PHIL 100W Knowledge and Reality

Summer Semester 2011 | DAY

INSTRUCTOR: Martin Hahn, WMX 4612

REQUIRED TEXT

• Knowledge, Nature, and Norms: An Introduction to Philosophy, Mark Timmons, David Shoemaker

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is an introduction to two major areas of philosophy: Metaphysics, which ask the question “What is the world like?” and Epistemology, which asks “What can be known about the world and how?”  Thankfully, we will not be addressing these huge questions directly.  Instead, we will look at some historical  as well as modern responses to some smaller, component, questions some of which philosophers have worried about for more than two thousand years.  We will explore questions such as “What is a person?”, “ What is the relationship between a person’s mind and her body?”, “Is there a God?”, “Do we have free will?”, “Can anything at all be known about the world around us?”, etc.

The aim of the course is to introduce students to several of the main traditional philosophical questions as well as to  philosophical methods and writing.  Students should become familiar with a range of standard philosophical vocabulary and its associated concepts.  But equally , the course is concerned to impart a certain set of skills:

– reading complex and subtle texts with comprehension
– understanding, analyzing, evaluating and raising objections to arguments
– critical thinking in general
– writing well-structured, clear, prose
                        

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Two papers with revisions - 25% each
Participation, including 7-10 short reading summaries - 15%
Final - 35%


Note: Students will be required to submit written work to turnitin.com for plagiarism checking and also, possibly, for anonymous peer review or as the basis for class discussion.

Note: Philosophy 100 has no prerequisites and may be applied towards the Certificate in Liberal Arts and the Writing requirement and the Breadth-Humanities-requirement.