Introduction to Philosophy

Daniel Bonevac is Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin. He has been teaching courses in philosophy for more than twenty-five years. His book Reduction in the Abstract Sciences (1982) received the Johnsonian Prize from The Journal of Philosophy. The author of five books and editor or co-editor of three others, Professor Bonevac's recent articles include "Against Conditional Obligation" (Noûs, 1998), "Sellars v. the Given" (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2002), "Reflection Without Equilibrium," Journal of Philosophy (July 2004), "Free Choice Permission Is Strong Permission" (Synthese, 2005, with Nicholas Asher), and "The Conditional Fallacy," (Philosophical Review, 2006, with Josh Dever and David Sosa).

PHL 301

Introduction to Philosophy

This course introduces the central problems of philosophy. It considers solutions proposed by the greatest thinkers of the Western philosophical tradition (and some from non-Western traditions as well).

We will begin by asking what it is to be human, and reflect on the importance of this question for how we live our own lives. Are we minds and bodies? Just minds? Just bodies? What difference does it make? What is it to lead a good human life? We will then move on to questions in the theory of knowledge: What is knowledge? How do we get it? What can we know? Finally, we will raise some of the basic questions of metaphysics: What is there? What is a thing? Do things have essences? Is reality independent of our minds? Is there a God?

Fall 2007: MWF 1:00-2:00, Burdine 106. Unique number: 43635.

Syllabus

8/29 What Philosophy Is 1-7
8/31-9/7 Divided Self: Greek Philosophy 166-168, 313-329, 395-397
9/10-14 Unified Self: Chinese Philosophy 275-277, 329-341, 390-395, 426-429, 432-436
9/17-21 Unified Self: Enlightenment Ethics-- Kant and Mill 357-369, 369-372, 377-390
9/24-28 Unified Self: The Enlightenment 181-188
10/1-5 Review; Exam 1; Friday: No class!
10/8-12 Knowledge and Skepticism 65-100
10/15-19 Rationalism 105-123
10/22-26 Empiricism 123-146
10/29-11/2 Review; Exam 2
11/5-9 Substance and Essence 209-240
11/12-19 Idealism and Realism 240-260
11/24-28 Constructed Objects and Constructed Selves 168-180, 188-204, 354-357, 397-399
12/3-7 Truth 7-20
12/14 Final Exam (9-12)

Announcements

Thanks for a great semester. Congratulations on surviving it! Scores for the final are now posted on eGradebook. The scores you see are CURVED. I added 10 points to the mandatory part, bringing the median to 78; 14 points to the first optional part, bringing the average to 68; and 20 points to the second optional part, bringing the average to 65.

If you see a 10, 14, or 20 for an exam you did not take, don't be alarmed; it's an artifcact of the program and won't affect your final average, which will be posted on Monday.

Some of you have extremely low scores. Don't panic! I suspect you put your exam in the wrong pile, so it was graded by the wrong key. I'll be investigating that over the weekend.

For the few students who have yet to take the exam: There are three parts, only one of which is required.

The mandatory part covers just the last third of the course, on metaphysics. Quotations will be from Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, or Kant. The review slides and a practice exam are available, as are answers.

There will be an optional part covering the first part of the course, on ethics. There are review slides and a practice exam for that, with answers. If you score higher on this optional part than you did on exam 1, it will replace your score on that exam.

There will be another optional part of the exam covering the second part of the course, on epistemology. There is a practice exam available (with a few questions on aspects of Hume we didn't get to, that will be on the mandatory part of the final). Answers are available. So are slides from the review.

The optional portions count only if you score higher than you did on the original exams. You cannot hurt your grade by taking them.

Required Text

Daniel Bonevac, Worldly Wisdom (Mountain View: Mayfield, 2001).

Requirements

There are two paths to a grade in this course. The path of reflection emphasizes the homework writing assignments, though exams are also important. The path of examination emphasizes the exams, though the homework remains important. We will figure your grade according to both paths and assign you the higher grade.

Path of Reflection Path of Examination

Exam 1 15% 25%

Exam 2 15% 25%

Final Exam 15% 25%

Homework 55% 25%

The midterm exams (Wednesday, October 3, and Friday, November 2) will consist of 55 multiple-choice questions. Roughly half will be quotations; you will have to identify the authors.

The final exam (Friday, December 14, 9 am - 12 noon, in a room to be determined) will consist of a mandatory part, that everyone will have to take, and optional parts that can replace one or both of your first two exam scores if that will help your grade. Both parts will be similar in form to the midterm exams: 55 multiple-choice questions, about half of which will be quotations.

Your homework grade will be based on three papers (max. 1500 words) on topics to be assigned, due on September 24, October 29, and December 3. Email your paper to your reader. Do NOT use Blackboard, and do NOT send it to Professor Bonevac. He is easily confused.

September 24: Confucius maintains that all virtues depend ultimately on virtues of thought. Evaluate that claim from the perspective of Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle.

October 29: Pierre Gassendi objects to Descartes's cogito:

you conclude that the proposition I am or I exist is true whenever it comes before you, i.e. is conceived by your mind. But I can't see that you needed all this apparatus, when you were already rightly certain, on other grounds, that you existed. You could have made the same inference from any one of your other actions, since it is known by the natural light that whatever acts exists.

Descartes responds:

You say that I could have made the same inference from any one of my other actions, but that is far from the truth, because my thought is the only one of my actions of which I am completely certain-- I'm talking here about metaphysical certainty, because that's what this is all about. For example, I can't say 'I am walking, therefore I exist', except by adding to my walking my awareness of walking, which is a thought. The inference is certain-- meaning that it makes the conclusion certain-- only if its premise concerns this awareness, and not the movement of my body; because it can happen, e.g. in dreams, that I seem to myself to be walking but am really not doing so. And so from the fact that I think I am walking I can very well infer the existence of a mind that thinks but not the existence of a body that walks. And the same holds for all the other cases.

Discuss this disagreement, identify the central issue, and give your own reasons for resolving it in favor of Gassendi or Descartes.

December 3: Can an idealist distinguish real from nominal essences? Why, or why not?