Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An introduction to some of the central problems of philosophy. Topics to be discussed include the different theories of reality; the nature and sources of knowledge, truth, evidence, and reason; the justification of belief and knowledge about the universe. These topics and problems will be considered as they arise in the context of issues such as: relativism versus absolutism; the existence of God; personal identity; the nature of the mind and its relation to the body; free will and determinism; the possibility of moral knowledge. Open to all students. Students with credit for PHIL 100 or PHIL 300 may not take this course for further credit. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Each day when you wake up and go about your day, you take for granted the existence of many things. You believe that your surroundings will be much the same as you left them the night before, that you (and those around you) are the same person(s) as you were yesterday, that there was in fact a yesterday and there will be a tomorrow, that you get to make some choices, maybe about what you will do with your day, albeit limiting this choice to what is permissible and not doing what is wrong. You likely also assume that when you check the weather report, you will thereby know what the weather is like outside.

As a discipline, philosophy raises questions about many of the assumptions we ordinarily take for granted, including assumptions about reality and our ability to know it. In attempting to answer these questions, philosophers sometimes reach surprising conclusions: you are not the same person as you were yesterday, you don't get to choose what you do, and you can't know what the weather is from reading the report! Still, other philosophers challenge the arguments taken to support such surprising conclusions, sometimes vindicating our beliefs about the way things are and our ability to know them.

The goal of this course is to explore some philosophical responses to the question "what can we know?" Significantly, this question can be distinguished into at least two further questions. On the one hand, it can seem to be asking a question at the heart of the philosophical subdiscipline of metaphysics. This question asks about the nature of reality, "what are the things that exist?". The list of things that philosophers debate the existence of include, but are not limited to, : God, souls, minds, persons, freedom, time, causation, natural kinds, social kinds, and ethical truths. However, reasonably claiming that any of these things exist seems to depend on the ability to acquire knowledge of their existence. This introduces the second question implied by asking "what can we know?": "how are we able to achieve knowledge?" While some philosophers (the sceptics) answer this question negatively ("We are unable to achieve knowledge"), others have proposed that we attain knowledge by relying on our reason, our senses, or some combination of both.

Through both historical and contemporary readings, student will:

· Become familiar with some basic philosophical terminology (including what an argument is!)
· Be exposed to some foundational philosophical questions and their answers
· Learn to evaluate arguments addressing those questions by raising objections
· Respond to those questions with arguments of their own

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

PHIL 100W may be applied towards the Writing Requirement and the Breadth-Humanities Requirement.

Videos: Why Study Philosophy? and Meet our professors!

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: