Introductory Material
1. Name, Office, Office Hours, Web Address
2. Required Reading
Philosophy Then & Now, edited by Arnold, Benditt,
and Graham
3. Other Reading
You are encouraged to do outside reading on any topic covered
in this course, but you will not be tested on any of it. A good place to start
is with an
encyclopedia of philosophy, such as The Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is in the reference section of the Sterne
Library (call number B 51
R68 1998). Two online encyclopedias are the Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://www.iep.utm.edu/
and the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/.
There are encyclopedia articles on almost any topic we discuss in the course,
and these articles typically have
extensive bibliographies at the end, directing you to other
sources.
4. Course Requirements:
a) Three take-home tests. Three take-home tests will be
given. For each test, you will choose one of two or three multi-part essay
questions on
which to write. These are open-book, open-notes assignments, but no
"team efforts" are permitted. Prepare and write your answers on
your own.
You will have a minimum of 5 days to do these assignments, and I will
try to return them within a week after they are received. Late exams
will not
be accepted. If you cannot be in class when the take-home exams are
given out, have someone else in the class get you a copy. I will not
e-mail
these exams to students nor will I accept electronically submitted tests.
The test question sheet, with your name on it, should always be turned in
with
your answers, which are to be typed and double-spaced.
b) Two in-class exams. Each of
these tests consists exclusively of true/false and multiple choice questions. One of
these will be given at
around the mid-point of the course,
and the other will be given during the last class. Prior notification and a
documented excuse are required if you miss
either of these tests. Otherwise, a
grade of ‘F' will be assigned.
c) Final Grade. For most of you, your grade for the
course will be determined by a straight average of the (best) two take-home
tests and the two
in-class exams. Class participation
and/or steady improvement in one's written work can help those on the borderline
between two grades.
Attendance can be a negative factor
(see below). Failure to complete two or more tests of any kind will result in an
‘F' for the course.
d) There are no make up tests or "do overs" of any
sort, but you do get to drop the lowest of your three take-home test grades.
5. Office, Office Hours, Phone, E-Mail:
My office is in the Humanities Building, room 421 (4th floor,
north interior hallway). Office hours are from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on
Tuesdays and
Thursdays. If you cannot see me during office hours, see me
before or after class to arrange an appointment for some other time. My office
phone
number is 934-8920. Messages can be left on my machine.
Better still, contact me by e-mail. My e-mail address is: sarnold@uab.edu. To
assist you in
taking good notes, I will post my lecture notes on
the Web. This can be accessed through my homepage, which is on the Philosophy
Department
Website.
6. Attendance:
The fact that my notes are on the Web tempts some students to
skip class. This temptation should be resisted. Class attendance is expected. Much
of what goes on in class cannot be gotten
from the reading and will be useful for the tests.
7. Due Dates for Take-Home Exams, Test Dates
There may well be changes in the reading assignments and test
dates; such changes, if they occur, will be announced in class. It is your
responsibility to
keep informed about them.
8. Plagiarism
a) Plagiarism is the misrepresentation (intentional or not)
of someone else's words or ideas as one's own. It is a serious offense and can
result in an ‘F'
for the course with a notation of
academic dishonesty on your transcript. Two such ‘F's result in expulsion from
the university. What counts as
misrepresenting someone else's words
or ideas as one's own depends on the context in which you are writing, so what
counts as plagiarism in one
setting would not be plagiarism in
another setting. For the purposes of this course, the following rules should be
observed when writing the take-home
tests:
b) Do not copy anything from the textbook, or any other book.
If you do this without citation, that would be plagiarism and would be penalized
accordingly. On the other hand, if
you were to do this and cite the source, it would not be plagiarism, but it
defeats the purpose of the tests, which is
to explain key ideas in your own
words.
c) Do not copy material from my lecture notes which are
posted on the Web. Do not closely paraphrase, sentence by sentence, my
notes. This also
defeats the purpose of the take-home tests and
counts as plagiarism. There are two and only
two exceptions to this rule:
(1) You may use, without citation,
any definition of a term I give in class.
(2) You may use, without citation,
any argument I give in class which has numbered premises and a conclusion.
(If you were to use material from my
notes in other contexts (e.g., in some other course), you would have to cite the
source.)
In each case, if you make use of this
material on the Web, you should restate or explain that definition or argument
in your own words, and in the case
of definitions, you should give your
own example to illustrate it, so that I can be sure you understand what you are
writing.
9. A note on writing: If you have not had substantial experience with writing in
high school or if you have not taken EH 101 & 102, you should drop this
course. Your grade will depend crucially on your ability to
express yourself in writing; the ideas to be discussed in this course are
sometimes difficult
and complex, so if writing is a problem for you, it would be
best to take something else and take philosophy later.
10. For Today:
a) Say a little about what philosophy is.
b) Say a little about this course and my
background.
c) Teach you something about logic
11. In common parlance, when we speak of the philosophy of something, we are
speaking of its basic principles, e.g., football.
a) Physics and biology used to be branches of
what was called natural philosophy (philosophy of nature)
(i) physics: basic
principles of matter
(ii) biology: basic
principles of life
b) Basic principles in this sense are very
general and very abstract, i.e. somewhat removed from the practical, the
everyday, etc.
