthen your ability to clearly and concisely express questions
about and/or objections to arguments of all kinds.
Each Reflective Note (RN) you submit will earn a grade of ‘Acceptable’ or ‘Unacceptable’. An
Acceptable RN will be a healthy paragraph (i.e., five or more sentences) in which you raise either
(i) a question about or (ii) an objection to something that happens in a particular assigned reading.
To ensure that I understand exactly how your question or objection engages the material you’re
writing about, you’ll need to provide some context by briefly summarizing the part of the reading
your question or objection concerns. Sincere effort will usually suffice for an Acceptable RN.
However, an RN that’s too short or inaccurate or unclear will earn a grade of ‘Unacceptable’, and
won’t count toward this portion of the final grade. (See the end of the syllabus for two sample
Acceptable RNs.)
Here are five important rules about RNs:
▫ RNs must be typed.
▫ RNs can only be submitted in class.
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▫ An RN on a particular reading must be submitted before or during the first class where
we discuss that reading—once we’ve started talking about a particular reading, it’s
too late to submit an RN about it.
▫ Each RN must be about one of the starred (*) readings in the reading schedule below
(there are many more options than 10, so you’ll have a lot of leeway here).
▫ Each of your RNs must be about a different reading assignment—no more than one
RN on a given reading assignment.
Finally, I encourage you to draw on your RNs in class discussion: please share your questions
with us, try out your objections on us, and so on. “Anonymized” RNs may sometimes be used as
springboards for class discussion.
▪ Exams (3 @ 25% each = 75% of final grade)
Each exam will consist of short answer and/or essay questions drawn from a list of several
possible questions. The possible questions will derive entirely from material covered in class.
I’ll distribute a list of possible questions several days before each exam. A typical essay question
will ask you to lay out a particular argument, present a standard objection to that argument,
provide a possible reply to that objection, and (finally) offer your own verdict about the debate.
▪ Discussion
One of my main goals this semester is to help us fruitfully discuss the ideas we’ll be exploring.
By participating in discussion, you can do at least three important things:
(1) Challenge “the Prof”—and thereby help all of us!—by, e.g., questioning my
explanations of arguments from assigned readings, or my evaluations of those arguments;
(2) Gain a deeper understanding of the material this course covers;
and
(3) Strengthen your ability to participate in rational discussion about topics of all kinds.
I’ll do various things to help foster discussion both inside and outside the classroom. For
example, the reading aids posted online at the Knowledge & Reality Help/Discussion Forum
will help you get a good handle on the main arguments developed in assigned readings so that
you can fruitfully question my and/or others’ explanations and evaluations of those arguments.
I’ll often put condensed lecture notes (in the form of PowerPoint slides) on our course’s website
well in advance of class. Reflective Notes will play important roles in sparking class discussion.
Finally, I encourage you to create and/or contribute to discussion threads at our course’s online
discussion board.
I really hope you’ll take advantage of some of these opportunities to discuss the ideas we’ll be
exploring. If you do, then in addition to benefiting in all the ways mentioned above, you’ll also
position yourself to get bumped into a higher grade category should you end the course on a
“grade borderline”. I offer this very concrete reward in order to highlight the importance I see in
taking part in classroom and/or online discussion of the topics we’ll be covering.
Of course, I understand that some of us find it easier to participate in discussion than others. If
you’re especially uncomfortable with the idea of in-class or online discussion, please talk to me
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about that; I may be able to suggest some relatively painless ways to get into the flow of class
discussion. And please do keep three important facts in mind: (1) Nobody here knows everything
(including me, as you’ll soon learn!); (2) Everybody here knows something, and so has something
to contribute to discussion; and (3) Any question or point that occurs to you in class is almost
certainly occurring to someone else at the same time—knowing that should help you become less
hesitant to ask questions or raise points in class.
