web homepage: faculty.smcm.edu/mstaber
Course Description
In this course, we will address such questions as “How
should we live?”, “What makes a society just?”, “What sorts of things can we
know for sure?”, “What is really real?”, “Am I the three pounds of meat inside
my skull, or am I a soul?”, and “Can as much suffering as there is in our world
be reconciled with the existence of a perfect God?”
You will formulate your own answers on these
weighty matters—but you won’t do it ON your own. We will stand on the
shoulders of giants, by way of important thinkers from across the globe who
have developed their own answers. Plus, we will explore these matters in our
class discussions. But in the end, it will still be for you to endorse, reject,
or combine others’ views, or to develop something of your own.
So this course is about the cosmos. But really about you.
Philosophy is, at least, the persistent attempt to think things through.
Philosophical enterprise calls not just for clearly stating your position on a
certain problem, but also for supporting that position in the face of
possible objections to your views. That is, to think philosophically is to
think an issue through so that you can explain to other people (and, more
importantly, to yourself) what strikes you as sensible about having those
views as opposed to having others. Anyone can say that God does not
exist or that humans can have knowledge of the external world, so we will be
delving deeper to see what support, if any, these claims have. You have
probably already thought about the broad topics we will be discussing this
semester, but the point of this course is to provide you with an opportunity to
think more carefully, more philosophically, about these subjects, all
with a view to developing your skills at thinking carefully about any subject.
To do this, we will be reading what others, ancient and contemporary, and
from a various of cultural backgrounds, have said about these issues, not
necessarily for the sake of agreeing with them (although there certainly will
be readings with which you agree), but rather for the sake of using the
readings to get clear on what some of the questions are within each subject,
what is at stake in each subject, and what some carefully considered positions
look like. So we will be using these readings as springboards for our own
discussions. And these discussions will be the primary concern of the course.
Because philosophy is the development of a certain skill and not the
memorization of a body of knowledge, students will need to engage themselves
with the readings and the class discussions. To engage oneself in this sense is
not merely to pay attention to the material, but to be able to discuss,
question, explain, support, or criticize.
For this reason, being prepared for class is required. Class
preparation is also prudent for yourself, for although our pages will not be
many, the readings do not come from a breezy textbook written by a professor
somewhere last year. We will be reading sources by the philosophers themselves,
ranging over thousands of years and across the globe. Their minds are quick,
and they demand much from their readers, so do not expect to be able to
understand these pieces by reading weeks of material for the first time on the
night or two before an examination or paper is due. Take this under advisement.
Course
learning outcomes
At the completion
of PHIL101, students will be able:
1.
to apply views of ethical
theorists to issues of continuing relevance as demonstrated by applying them to
issues relevant to society or to them personally;
2.
to situate how
thinkers about ethics are responding to other such thinkers as demonstrated by
explaining their similarities and divergences from other thinkers;
3.
to construct a
critique of the reasoning used for various arguments in ethics as demonstrated
by being able to object to thinkers' reasoning in support of their positions;
4.
to ground in primary
sources claims about thinkers in ethics as demonstrated by anchoring their
attributions to thinkers by citing relevant texts;
5.
to demonstrate
effective oral communication of ideas in ethics as demonstrated by contributing
to class discussion or giving class presentation;
6.
to demonstrate
effective written communication of ideas in ethics as demonstrated by writing
well-organized essays.
Land
acknowledgement pledge
We acknowledge that the land on
which we are learning, working, and gathering today is the ancestral home of
the Yacocomico and Piscataway Peoples. We also acknowledge that St. Mary’s City
was partly built and sustained by enslaved people of African descent. Through
this acknowledgement, we recognize these communities and all those who have
been displaced and enslaved through colonization.
The goal of the land
acknowledgement pledge is not only to respect and honor the contributions of
Indigenous Peoples and enslaved peoples of African descent, but to support and
learn from all diverse communities in order to build a more sustainable future.
