1. The nature of philosophy -- What is philosophy? -- Plato's Myth of the cave -- Plato's Parable and "doing" philosophy -- Assumptions and critical thinking -- The diversity of philosophy -- Reasoning -- The traditional divisions of philosophy -- Epistemology : the study of knowledge -- Avoiding vague and ambiguous claims -- Metaphysics : the study of reality or existence -- Philosophical issues -- Supporting claims with reasons and arguments -- Ethics : the study of values -- Other philosophical inquiries -- A philosopher in action : Socrates -- Euthyphro : do we know what holiness is? -- Evaluating arguments -- The Republic : is justice what benefits the powerful? -- The Apology : Socrates' trial -- Crito : do we have an obligation to obey the law? -- Identifying premises, conclusions, and assumptions -- Breaking the law for the sake of justice -- The value of philosophy -- Achieving freedom -- Building your view of life -- cultivating awareness -- Albert Ellis and rational emotive behavior therapy -- Learning to think critically -- Does philosophy have a male bias? -- The theme of this text -- Reading : "Story of a good Brahman" / Voltaire -- Pre-Socratic Western philosophers -- Eastern philosophers -- 2. Human nature -- Why does your view of human nature matter? -- Deductive arguments, validity, and soundness -- The importance of understanding human nature -- Is selflessness real? -- What is human nature? -- The rationalistic version of the traditional Western view of human nature -- Is human nature irrational? -- The Judeo-Christian version of the traditional Western view of human nature -- The Darwinian challenge -- Inference to the best explanation -- The existentialist challenge -- The feminist challenge -- The mind-body problem : how do mind and body relate? -- The dualist view of human nature -- Evaluating an argument's premises -- The materialist view of human nature -- The mind/brain identity theory of human nature -- The behaviorist view of human nature -- The functionalist view of human nature -- Eliminative materialism -- The new dualism -- Is there an enduring self? -- The soul as the enduring self -- Memory ass the source of the enduring self -- The no-self view -- Are we independent and self-sufficient individuals? -- The atomistic self -- The relational self -- Power and Hegel's view -- Culture and self-identity -- Search for thee real self -- Readings : "The end of the party" / Graham Green -- "The self and substance dualism" / Garrett I. DeWeese and J.P. Moreland -- "The mind-body problem" / John R. Searle -- Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius.
Text of Note
3. Reality and being -- What is real? -- The experience machine, or does reality matter? -- Metaphysical questions of reality -- The search for reality -- Reality : material or nonmaterial? -- Materialism : reality as matter -- Objections to materialism -- The neutrino -- Idealism : reality as nonmatter -- Our knowledge of the world -- Conditional and disjunctive arguments -- Objections to idealism -- Reality in pragmatism -- Pragmatism's approach to philosophy -- The pragmatic method -- Objections to pragmatism -- Reality and logical positivism -- Parallel universes -- Categorical syllogism arguments -- Objections to logical positivism -- Antirealism : the heir of pragmatism and idealism -- Proponents of antirealism -- Objections to antirealism -- Encountering being : reality in phenomenology and existentialism -- Phenomenology -- Existentialism -- Objections to phenomenology and existentialism -- Is freedom real? -- Determinism -- Libertarianism -- Does our brain make our decisions before we consciously make them? -- Compatibilism -- Is time real? -- Time and human life -- Augustine : only the present moment is real -- McTaggart : subjective time is not real -- Kant : time is a mental construct -- Bergson : only subjective time is real -- Readings : "A toast to Captain Jerk" / Russell Maloney -- "Being more real" / Robert Nozick -- Hobbes and Berkeley -- 4. Philosophy, religion, and God -- The significance of religion -- Defining religion -- Religious belief, religious experience, and theology -- Does God exist? -- The ontological argument -- The cosmological argument -- Religion and science -- The design argument -- Arguments by analogy -- Atheism agnosticism, and the problem of evil -- Atheism -- God's omniscience and free will -- Agnosticism -- Formal and informal fallacies -- Traditional religious belief and experience -- Religious belief -- "The will to believe" -- Personal experience of the divine -- Nontraditional religious experience -- Radical theology -- Feminist theology -- Eastern religious traditions -- Readings : "The Brothers Karamazov" (excerpt) / Fyodor Dostoevsky -- "The inductive argument from evil and the human cognitive condition" / William P. Alston -- Aquinas, Descartes, and Conway.
