School of Arts & Humanities Department of Philosophy 4AANA101 - Introduction to Philosophy Syllabus Academic year 2015/16 Basic information Credits: 30 Module Tutors: Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol (Logic), Dr Julien Dutant (Metaphysics, coordinator), Dr Clayton Littlejohn (Epistemology, Ethics) Offices: Philosophy Building 601 (Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol), 602 (Dr Julien Dutant), 412 (Dr Clayton Littlejohn) Consultation time: Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol: Thu 14-15. Dr Julien Dutant: Tue 10-11, Wed 11-12. Dr Clayton Littlejohn: tbc. Semesters: both Lecture times and venues*: First mini-term: Tue 11-12 and Wed 12-13, Edmond J Safra Lecture Theatre, King's Building. Rest of the year: Tue 9-10, K4U.12, King's Building GTAs: Fintan Mallory (Logic), Sergio De Souza Filho, David Jenkins (Metaphysics), Amanda Alves Moreira, Nathan Oseroff (Epistemology), Thomas Byrne, Justin Hagerman (Ethics) *Please note that tutorial times and venues will be organised independently with your teaching tutor Module description (plus aims and objectives) Aim This module is intended for first year undergraduates, in particular PPE and PPL students, who will be beginning their study of philosophy at degree level as part of a wider course of study. It aims to provide a grounding in the subject that will give students a basic familiarity with central areas of philosophical thought, as well as providing some appreciation of the interconnected, systematic nature of Philosophy as a whole, and thus serving as a foundation on which more specialised study can be built. Description The module offers a broad overview of topics and techniques in four key branches of the discipline: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics. It runs for twenty weeks over the autumn and spring semesters, with a five-week block devoted to each of the four key areas. The Logic block consists of two one-hour lecture and one one-hour exercise class per week. The Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics blocks consist of one one-hour lecture and one one-hour seminar per week. Objectives By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills appropriate to a level 4 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate that they have: Awareness and understanding of the central concepts, theories and arguments of some main areas of Philosophy: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics. The ability to apply valid critical and argumentative techniques to these and other areas of the subject. Familiarity with selected key texts, with the ability to summarize and analytically criticize the arguments and positions of others. The ability to develop philosophical views of their own, which they are prepared to defend or amend in the light of criticism from others. Detailed descriptions of the content and objectives of each block are given in the outline below. 1
Assessment methods and deadlines Formative assessment: Logic exercises plus three x 1,000 words essays. Essay to be submitted to your seminar tutor by email at 16:00 on: o Fri Dec 11 (Metaphysics) o Fri Feb 26 (Epistemology) o Fri Apr 1 (Ethics) Summative assessment: one x three-hour exam (100%). Outline of lecture topics (plus suggested readings) Weeks 1-5: Logic. This block is an introduction to propositional logic. It will make students acquainted with the notions of logical consistency and logical validity, the language of propositional logic, truth-tables and the truth-tree methods (tableaus) to check for validity and consistency. Its aims are to allow students to understand core logical notions, identify logically valid arguments, read and construct logical formalizations as they are used in academic philosophy articles and make them aware of common logical fallacies and non-logical argumentation. For this part of the module students attend two one-hour lectures per week. The lectures are common with module 4AANA003 (Elementary logic). Week one Sept 22-23 : Consistency and validity Week two Sept 29-30 : Logical connectives Week three Oct 6-7 : Logical connectives Week four Oct 13-14 : Propositional tableaus Week five Oct 20--21 : Propositional tableaus Suggested reading: Tutorial on http://logic.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/. Bergman, M, Moor, J. & Nelson, J. (2009) The Logic Book, 5th ed., Mc-Graw Hill.McGraw-Hill, 2009. Hodges, W. (1977), Logic, Penguin. Weeks 6-10 Metaphysics. This block is an introduction to Metaphysics. Its aim is to familiarize students with some of its central debates in order to enable both further study and independent thought on metaphysical topics and their connections with other areas of philosophy. Four weeks are devoted to classic issues (persistence, persons, identity, free will) and one to more original ones (social groups and kinds). The issues are interconnected and together cover a significant amount of core metaphysical notions such as parthood, time, existence, possibility, reference, particulars and properties, causation. Suggested readings Most readings come for three books. They are an excellent source of further readings on our topics and on metaphysics more generally: RE E. Conee & T. Sider (2005) Riddles of Existence: a Guided Tour of Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. An accessible but rich and rigorous introduction to metaphysics. MA J. Kim, E. Sosa & D.Z. Korman (eds) (2011) Metaphysics: an Anthology, 2nd edition Wiley-Blackwell. An extensive thematic anthology of contemporary metaphysics that combines "classic" with more recent papers. CDM T. Sider, J. Hawthorne, D.W. Zimmerman (eds) (2008) Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, Wiley- Blackwell. Up-to-date, fairly advanced essays on some of the most active current debates in metaphysics. Sider's brief introduction to CDM is a clear and thoughtful presentation of what metaphysics is. You may want to start there. There is also a clear textbook that you can use throughout the course: A. Ney, Metaphysics: an Introduction, Routledge 2014. Page 2
