PHL 100: INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Don Ross (with Dr. Lynn Stephens)
Office: Humanities Rm. 419
e-mail: dross@commerce.uct.ac.za
This course introduces students to one of the great conversations that has been running for 2,000 years and shaping theWestern civilization we live in (or, in the case of non-Western people, living with). We will study, using classical historical texts, the following issues among others:
- What is knowledge? What makes some claims better justified than others?
- What is the mind, and how does it relate to the body?
- What kind of activity is thinking? What, if anything, determines criteria for doing this activity better or worse?
- What is the difference between thinking dogmatically and thinking critically? Is it `better’ to think critically? Why?
- What is the relationship between human thinking and animal thinking?
The course will emphasize practical skills in constructing arguments and writing essays that will be essential skills in other University courses, in civil life, and in almost every workplace.
Though the list of books below looks long for one course, these are all short texts (in expensive editions).
[Dr. Lynn Stephens will lecture the course Jan. 20 – Feb. 10, and will set and mark 15% of the total grade.]
Required texts:
Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito. F.J. Church, translator. Prentice-Hall.
René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy. Laurence J. Lafleur, translator. Prentice Hall.
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hackett.
Daniel Dennett, Kinds of Minds. Basic Books.
Assignments and grade components:
Dr. Stephens’s assignment: 25%
Short test, March 1: 10%
Take-home test, due March 22: 35%
Final exam: 30%
Spot quizzes on readings: 20% bonus marks available
Syllabus: lecture topics and readings:
Students are expected to have read each lecture’s accompanying listed material before attending that lecture. There will be spot (surprise) quizzes scattered throughout the year. Each spot quiz will ask a question testing knowledge of that day’s reading(s).
January 4: Introduction: What is philosophy?
January 6: Introduction: Arguments
January 11: Introduction: How to succeed in this course
January 13: Introduction: the timeline of philosophy
January 18: Plato, `Euthyphro’.
January 20: Plato, `Euthyphro’ Pt. 2
January 25: Plato, `Apology’
January 27: Plato, `Crito’ and `Phaedo’.
February 1: Descartes, First Meditation
February 3: Descartes, Second Meditation
February 8: Descartes, Third Meditation
February 10: Descartes, Fourth Meditation
February 15: Descartes, Fifth Meditation
February 17: Descartes, Sixth Meditation
February 22: Hume, Inquiry, pp. 1-13
February 24: Hume, Inquiry, pp. 14-25
March 1: Short test (in class)
March 3: Hume, Inquiry, pp. 25-37
March 8: Hume, Inquiry, pp. 72-90
March 10: Hume, Inquiry, pp. 90-114
March 15: Dennett, chs. 1 and 2. Evening: lecture by Daniel Dennett
March 17: No lecture
March 22: Dennett, ch. 2
March 24: No lecture
April 5: Dennett, ch. 3
April 7: Dennett, ch. 4
April 12: Exam review: no lecture
April 14: Exam review: no lecture
April 19: Dennett, ch. 5
April 21: Dennett ch. 6