12. Philosophy: (Academic philosophy) deals with the most abstract,
most general questions that the human mind can ask. Philosophy seeks systematic
answers to fundamental questions of knowledge,
value and existence. Although this is a pretty fair definition, it does not seem
to tell us very much.
Let us proceed by looking at some examples of
particular philosophical questions that philosophers have addressed.
13. Metaphysics:
1) Do human beings have souls or are they merely
very complicated material objects? (If the latter, then obviously,
it would be impossible to
survive the death of one's body.
2) Does science tell us the way the world really
is or are there aspects of reality to which science has no access?
3) Can machines (e.g. computers) think?
4) Is everything we do completely determined by
our heredity and our environment or is there genuine freedom of action?
5) Does God exist? Can God's existence be proved?
6) If God does exist and is all-powerful,
all-knowing and all-good, how can there be evil and suffering in the world?
In other words, does the
existence of evil disprove the existence of God?
Epistemology:
1) What is the difference between knowledge and mere opinion?
2) Is genuine knowledge really possible? That is, do we
really know anything or do we just think we know things?
3) Does the scientific method give us knowledge and if so how
and why?
4) What is truth?
Ethics/Value Theory:
1) What do all and only morally right actions have in common?
2) Are there any absolute universal standards or is all
morality merely relative and culturally bound?
3) Why should I act morally when it is in my self interest
not to do so?
4) What is justice?
Some Other Areas of
Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of Mind
Political Philosophy
Philosophy of Art (Aesthetics)
Philosophy of Law & Punishment
14. Introduction to Philosophy:
a) There is no standard introductory course,
though most philosophy professors do something on the three core areas
(metaphysics, epistemology, and
ethics). You can see why,
given the diversity of questions in the core areas we could consider (and the
above are only a sample).
b) We shall do some topics from the three core
areas, starting with metaphysics (Chapters 3 and 1), moving on to epistemology
(Chapter 4) and finishing
with ethics and political
philosophy (chapters 6 and 7).
15. Who am I?
a) graduated from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1973
b) graduated from the University of Massachusetts
in 1978
c) came to UAB in 1982
d) Areas of Specialization: 17th and 18th century
philosophy, political philosophy.
e) what I do for a living besides teaching:
Research. For more on my research, see my Webpage, which can be accessed here.
LOGIC
1. Argument:
a) We think of an argument as a 2-sided or many sided dispute. However,
philosophers use the term in a slightly different sense:
b) An argument is a bit of reasoning consisting of
(i) some premises
(ii) a conclusion
c) One of the things that philosophers do is argue for philosophically
interesting conclusions (e.g., God exists, human beings are purely material
objects).
d) Two things are required for a good argument: The premises have to be true,
and the premises have to support the conclusion. I want to focus for a
moment
this concept of support. Consider the following argument:
(1) If all human actions are completely determined, then no one acts freely.
(2) All human actions are completely determined
(3) No one acts freely.
The conclusion is said to follow from the premises.
2. Parts of An Argument: (3) is the conclusion, what one is trying to prove.
(1) & (2) are the premises--reasons offered in support of (3).
a) This argument is a valid one.
b) Definition: An argument is valid if and only if (iff)
If all of the premises are true, then the
conclusion must be true.
ALTERNATIVELY,
It is logically impossible for all of the premises to be true and the conclusion false.
c) Note that the definition doesn't say that the premises are in fact true.
Only that if, or under the assumption that, the premises are true, the
conclusion could not be false. Example:
(1) If Alabama loses its first five games next year, then the coach will be
fired.
(2) Alabama will lose its first five games this year.
Therefore,
(3) The coach of Alabama will be fired.
3. Things to note about this argument:
a) it is valid
b) its premises are either not true or not known to be true
c) The validity of an argument does not depend on the premises being true. A
valid argument can have some false premises, some true premises, all true
premises, or all false premises. And, the conclusion of a valid argument need
not be true. THERE IS ONLY ONE EXCEPTION: In an valid argument,
one cannot have
all true premises and a false conclusion. Validity is also independent of
whether or not the premises are known to be true. Validity as a
matter of
logical form. The main idea is that when we say that an argument is valid, we
are saying something about the connection between the premises
and the
conclusion. You are not saying anything about the truth or falsity
of the premises.
4. Invalid Arguments:
(1) If Holmes's theory is right, then Moriarity committed the
crime.
(2) Moriarity committed the crime.
Therefore,
(3) Holmes's theory is right.
(1) All politicians are crooks.
(2) XXX is a crook.
Therefore, (3) XXX is a politician.
Explain why these are invalid by the method of counterexample. Also, the second argument is invalid even though the conclusion is true.
5. Validity is a matter of the logical form of the argument. In other words,
what makes an argument valid is that it has the right general form.
