Schedule

Tuesday & Thursday, 11:00-12:15 in 127 Nieuwlands Hall

Topic

Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate nature of reality. Epistemology is the study of what we can know about reality. This introduction to metaphysics and epistemology will focus on a few big questions:

• Does God exist?
• Do we have free will?
• What am I?
• What can I know?
• How should I live?

The focus of the class will be on students learning how to formulate, defend, and respond to objections to their own answers to these basic questions, rather than on learning how others have answered these questions (though of course we will do some of the latter as well).

The course is divided into five sections, with each section devoted to one big question. There will be a short paper assignment for each section. Every student will write at least four of these short papers. (You have a choice about whether to write just four, or write all five and have your best four count toward your grade.)

At the end of each section of the course, we'll meet for a discussion day, in which the class will break into small groups. The first half of each discussion day will be devoted to discussion of the rough drafts of everyone's short paper. The second half of each discussion day will be devoted to discussion of a film or TV episode which addresses the topic of that section of the course. Everyone will be in charge of leading one of the discussion days.

Texts

All readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.

Assignments

Students will write four short (2-3 page) papers for the course, and one final paper.

Grading

Your grade will be determined as follows:

• 15% for each of your four short papers
• 25% for your final paper
• 15% for participation in lecture and discussion days

Students who write all five of the short papers will have their best four selected for purposes of the final grade.

To pass the class, students need to complete four short apers and the final paper.

Late papers will be penalized three points per day.

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.

The most common type of honor code violation occurs when a student reads an internet source while working on a paper and — either intentionally or unintentionally — uses material from that source in his or her paper, but does not cite the source. If you read something not assigned in this course as part of your work on a paper, you must cite the source, whether or not you quote anything from that source.

If you are in doubt about what the honor code requires of you in a particular case, please ask me or your TA.

Contact information

You should feel free to get in touch with me or your designated teaching assistant 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. You can 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. You can book a time to meet with me here.

Teaching assistants

There are three teaching assistants for the class, who do the grading for the course, hold office hours, and are in general available outside of class to help you with the material. While there are no discussion sections for the course, each student is assigned to a TA. (I'll distribute these assignments in the second week of class.)

Yu Qiu office hours: M 11-12 + TH 9:30-10:30 + by appointment in Malloy 118 assigned students: A-F

Will Shankles office hours: W 11-12 + TH 3:30-4:30 + by appointment in Malloy 117 assigned students: G-Pa

Emily Spencer office hours: W 1-2 + TH 1-2 + by appointment in Malloy 213 assigned students: Pi-Z

Discussion groups

There are 12 discussion groups for the course, which share an online web forum and meet on the five "discussion days" listed on the syllabus. Here are the groups, meeting locations, and schedules:

Discussion group 1 A-Bo Meeting location: the usual classroom schedule	Discussion group 2 Bu-Chi Meeting location: the basement of LaFortune, near Taco Bell schedule	Discussion group 3 Chu-De Meeting location: the basement of LaFortune schedule
Discussion group 4 Do-F Meeting location: the 1st floor of LaFortune, by the box office schedule	Discussion group 5 G-J Meeting location: the basement of LaFortune schedule	Discussion group 6 K-Le Meeting location: Hesburgh 247 schedule
Discussion group 7 Lo-Me Meeting location: 1st floor of LaFortune on the side near God Quad schedule	Discussion group 8 Mi-Pa Meeting location: Hesburgh 125 schedule	Discussion group 9 Pi-R Meeting location: Hesburgh 116 schedule
Discussion group 10 Sa-St Meeting location: LaFortune TV room schedule	Discussion group 11 Su-Ve Meeting location: the Innovation Room in the basement of LaFortune schedule	Discussion group 12 Vi-Z Meeting location: the common area at the entrance to Stepan Hall schedule