Text of Note
5. The sources of knowledge -- Why is knowledge a problem? -- Acquiring reliable knowledge : reason and the senses -- The place of memory -- Is reason the source of our knowledge? -- Descartes : doubt and reason -- Innate ideas -- Can the senses account for all our knowledge? -- Locke and empiricism -- Science and the attempt to observe reality -- Berkeley and subjectivism -- Hume and skepticism -- Inductive generalizations -- Kant : does the knowing mind shape the world? -- Hume's challenge -- The basic issue -- Space, time, and mathematics -- Knowledge and Gestalt psychology -- Causality and the unity of the mind -- Romantic philosophers -- Constructivist theories and recovered memories -- Does science give us knowledge? -- Inductive reasoning and simplicity -- Society and truth -- The hypothetical method and falsifiability -- Paradigms and revolutions in science -- Distinguishing science from pseudoscience -- Is the theory of recovered memories science or pseudoscience? -- Readings : "An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" / Ambrose Bierce -- "A defense of skepticism" / Peter Ungera -- "How do we know anything?" / Thomas Nagel -- Hume -- 6. Truth -- Knowledge, truth, and justification -- Knowledge as justified true belief -- Justification -- What is truth? -- Correspondence theory -- Coherence theory -- Truth and paradox -- Historical facts -- Pragmatic theory -- Does truth matter? -- Reconciling the theories of truth -- Deflating truth -- Does science give us truth? -- The instrumentalist view -- The realist view -- The conceptual relativist view -- Can interpretations be true? -- Symbolic interpretation and intention -- Wittgenstein and the ideal clear language -- Gadamer and prejudice -- Readings : "In a grove" / Ryunosuke Akutagawa -- "After truth : post-modernism and the rhetoric of science" / Hugh Tomlinson -- "Reality and truth" / John Searle.
Text of Note
7. Ethics -- What is ethics? -- Is ethics relative? -- Do consequences make an action right? -- Ethical egoism -- Utilitarianism -- Some implications of utilitarianism -- Do rules define morality? -- Divine command theory -- Embryonic stem cell research -- Implications of divine command ethics -- Kant's categorical imperative -- Buddhist ethics -- Is ethics based on character? -- Aristotle's theory of virtue -- Love and friendship -- Male and female ethics? -- Can ethics resolve moral quandaries? -- Abortion -- Euthanasia -- Moral reasoning -- Readings : "The heavenly Christmas tree" / Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- "Famine, affluence, and morality" / Peter Singer -- Nietzsche -- Wollstonecraft -- 8. Social and political philosophy -- What is social and political philosophy? -- What justifies the state? -- Hobbes and the war of all against all -- Locke and natural moral laws -- Rousseau and the general will -- Contemporary social contract : Rawls -- The communitarian critique -- Social contract and women -- What is justice? -- The purpose of business -- Justice as merit -- Justice and equality -- Justice as social utility -- Justice based on need and ability -- Justice based on liberty -- Welfare -- Limits on the state -- Unjust laws and civil disobedience -- Freedom -- Human rights -- War and terrorism -- Society and the bomb -- Readings : "All quiet on the Western Front" (excerpt) / Erich Maria Remarque -- "The ethics of war" / Bertrand Russell -- Marx -- Rawls -- 9. Postscript : the meaning of life -- Does life have meaning? -- What does the question mean? -- The theistic response to meaning -- Meaning and human progress -- The nihilist rejection of meaning -- Meaning as a self-chosen commitment.
Text of Note
Ch. 3. Reality and being -- Ch. 4. Philosophy, religion, and God -- Ch. 5. The sources of knowledge -- Ch. 6. Truth -- Ch. 7. Ethics -- Ch. 8. Social and political philosophy -- Ch. 9. Postscript: The meaning of life.