Course Requirements
The evaluation for the course will be based on these items, out of a
semester total of 200 points:
Work due on a given class day is due at the start of class, unless
otherwise noted. Missing a tutorial costs one full grade, even if the paper is
turned in on time. Late (even barely late) work loses the point
equivalent of one full grade (=10%), and a further grade for each additional
twenty-four hours of lateness. Keep in mind this cost when deliberating about
taking more time in which to complete a paper.
Final letter grades for the course will correspond to the
following percentages:
A- 90–92 A
93–100 A+ **
B- 80–82
B 83–86 B+
87–89
C- 70–72 C
73–76 C+ 77–79
D- ** D
60–66 D+ 67–69
F 0–59 ** = doesn’t exist at SMCM
Attendance policy
Executive summary: Don’t exceed the two-week mark!
You have sensibly chosen a small college. If you had
wanted to be facelessly anonymous, you could have chosen to enroll at Enormous
U. Directly relating to each other about matters of (I’m sure you’ll come to
agree) great importance to us as individuals and as members of communities is
the best of college experiences.
This course is structured as a seminar. That means we
use real-time, in-person discussions to explore, understand, and even disagree
about the text assigned. Even though I have guideposts for the discussions, the
presence or absence of individuals in a class on a given day will shape how
that day’s conversation unfolds and what new understandings we develop as a
class. Missing class isn’t just about missing the content. In this course, it’s
not just about “what we go over,” but “HOW” we go over it that’s critical for
your learning. That’s why showing up matters.
For at least this reason, regular attendance at, and
participation in, the class are central to this course. (Besides, it’s
well-nigh impossible to do well in this course without regular attendance, and
difficult without regular participation.)
For this course, everyone is allowed four absences
(excused or unexcused) per semester. Having a fifth absence—excused or
unexcused—will result in failing the course, despite the quality of the rest of
the student’s work. (Arriving to class more than 20
minutes late or departing from class more than 20 minutes early counts as an
absence.)
(Students using an approved ADA accommodation for
“modified attendance policy” will be granted one extra absence; so the grade
wouldn’t be affected even with five absences, but would automatically become an
F upon the sixth.)
So because this is a Tu/Th class, you get two weeks’
worth of absences. And you fail the course if you exceed that. (Or if you hit
your sixth class, if you have an approved ADA accommodation for modified
attendance policy.)
The one exception to the preceding paragraph is for
students who are forced by quarantine rules to stay away from classes. In such
cases, the student should contact the instructor ASAP—and in any case, prior
to the first class missed due to quarantine.
The first recourse students should use to catch up
when absent—for any reason—is to look for a communication from their Back-Up Buddy,
a system to be explained and signed up for in class. Students can also contact
the instructor for added assistance, of course.
As I hope is obvious—or soon will be once the semester
starts—the fact that you are allowed
these absences without any automatic loss of grade should not be interpreted as
a recommendation to actually use said absences. Not only do you want to
avoid imprudently and prematurely emptying your bank account only to find out
that you’re getting walloped with some virus near the end of the semester, but
your ability to make sense of the material, your ability to become fluent in
philosophically informed ways of thinking, and your ability to succeed in your
assignments would be unhappily compromised in proportion to your number of
absences.
Tutorials
The two papers will be run as paired tutorials.
You will be scheduled in pairs to read your paper to me and to the other
student. We will discuss your paper with you, interrupting you more than once.
Then the other student will read their paper in the same way. So that we may
follow along as you read, ensure that the other student has access to your
paper. Realize that it is your paper which will be graded, not your reading of
it or your answering any questions which I or the other student may bring up.
The purpose of having you read the paper to me is that I can give you most
comments directly and suggest ways to improve your future work. This is much
easier for me to do and much more helpful to you than having you read my
comments in dried ink on a dead piece of paper. Because I will have to schedule
many tutorial sessions, I am canceling class for the days during which the
tutorials will be held.