IV. Especially Important Dates
8/23 (R): First class meeting
10/9 (T): First exam
10/11-10/12 (R-F): Fall Break
11/8 (R): Second exam
11/22-11/23 (R-F): Thanksgiving Break
12/4 (T): Last class meeting
12/12 (W): Third exam [5pm-7pm]
V. Tentative Reading Schedule [CP = Course packet; * = CN option]
A. Preliminaries: Philosophical Terminology and Methods (Weeks 2-3)
1. E.J. Coffman, “Finding, Clarifying, and Evaluating Arguments” [CP] (*)
2. Jim Pryor, “Philosophical Terms & Methods” [CP]
3. Hugh Lafollette, “Reading Philosophy” [CP]
4. Jim Pryor, “Guidelines on Reading Philosophy” [CP]
B. Warming Up: Do Our Feelings Ever Affect Our Actions? (Weeks 3-4)
1. Frank Jackson, “The Qualia Problem” (*)
C. Are There Any Facts We Really Know to be True? (Weeks 4-7)
1. Rene Descartes, First Meditation and Second Meditation (*)
2. Peter Unger, “An Argument for Skepticism” (*)
3. G.E. Moore, “Proof of an External World” (*)
4. G.E. Moore, “Hume’s Theory Examined” [CP]
D. Is Anyone Ever Intellectually Justified in Believing that God Exists? (Weeks 8-11)
1. The Cosmological Argument
a. Thomas Aquinas, “The Five Ways”
b. Samuel Clarke, “A Modern Formulation of the Cosmological Argument”
c. William Rowe, “The Cosmological Argument” (*)
2. The Ontological Argument
a. Anselm, “The Ontological Argument”
b. Gaunilo, “On Behalf of the Fool”
c. William Rowe, “The Ontological Argument” (*)
3. What’s Required for Intellectually Justified Belief in God? (*)
a. W.K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief”
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b. William James, “The Will to Believe”
c. Kelly James Clark, “Without Evidence or Argument”
4. The Problem of Evil
a. Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Rebellion”
b. J.L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence” (*)
c. Richard Swinburne, “Why God Allows Evil” (*)
E. Do We Ever Deserve Moral Praise or Criticism for Our Actions? (Weeks 12-15)
1. The Problem of Moral Responsibility (*)
a. Introduction to Part IV
b. Roderick Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self” (only sections 1 and 2)
2. Does Responsibility Require Freedom? (*)
a. Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck”
b. Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”
3. Do We Ever Act Freely? (*)
a. A.J. Ayer, “Freedom and Necessity”
b. Walter Stace, “The Problem of Free Will”
c. Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility”
VI. Appendix: Two Sample Acceptable RNs
A. Question RN
One of Coffman’s main aims in this syllabus is to give us a clear sense of the questions and issues
we’ll explore in this course. Unfortunately, he sometimes slips into using unfamiliar
terminology. One important place this happens is when Coffman tries to describe the two
arguments for God’s existence we’ll be exploring. Here, he uses the expression ‘deductive
argument’: “…the two main deductive arguments for God’s existence…” ‘Deductive argument’
is not an “everyday” or “ordinary” expression: the typical person on the street probably won’t
know exactly what a deductive argument is. Rather, this unfamiliar term seems to be one that’s
defined and used primarily within the field of Philosophy. So, my question: What’s a deductive
argument?
B. Objection RN
According to Coffman, the “main intellectual tool” we use to explore philosophical questions is
what he calls the “power of reason or rational insight”. Coffman distinguishes what he calls
‘reason’ or ‘rational insight’ from the “five senses” (vision, touch, taste, smell, hearing).
Apparently, then, Coffman thinks that we can gain knowledge and/or intellectually justified
beliefs using something other than the five senses. I don’t buy this vaguely “spooky” idea.
Instead, it seems to me that whatever knowledge we have comes only from the five senses. So, it
looks like either Coffman is wrong about the proper way to explore philosophical questions or
Philosophy turns out to be a pretty dubious discipline. Either way, Coffman seems to be wrong
about Philosophy.
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