Here are
some examples of one such form:
(1) If Holmes is right, then Moriarity committed
the crime (1') If Grant was less than 6
ft. tall, then he was shorter thant Lincoln.
(2) Holmes is right
(2') Grant was less than 6 ft. tall.
Therefore,
Therefore,
(3) Moriarity committed the crime.
(3') Grant was shorter than Lincoln.
Notice that both arguments have the form:
(1) If A then B
(2) A
(3) B
As long as an argument has this form, it is valid. This form is called
Modus Ponens.
6. Other Valid Inference Forms:
a) Modus Tollens:
Example:
(1) If A then B
(1) If an all-perfect God exists, then evil does not exist.
(2) not-B
(2) Evil does exist.
(3) not-A
(3) An all-perfect God does not exist.
b) Disjunctive Syllogism:
Example:
(1) A or B
(1) A Republican will be elected President or a Democrat will
be elected President.
(2) not-B
(2) A Democrat will not be elected President.
(3) A
(3) A Republican will be elected President.
c) Hypothetical Syllogism:
Example
(1) If A then B
(1) If everything a person does is completely determined, then no one acts
freely.
(2) If B then C
(2) If no one acts freely, then no one is morally responsible for anything he or
she does.
(3) If A then C
(3) If everything a person does is compeletely determined, then no one is morally responsible
for anything he or she does.
d) Conjunction:
Example:
(1) A
(1) God is all-powerful
(2) B
(2) God is all-knowing
(3) A & B
(3) God is all-powerful and God is all knowing
. e) Note: These are not the only valid argument forms. If this course were a
logic course, we would identify a dozen or so valid argument forms
and then I'd
show you how you can combine them to prove more complex arguments to be valid,
but for the purposes of this course we don't need
to go into that.
7. Complex Arguments:
a) It doesn't matter what the A's & B's are; they can be simple sentences or
complex sentences. So, for example, the following argument is an instance of
the
form, Modus Ponens:
(1) If a Democrat is elected President or a Republican is elected President,
Social Security will not be reformed.
(2) A Democrat will be elected President or a Republican will be elected
President.
(3) Social Security will not be reformed.
b) Note that there is a disjunction in the antecedent and a negation in the
consequent.
8. Proving Complex Arguments Valid:
a) Consider the following argument:
(1) If God is all-powerful and God is all-knowing, and God is all-good, then
there is no evil.
(2) God is all-powerful.
(3) God is all-knowing.
(4) God is all-good.
(5) There is no evil.
b) Prove it valid by using the rules given above.
9. Two Other Definitions:
a) A sound argument is one which is valid and has all true premises.
(i) What can you infer about the conclusion of a sound argument?
An example:
(1) All presidents of the U.S. are native-born
(2) XXXX is president of the U.S.
(3) XXXX is native-born.
b) To prove a statement is to give a valid argument of it and to show that all
the premises are true. In a proof, the argument is sound and known to
be sound
and thus the conclusion is known to be true.
10. This is the purpose of arguments: To prove statements--and in philosophy
to prove philosophically interesting statements (e.g., God exists). When
philosophers reason, they very seldom use numbered premises and conclusions. But
it is occasionally a useful way to represent their reasoning, and I
shall do it
for some arguments.
11. Criticizing Arguments. There are Four Ways to Criticize an Argument:
a) Show, by means of a counterexample, that it is
invalid. This does not allow
you to say that the conclusion is false--only that it is not proved.
Example: (1) If South America and Africa were once joined, then
the fossil record in Brazil should match the fossil record in West Africa.
(2) The fossil records match.
(3) South America and Africa were once joined.
Explain how the premises could be true and the conclusion false (e.g.,
coincidence, similarity in climate, terrain, etc.)
By the way, all arguments that have this general form are invalid. What general
form? (1) If A then B
(2) B
(3) A
b) Show that one or more of the premises is
false. If a premise is false, the
conclusion may or may not be false. All you know is that the truth of the
conclusion is not guaranteed, based on that particular argument.
Example: (1) All Asians are good at math.
(2) Kwan is Asian.
(3) Kwan is good at math.
c) Show that one of the premises is doubtful--that is, not known to be
true.
Then you don't know whether the conclusion is true or false, because
even if the
argument is valid and all the other premises are true, the conclusion may still
be false.
Example: (1) If Joe is schizophrenic, then his family is in danger.
(2) Joe is schizophrenic.
(3) Joe's family is in danger.
Premise (1) is doubtful, since not all schizophrenics pose a threat to their
families. (3) may be true, but, based on this argument, we don't know if
it is
or not.
d) Show that the argument begs the question:
A Definition:
An argument begs the question if and only if it assumes in one of its premises the very
conclusion one is trying to prove.
Example: (1) Abortion is murder.
(2) Murder is always wrong.
Therefore, (3) Abortion is always wrong.
12. Summary of what you have to know:
a) what a valid argument is
b) what a sound argument is
c) why a philosopher would want to use valid
arguments--to prove philosophically interesting propositions
d) three ways to criticize arguments