Topic
Bertrand Russell suggested that philosophical theories can be tested by their ability to deal with logical puzzles. This is the approach to philosophy that we will take in this course. The puzzles with which we will be concerned are paradoxes: sets of propositions each member of which is intuitively true but which nonetheless seem jointly inconsistent. Paradoxes of various sorts have been a focus of study in almost every area of philosophy; accordingly, this course will use paradoxes as a tool to raise questions about the following topics, among others: the nature of space and time; the nature of physical objects and change; the possibility of an omniscient and/or omnipotent God; the rules which govern what we rationally ought to believe, and what we rationally ought to do. We will also discuss more purely logical paradoxes such as the sorites, the liar, and Russell's paradox. A subsidiary aim of the course will be to help students to appreciate the importance of consistent beliefs and to improve their ability to think clearly about the logical relations between claims.Texts
Students will be required to purchase Sainsbury's Paradoxes (3d edition, isbn 0521720796). Copies are available in the bookstore or online. Other readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.
Assignments
There will be a midterm and non-cumulative final exam, along with two five-page papers and, perhaps, a few in-class quizzes thrown in for good measure.
Grading
There are four main assignments for the course:
- Two 5 page papers, each worth 20% of your final grade.
- A midterm exam, worth 25% of your final grade.
- A non-cumulative final exam, also worth 25% of your grade.
The remaining 10% of your grade will be based on class participation, which may include several in-class quizzes.
Each of the main written assignments is required, in the sense that failure to complete one or more assignments is sufficient to fail the course.
Notre Dame has no official way of indexing numerical grades to letter grades. This is the system that will be used in this course:
| A | 94+ |
| A- | 90-93 |
| B+ | 87-89 |
| B | 83-86 |
| B- | 80-82 |
| C+ | 77-79 |
| C | 73-76 |
| C- | 70-72 |
| D | 60-69 |
| F | 59- |
Honor code
In all of their assignments, students are responsible for compliance with the University’s honor code, information about which is available here. You should acquaint yourself with the policies and penalties described there.Sometimes, it can be hard to know what, exactly, the honor code implies with respect to different disciplines. For this reason, the philosophy department has prepared a document explaining, using examples, what the honor code requires of students when writing a philosophy paper. I strongly recommend that you read this document, which is available here. It is possible to violate the honor code without intending to do so; the best way to avoid this is to carefully read through the philosophy department's guidelines.
If you are in doubt about what the honor code requires of you in a particular case, please ask me.
How to access readings for the course
Online readings for the course are accessible via links from the syllabus. All readings are in PDF format. In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with downloading, reading, and printing PDF files, one easy way to do this is by downloading them by right-clicking (control-click on a Mac), and saving the linked file to your computer, then opening the downloaded file using Adobe Reader, Preview, or some other PDF viewer, and printing from that application.
When you click on the link for a paper, you'll be asked to enter a user name and password. You should enter the user name and password that you use to access your Notre Dame email.
If you are having trouble getting access to the papers, one of the following tips might help:
1. If your netID and password are being rejected, assuming that you have not forgotten your password, the most likely explanation is that your name has not yet been added to the list of permitted users for this course. If this is the case, send me an email with your netID so that I can fix the problem. (There is no need to send me your password as well.)
2. If a link which you expected to see is not appearing, try refreshing your browser.
3. If when you click on a link nothing seems to happen, or a blank screen appears, your browser may have downloaded the PDF to a location on your computer. Try searching your computer for the file, or right-clicking the link and saving the file to an easy-to-find location on your computer, like the Desktop.
4. Try using a different browser.
5. If none of these work, send me an email.
Writing philosophy papers
The best guide to writing a philosophy paper that I've seen was written by Jim Pryor; you can find it here. It is especially useful for beginning students, but advanced students will also learn something from it. I also highly recommend his guides to reading philosophical prose and philosophical terms and methods.
