Date |
Topics |
Reading
green=optional
|
| Tuesday, January 12 |
Introduction to the course |
none |
| Thursday, January 14 |
What is a good argument? (mov) |
none |
| Does God exist? |
| Tuesday, January 19 |
Aquinas' second way (mov) |
Aquinas' 2nd way |
| Thursday, January 21 |
Aquinas' third way (mov) |
Aquinas' 3rd way
|
| Friday, January 22 |
1st draft of minipaper due in discussion sections |
| Tuesday, January 26 |
Leibniz's cosmological argument (mov) |
Leibniz, "On the ultimate origination of things"
|
| Thursday, January 28 |
The design argument (mov) |
Aquinas' 5th way
Paley, Natural Theology (excerpt)
Darwin, "Organs of extreme perfection and complication"
Rees, Just Six Numbers (excerpt)
|
| Tuesday, February 2 |
The argument from miracles (mov) |
Hume, "Of miracles" |
| Thursday, February 4 |
Pascal's wager (mov) |
Pascal, "The wager"
|
| Friday, February 5 |
Revised analysis & objection due in discussion sections |
| Tuesday, February 9 |
The problem of evil (mov) |
Mackie, "Evil and omnipotence" (excerpt) |
| Thursday, February 11 |
The free will defense
(guest lecture: Vince Evans) |
Plantinga, "The free will defense" (excerpt)
van Inwagen, "The problem of evil" (excerpt)
|
| Freedom of the will |
| Tuesday, February 16 |
Free will and determinism (mov) |
van Inwagen, "The powers of rational beings" (excerpt)
Hume, "Of liberty and necessity" (excerpt)
Frankfurt, "Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility" (excerpt) |
| Thursday, February 18 |
class canceled |
| Tuesday, February 23 |
Free will and determinism, continued (mov) |
none |
| Thursday, February 25 |
Fate and free will (mov) |
Taylor, "Fate"
Chiang, "What's expected of us"
|
| Friday, February 26 |
1st 5-7 page paper due in discussion sections |
| Tuesday, March 2 |
Free will & divine foreknowledge (mov) |
Edwards, Freedom of the Will (excerpt) |
| Thursday, March 4 |
Midterm exam |
| Spring break |
| Materialism vs. dualism vs. idealism |
| Tuesday, March 16 |
Personal identity and dualism (mov) |
Descartes, Meditations (excerpt)
Jackson, "What Mary didn't know"
|
| Thursday, March 18 |
Challenges for the dualist (mov) |
van Inwagen, "Dualism and physicalism" (excerpt) |
| Tuesday, March 23 |
Materialism & the psychological theory of persons (mov) |
van Inwagen, "Dualism and personal identity" (excerpt)
Locke, "Of identity and diversity" (excerpt)
Reid, "Of Mr. Locke's account of our personal identity" |
| Thursday, March 25 |
The psychological theory & the dissolving self (mov) |
Williams, "The self and the future" (excerpt)
Parfit, Reasons and Persons (excerpt)
Nagel, "Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness" (excerpt) |
| Tuesday, March 30 |
Idealism and perceptual variation (mov)
|
Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (excerpt) |
| Thursday, April 1 |
Idealism and paradox: Kant on divisibility (mov) |
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (excerpt) |
| Ethics |
| Tuesday, April 6 |
Moral absolutism, moral nihilism, moral relativism (mov) |
MacIntyre, "Moral pluralism without moral relativism" |
| Thursday, April 8 |
Moral responsibility & moral luck (mov) |
Nagel, "Moral luck" |
| Tuesday, April 13 |
Egoism (mov) |
Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (excerpt)
Plato, Republic II (excerpt)
|
| Thursday, April 15 |
Our duties to the poor (html) |
Singer, "Famine, affluence, and morality" |
| Tuesday, April 20 |
Consequentialism (html) |
Nozick, "The experience machine"
Thomson, "Killing, letting die, and the trolley problem"
|
| Thursday, April 22 |
Kant's ethics (html) |
Kant, Groundwork (selection) |
| Friday, April 23 |
2nd 5-7 page paper due in discussion sections |
| Tuesday, April 27 |
Divine command theory (html) |
Plato, Euthyphro (selection)
Cudworth, A Treatise Concerning Eternal & Immutable Morality (selection)
|
| Thursday, May 6 |
Final exam (10:30-12:30 in usual classroom) |