Seminar Requirements
Philosophy 383—From Neurons to Selves
Michael Taber
Spring 2026

Because the readings will be the springboards for our discussions, and because our discussions will be the primary focus of the seminar, you will be required to keep up with the readings.

Your evaluation for the seminar will be based on the following, with their point values (out of a semester total of 200):

As this is an upper-division seminar, you are expected to contribute to making this a seminar. This means more than you being present, more than you speaking only when called upon, and more than speaking up on your own only once every few weeks. It also does not mean merely talking often, as if the more sound waves created, the better.

Students can expect the Engaged Learning element of this course to focus on engagement with the readings by addressing instructor-composed handouts and questions while doing the readings, and to share their insights with the class.

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 hit 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 three 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 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.

Discussion leading

Each of you will lead 15-20 minutes of a class session about one of the readings (your choice) for that day (again, your choice). This is not a lecture, for your time should instigate and incorporate discussion among the other students—even if you have to spend three minutes giving a mini-lecture about this, or four minutes about that.

 

We all will have read the piece you have selected, so your job is not to provide us with a review of the reading. You might, however, make explicit for us what the problem is that the author is trying to solve, what the author’s proposed solution is, what some objections are (whether addressed by the author, or not) to that proposed solution, what some tie-ins are to readings we have done or to other discussions we will have had, etc.

 

In planning the arc of your discussion, you are free to use an excerpt from the article, a video, a podcast excerpt, a poem, a PowerPoint, a song, group work, etc.

 

Your leading should not consist of simply reading notes, reading off PowerPoint slides (shudder!), or something similarly disheartening. Nor is this an oral book report. That’s what middle school was for. You have to remain true to the material, while at the same time respecting your audience (which requires, at the very least, keeping them awake!).

 

The sessions that are available for leading are marked with asterisks on the course schedule. See the key at the top of the seminar schedule page.

 

Evaluation of the discussion leading is based on:

·       evidence of preparation—e.g., does your leading seem well organized? Does the timing and sequencing indicate practice? (4 points)

·       command of the material—e.g., do you correctly understand the author’s points? Does that come through? (8 points)

·       quality of the manner of your leading—e.g., is your leading clear? Did you exert the leadership needed to avoid becoming a mere traffic cop (“Next!”)? If there were available tie-ins (internal tie-in: to a comment someone made 20 minutes ago; external tie-in: to a reading from last week), did you avail yourself of them? (8 points)

Final Paper

Your final paper will be a research paper of at least 8 pages on some topic relevant to the material of this course. The way in which it relates is up to you, in consultation with the instructor, but should utilize (in a meaningful way—merely quoting from is not a meaningful way) at least four sources, whether books or articles, as follows:

·       At least two should be a peer-reviewed source from outside our course.

·       At least one should be a reading that we have done in this course.

 

Tip 1: Google Scholar screens out lots of internet noise, and will yield only academic sources. (Though not all these sources are peer-reviewed, so you’d still have to check that. It’s fine to use such sources; they just don’t count towards the two peer-reviewed sources you need.)

 

Tip 2: The Philosopher’s Index is a good database to use specifically for philosophical, peer-reviewed articles, and our library subscribes to it. Click on the “Databases” button on our library’s home page, then go to the letter “P.”

 

Think of your research paper as your answer to a question. Which question you select is up to you, though it should be neither so general that your paper would consist of platitudes, nor so specific that you would have trouble finding sources. (In our experience as instructors, the former is a more common mistake than the latter.)

 

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 in order to access the readings online or by those with documented needs of which I’ve been notified by official channels.


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 even 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)

The College’s definitions and policies about academic misconduct are laid out here.  Ignorance of such matters is no excuse. Academic misconduct can result in automatic failure of the course, regardless of how well a student has been doing on other assignments. In addition, extra-course penalties may be pursued, like being prohibited from ever re-taking the class.

 

“So, what about using a chatbot?”

Using AI, including platforms like ChatGPT or Bard, can be helpful as a tool in studying for exams. There’s no guarantee that the info you get from it will be accurate or to the point of the question. So you have to refuse to surrender your good judgment. It’s ill-advised to parrot what a chatbot tells you the answer is, just as it is to assume that the first hit on a Google search for “best Thai restaurant near me” will delight your palate.

            “OK, but what about for writing papers?

AI can also be useful as a resource for getting clear on some issues that you would need to understand in order to write the paper, as would consulting Wikipedia or YouTube videos. In order, that is for YOU to write the paper.

1.     It’s fine by me for you to use AI as a RESOURCE, pre-writing.

 

AI can also be helpful as an editor, to do proofreading and grammar- and spell-checking, and to improve the organization of a paper. I’m not saying that the suggestions you get will always be correct, of course. Don’t outsource your common sense. Also, be wary of missing an opportunity to *learn* how a proposed revision of, say, a given wording is an improvement. (Assuming, of course, that it is an improvement.)

2.     It’s fine by me for you to use AI as an EDITOR, post-writing.

 

Where AI software should NOT be used is as an author. For YOU are the author, and to represent the work of another (whether of another person or of a software application) as if it were YOUR work is clearly plagiarism. As with using any other source, you should not copy and paste into your paper any content you did not create.

3.     It’s def NOT fine by me for you to use AI as an AUTHOR, doing the writing.

 

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/

Send me mail:  mstaber at smcm dot edu

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