Here are some things to keep in mind when writing a philosophy paper. First: a philosophy paper is an argument. Like all arguments, your paper will contain premises and a conclusion. It should be very clear to the reader what the premises and conclusion of your argument are. (This doesn't mean that you have to write out the argument in "numbered premise" form, though it's fine if you want to do so.) Since your paper is an argument, it will be judged according to the standards of good argumentation. In particular, the argument of your paper should be clearly articulated, should show an understanding of the subject matter of the argument, and should be valid. You should also try your best to explain why the premises on which your conclusion depends are plausible.
Many of you will have learned various rules of academic writing in high school, or in other humanities courses. You should ignore these rules unless they are useful for constructing good arguments. Some examples of rules which are not useful are the following:
When editing drafts of your paper, you should ask yourself, of each sentence in your paper: "Does this sentence make my argument clearer, or more convincing?" If it does not, delete it.1. Every paper should begin with a paragraph which begins with a very general statement, and then narrows down to a thesis statement. Usually, this sort of thing adds nothing to the argument which follows. If it doesn't, you should delete it.
2. Avoid repeating terms; instead, look up a synonym and use that. Remember that the point of your paper is to construct a clear argument. The best way to clearly indicate that you are talking about the same thing over the course of your paper is to stick to a single term for it.
3. Never use the first person pronoun. Your paper will be a defense of your views about the topic in question. It is often easiest to express the fact that something is your view by saying something like "I believe that ..." It is perfectly fine to say this sort of thing, and much preferable to roundabout phrases like "The author of this paper believes that ..."
Before writing papers, and before turning them in, you should review the philosophy department's guidelines regarding plagiarism. They do an excellent job of clearly explaning what the university honor code implies with respect to philosophical writing.
Philosophy on the internet
The internet offers a wealth of terrible philosophy. Fortunately, it also offers some very good philosophy.
In my view, the best philosophy resource on the internet is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Another good resource, which occasionally covers topics not covered by the SEP, is the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is only accessible if you are on the ND network or that of another subscribing institution).The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy can also be valuable. Wikipedia is much, much less reliable.
Increasingly, journal articles are also available online (though, as above, usually only if you are connected to a university network). JStor is an especially good place to download articles (though usually not articles from the last few years) from a number of leading philosophy journals.
Notre Dame's library also contains links to online resources. If you are searching for an article online, a good place to begin is with the library's QuickSearch for Philosophy.
Philosophy at Notre Dame
Notre Dame offers a few different options for students interested in pursuing a major, minor, or interdisciplinary minor. For an overview of the various options, click here.
There are lots of philosophy-related events at Notre Dame. A useful overview is on the department's event page.
On the department web page you can also view course descriptions for current and upcoming philosophy courses.
Contact information
You should feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions about the course, or about how you're doing in the course, or if you just want to pursue some of the topics we're discussing further.
My spring semester office hours are Wednesdays from 12:00-1:00, and by appointment. My office is 205 Malloy Hall, and my office phone is (574) 631-6468.
You can also always get in touch with me by email, and this often the easiest route if you just have a quick question about the readings or assignments.
There are also four TA's for the course, who will be doing all grading of written assignments. Contact information for the TA's — including office hours, email addresses, and information about which students are assigned to which TA — is available here.
Teaching assistants
There will be four teaching assistants for the course, who will be grading the written assignments. Once add/drops are complete, I will assign students to a TA by alphabetical order; this information will be available to you below.
Contact information for the TA's for this course is as follows:
| Ryan Kemp office hours: Monday & Wednesday, 3:00-4:00 in Decio Commons; and by appointment grader for: And-Cul |
Alex Stern office hours: Monday & Wednesday, 3:00-4:00 in 200 Malloy; and by appointment grader for: Kelly-Run |
Bradley Rettler |
Aaron Wells |
Note that if you cannot make the office hours of the TA assigned as your grader, you should feel free to contact him to make an appointment to meet at another time.