Writing
Since writing is central to the course, both in
reading others' and in creating your own, respect for writing will manifest
itself even at the level of writing mechanics. You will be expected to take
stylistic and mechanical concerns most seriously in your three papers. As a
motivational aid to this end, you will be allowed two grammatical, spelling, or
punctuation mistakes per page (partial pages counting as full), after which you
will lose one point for each mistake. For example, if you have a 24-point paper
of five pages, and you have made thirteen mechanical errors, then you will
receive a 21 for the paper. N.B.: the same mistake (not just similar)
repeated will count as one mistake. You will be allowed to submit a revised
version with the mechanical errors corrected, and in these cases you will be
assigned the average of your original and revised grade.
You might consider spending a bit of time at my writing site.
Few would fail to benefit.
Personal
electronics
This seminar requires a free-flowing exchange of
ideas, between you and the authors, as well as among us. The presence of
electronic devices, replete with their glowing notifications, creates a barrier
to this flow. Therefore, the use of electronics is allowed in class only by
those accessing the readings electronically or by those with documented needs
of which I’ve been notified by the Office of Academic Services.
Cell phones should be stowed
away in any case, and not simply on the table—even if turned upside down—even
if powered completely off. “Why,” you ask? Well, recent studies indicate the
distracting effect of the mere presence even of a cell phone not one’s own,
laying on a nearby table. In fact, of even a drawing or a thought
of a cell phone. So I hereby prohibit
you during class even to think of a
cell phone. (I’ll keep mine away, too.)
(If a phone is the only way you have of accessing the
readings in class, fine…just give me a heads-up so I know not to bark at you.)
As for note-taking, consult this
study, which found superior recall in students who took notes by
hand compared to those who took them by typing, and this
recent article sums up some of the research findings.
Students with documented disabilities
“Following the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, and applicable state law, St. Mary’s
College of Maryland (SMCM) does not discriminate against any individual on the
basis of handicap or disability. As a result, SMCM will consider requests for
reasonable accommodations for students who self-disclose a disability or
disabling health conditions. Accessibility Services works with students,
faculty, and staff to promote access on our campus.”
The SMCM Office
of Accessibility Services
Academic
integrity
As contagion
Of sickness makes sickness,
Contagion of trust can make trust.
--Marianne
Moore, American poet
from “In Distrust of Merits” (1943)
Academic integrity: The College’s definitions and policies
on this matter are laid out here. Ignorance of such matters is no excuse.
Good (and short!) tutorials on topics like samples of
acceptable and unacceptable paraphrases can be found at a page put up by
Indiana University: https://plagiarism.iu.edu/
Cornell has a quiz you can take to see how well you
understand what sorts of material needs to be sourced: http://plagiarism.arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/exercises.cfm
(Click on “Introduction” on the left-hand side if you want to see their
discussion leading up to the quiz.)
Course Materials
We will be using but one
book this semester:
Voices of Wisdom,
9th edition, edited by Gary E.
Kessler (Wadsworth/Cengage, 2016), ISBN: 9781285874333
The book is available
in our Campus Store for sale or for rent, but it is imperative that you get the
9th edition. (Hence the red and underlined font above.)
Previous editions are missing much of the material in the 9th.
Depending on the path our discussions take, I may
circulate to you as handouts occasional readings not listed in the Course
Schedule.
Also, there is a Google
file for this course, in which will appear such items as sign-up sheets for
Back-up Buddies, tutorials, and some supplementary readings.