Week six Nov 3 : Persistence T. Sider (2005) "Persistence", ch. 7 of RE. R.M. Chisholm (1976) "Identity through time", ch. 3 of from his Persons and Objects, Open Court. Reprinted in MA, ch. 40. J. Jarvis Thomson (1983) "Parthood and Identity Across Time", Journal of Philosophy, 80:4, 210-20. Reprinted in MA, ch. 35. M. Heller (1990) "Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects", ch. 1 of his The Ontology of Physical Objects. Reprinted in MA, ch. 36. Week seven Nov 10 : Personal Identity D. Parfit (1971) "Personal Identity", The Philosophical Review 80, 3-71. Reprinted in MA, ch. 42. J. Jarvis Thomson (2008) "People and their bodies" in CDM, ch. 4.1. D. K. Lewis (1976) "Survival and Identity", in A.O. Rorty (ed.), The Identities of Persons, University of California Press 17-40, reprinted with postscripts in D.K. Lewis (1983) Philosophical Papers vol. I, Oxford University Press. Reprinted in MA ch. 43. D. Parfit (2008) "Persons, Bodies and Human Beings" in CDM, ch. 4.2. Week eight Nov 17 : Identity S. Kripke (1971) "Identity and Necessity", in M.K. Munitz (ed.), Identity and Individuation, New York University Press 135-164. Reprinted in MA, ch. 10. S. Kripke (1980) lectures 1 and 2 of Naming and necessity, Harvard University Press. A. Gibbard (1975) "Contingent Identity", Journal of Philosophical Logic 4, 187-221. Reprinted in MA, ch. 11. R. Stalnaker (1988) "Vague Identity", in D. Austin (ed.) Philosophical Analysis, Kluwer, 349-60. Reprinted in MA, ch. 13. Week nine Nov 24 : Social Groups and Social Kinds G. Uzquiano (2004) "The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Justices: A Metaphysical Puzzle", Noûs 38:1, 135-53. S. Halsanger (2000) "Gender and Race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be?" Noûs, 34:1, 31-55. K. Ritchie (2013) "What are groups?" Philosophical Studies 166:2, 257-72. J. Saul (2006) "Gender and Race", Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80:1,119-143. Week ten Nov 31 : Free Will P. van Inwagen (1975) "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism" Philosophical Studies 27: 185-99. D. Dennett (1984) "I Could not have Done Otherwise - So What?" Journal of Philosophy 81:10, 553-565. R. Kane (2008) "Incompatibilism" in CDM, ch. 7.1. K. Vihvelin (2008) "Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, Impossibilism" in CDM, ch. 7.2. Semester 2, weeks 1-5: Epistemology. This block is an introduction to Epistemology. 1. Knowledge & Epistemic Luck Gettier, E. 1963. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23: 121-3 Nozick, R. 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Harvard University Press. Sosa, E. How to Defeat Opposition to Moore. Philosophical Perspectives 13: 141-153 2. Regress & Perception BonJour.1978. Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation? American Philosophical Quarterly 15: 1-13. Smithies. 2014. Can Foundationalism Solve the Regress Problem? In R. Neta (ed.), Current Controversies in Epistemology. Routledge. Page 3
3. Induction Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 4 <http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/hume1748.pdf> Strawson, "The Justification of Induction", Introduction to Logical Theory Van Cleve. 1984. "Reliability, Justification, and the Problem of Induction", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 9: 555-67. Weintraub. 2008. Skepticism about Induction. In J. Greco (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism. Oxford University Press. 4. Disagreement Feldman. 2006. Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement. In Stephen Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology Futures. Oxford University Press. 216-236. Elga. 2010. How to Disagree about How to Disagree. In R. Feldman and T. Warfield (ed.), Disagreement. Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, "Ethical and Epistemic Egoism and the Ideal of Autonomy" 5. Skepticism Moore. Proof of an External World. Lewis. Elusive Knowledge. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74: 549 67 Coliva. The Paradox of Moore's Proof of an External World. Byrne. How Hard are the Skeptical Paradoxes? Semester 2, weeks 6-10: Ethics. This block is an introduction to Ethics. 1. Death & Well-Being Epicurus, Selections Lucretius, Selections Frances Kamm, The Asymmetry Problem: Death and Prenatal Nonexistence Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia 2. Consequentialism Mill. Utilitarianism Vallentyne, Against Maximizing Act Consequentialism Norcross, "Two Dogmas of Deontology 3. Kant's Ethics Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Baron, "On the Alleged Repugnance of Acting from Duty" 4. Pluralism & Particularlism W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good Jonathan Dancy, Ethical Particularlism and Morally Relevant Properties 5. Animals Singer, "All Animals are Equal" [Good to refer to because it is a classic in the field, but the important argument is the marginal cases argument and you can find that in the Norcross reading. The Norcross reading is much more entertaining and it touches on some important questions about responsibility that we ll discuss in the lecture.] Kant, Lectures on Ethics Norcross, Puppies, Pigs, and People Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures Page 4
Page 5
Suggested Questions for Essays Metaphysics Suggested essay questions will be posted on Keats. Ethics and Epistemology 1. Is death bad for the one who dies? If so, why? If it is not, why not? 2. Would it be bad for a person to be plugged into the experience machine? 3. Can a reasonable and morally conscientious person decide to do something that they know isn t for the best? 4. What is the separateness of persons objection? What, if anything, does it tell us about consequentialism? 5. Would a morally good person be moved by the motive of duty? 6. Are there any general moral principles? Will there always be a general principle to cover the cases we're in? 7. Is it ever permissible to make a lying promise? 8. Is inductive reasoning a source of knowledge and justification? Is it possible to justify the use of inductive reasoning? 9. What distinguishes knowledge from merely true belief? 10. If it's possible for someone to have a mental life like yours and be systematically deceived, is it possible for you to know anything at all? Is it possible to know that you're not systematically deceived? 11. If you discover that a peer disagrees with you about something, what should you do next? Does the discovery of such a peer require you to be conciliatory and suspend judgment or can it be acceptable for you to 'stick to your guns'? Is it possible for a disagreement between you and a peer to be reasonable? 12. To know anything at all, must some things be known directly or immediately without any inference from anything else we believe? Page 6