Course Schedule
dates
pages readings
|
Value Theory |
||
|
Jan. 18 |
13 |
Chs. 3.1-3.3: Intro,
the Buddha, Confucius |
|
Jan. 20 |
2 8 |
·
Our editor’s (Kessler’s) introductory
couple of pages to 3.4: “Socrates on Living the Examined Life”; no need to
read Plato’s Apology, which follows these couple of pages. (That’s why
the pdf package doesn’t contain the Apology.) ·
Ch. 3.5: Aristotle (It’s 3.5 in our book;
but labeled 2.5 in the pdf package of readings sent to you prior to the first
class. They’re the same Aristotle passages.) ·
A
table of Aristotle’s vices (excesses and defects) and virtues (the mean
between each excess and defect); something like this must have been what he’s
referring to in Book II, chapter 7 when he says, “We may take these cases
from our table.” ·
Consider viewing this
9-minue video. |
|
Jan. 25 |
16 |
Chs. 3.6-3.7: the
Bhagavad-Gita & Jesus |
|
Jan. 27 |
11 |
Ch. 3.8: Dostoevsky Quiz on ch. 3 |
|
Feb. 1 |
7+4 6 |
Chs. 4.1-4.2: Intro
& Kant….+ supplement on Kant (handout) Ch. 4.3: Mill
(skipping the section entitled “Of the Ultimate Sanction of the Principle of
Utility”) |
|
Feb. 3 |
1 2 12 |
Ch. 4.5: Al-Ashari (skipping
Hernandez’ “What If?...”) Taber’s “The Euthyphro Objection to the Divine
Command Theory of Morality”: link Ch. 4.6: Noddings |
|
Feb. 8 |
11 |
4.7: Pojman |
|
Feb. 10 |
12 |
Chs. 5.1-5.2: Intro
& Khaled Abou El Fadl Quiz on ch. 4 |
|
Feb. 15 |
9+8 |
Chs. 5.3 & 5.5:
Marx/Engels & Plato |
|
Feb. 17 |
11 |
Ch. 5.6: King |
|
Feb. 22 |
10 12 |
Ch. 5.7: Deloria Chs. 6.1-6.2: West
& Pharr Quiz on chs. 5 &
6 |
|
|
||
|
Feb. 24 |
Paper due at start
of class time. No classes, due to
tutorials being scheduled. |
|
|
Mar. 1 |
||
|
|
||
|
Epistemology |
||
|
Mar. 3 |
17 |
Chs. 7.1-7.3 (just
up to Meditation II, p. 328): Intro, Al-Ghazali, & Descartes |
|
Mar. 8 |
5+14 |
Ch. 7.3, remainder +
Ch. 7.7: Descartes & Maitra |
|
Mar. 10 |
Mid-term examination |
|
|
|
||
|
Spring recess |
||
|
|
||
|
Metaphysics |
||
|
Mar. 22 |
13 |
Chs. 9.1-9.2: Intro
& Laozi |
|
Mar. 24 |
9 |
Ch. 9.3: Plato |
|
Mar. 29 |
No classes due to
all-day advising |
|
|
Mar. 31 |
14 |
Chs. 9.4-9.5:
Shankara & Berkeley |
|
|
||
|
What Am I? Who
Am I? |
||
|
Apr. 5 |
15 |
Chs. 11.1 &
11.3-11.5: Intro, Searle, Bisson, & the Buddha Quiz on ch. 9 |
|
Apr. 7 |
10 |
Chs. 11.6: Dennett |
|
Apr. 12 |
21 |
Chs. 11.7-11.8:
Gracia & McCloskey |
|
|
||
|
Apr. 14 |
Paper due at start
of class time. No classes, due to tutorials
being scheduled. |
|
|
Apr. 19 |
||
|
|
||
|
Are We Free or
Determined? |
||
|
Apr. 21 |
8 |
Chs. 10.1 &
10.2: Intro & Blatchford |
|
Apr. 26 |
9 + 5 |
Ch. 10.3 & 10.4:
Sartre & Radhakrishnan |
|
Apr. 28 |
13 |
Ch. 10.5: Waller |
|
|
||
|
Saturday, May 7 |
Final exam in our
exam week slot, 2:00-4:15 |
|
Send me mail: mstaber at smcm dot edu
Go to Michael Taber's home page.
Go to the SMCM home page.