Distance Learning Introduction to Philosophy Fall, 2006

Distance Learning Introduction to Philosophy Fall, 2006

Do not panic!! These nineteen pages are your guide for succeeding in the semester, the first eleven should be carefully read before you do any of the reading and watching. Understanding these first pages is crucial to your success in the semester. The remaining pages describe the weekly lessons and assignments.

Why do philosophy at all?

Here is an answer from The Economist in an unsigned book review of two philosophy books (December 17th, 2005 [volume 377, number 8457], pg 82):

“. . . philosophy’s promise to clarify has growing appeal. . . . When arguments themselves turn on contentious principles - majority rule, moral truth, science against faith – philosophy will not go away. Shut the door, and back it comes through the window. Philosophy, once readmitted, then turns a characteristic trick. It makes you think how you should be arguing about those principles and tries to make plain what should count as good and bad reasons. It guarantees no answers but does offer the wherewithal to recognize genuine answers when they appear.”

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This course requires you to have access to the internet and have the ability to upload and download files from the course site. See section C of this syllabus

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FROM SOCRATES TO SARTRE FALL, 2006

Distance LearningFROM SOCRATES TO SARTRE FALL, 2005DistanD Introduction to Philosophy (PHL 101, 9442)

(This has been called a “tele-web course’ in the past, it is now labeled as a “Video Enhanced Online Class”. The meaning is the same, the course moves forward with a combination of on-line material and video broadcasts. The WEB based components are via video components are on PGCC cable – Comcast Cable ch 75, ch 53 [AAFB]. The broadcasts are aired nine times a week: Tuesday 5 - 6 am, 11 – 12 noon, 7 -8 pm, Thursday 6 - 7 am, noon – 1 pm, 9 - 10 pm, and Friday 5 – 6 am, 1 - 2 pm, 8 - 9 pm. Although the college’s course schedule and the distance learning website says that video rentals are available, they are not. Instead you can also watch the video’s in the college’s learning center.)

This course does not require you to come to the campus after the required orientation session on August 24 All required meetings with your classmates and your instructor will be on-line and there will be no on-campus testing. I am willing to meet with you face-to-face during my office hours or by appointment. You might also want to set up a face-to-face study session with one or more of your classmates but it would be up to you to arrange the time and meeting place for that.

Here is another take on what philosophy is trying to do:

“There is a frozen sea within us. Philosophy is an ax.

“Everything you believe is questionable. How deeply have you questioned it? The uncritical acceptance of beliefs handed down to you by parents, teachers, politicians and religious leaders is dangerous. Many of these beliefs are simply false. Some of them are lies designed to control you. Even when what has been handed down is true, it is not your truth. To merely accept anything without questioning it is to be somebody else’s puppet, a second hand person.”

Daniel Kolak and Raymond Martin, The Experience of Philosophy,fifth edition, Wadsworth, 2002, p.1.

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Prerequisites for the course:

1) The ability to read at the college level None of the philosophy texts can be comprehended if you are still taking developmental reading - wait until you have

completed at least one college-level course which required you to read extensively (perhaps Literature, or History).

2) The ability to write at the college level. The college’s writing center can coach you in this, but for this course, you have to be able to express yourself clearly and coherently at the college level. If you are taking or have just completed a developmental writing course, wait to take this course until you have completed at least one semester of college composition.

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THREE ADVISORIES:

1) This is a course which requires you to manage your time well. You need to schedule doing the lessons and replying to the weekly questions with the same or greater rigor as you would for an on-campus course. The course will save you commuting time to the college, but it still demands at least as much time as you would put into a face-to-face class (combining in class time and preparation time, that turns out to be at least nine hours per week for a three credit course). Most students find that it requires even more time than they are used to spending on a face-to-face class.

2) The college must report those who are not “in class” to state and federal funding agencies. In this course, not being “in class” means that you have not turned in the work that had been due by the reporting date (usually four to five weeks into the semester), so do not procrastinate on those first lessons. If you have not done the work required in those early weeks, you will be dropped from the class and assigned a “Q” grade. The “Q” does not impact on your grade point average, but it does remove you from the class and may then impact on your enrollment status and thus on your financial aid.

3) Since you will be relying on your computer and its connection to the internet, there is always a danger that a computer virus could infect your machine. Be sure that your virus protection is up to date (I know that both McAfee and Norton update their virus protection files every week) and

turned on. It also helps to be sure that Word’s “Macro Virus Protection” is turned on (checked) - go to “Tools, 0ptions, General”. If I receive a virus contaminated file from you I will not open it and thus you will not receive a grade for it.

OBJECTIVES for all the introductory philosophy courses at the college (these are general categories – each faculty member can select various sub-headings of these):

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. demonstrate a passion for truth

2. show independent thinking

3.know what a philosophical issue is

4.establish a community of intellectual cooperation

OBJECTIVES of this course:

to give you a familiarity with six of the great minds of Western Philosophy and a scattering of others: Socrates, Plato, a bit on Augustine and Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, a bit on Kant and Berkeley and Locke, Hegel, Marx, a bit on Kierkegaard, Sartre, and a bit on Heidegger and Wittgenstein.(The names in italics are the ones upon whom Dr. Lavine will focus.) When you finish the course you will have a sense of how ideas developed in Europe over the last 2500 years. These ideas are important to know (they are the foundations of our political and ethical life), but they do not cover the entire scope of philosophy today. Such coverage would require several more courses. [Areas not covered this semester include some important areas of Western thought: there is next to nothing on Islamic and Jewish philosophers, nothing on American philosophers, nothing at all on feminist philosophers - although some feminist thinkers today credit Hume and Marx with part of their inspiration and methodology. The other huge gap is that there is nothing on Asian, subSaharan, or indigenous philosophies.]

In addition the course seeks to help you improve your thinking skills by inviting you to dialogue with these minds it will be impossible to agree with all of them, and it may be possible to disagree with each one. Philosophers are not correct in their theories merely because they are given time by Dr. Lavine. In fact, their relative importance may depend upon the fact that they were mostly wrong in their answers but asked exceedingly important questions which subsequent philosophers wrestled with in trying to come up with better answers.

At the end of the semester you should be able to accurately distinguish between these philosophers’ ideas (for example, you should be able to identify the difference between Plato and Hegel in their ideas about the state; or see that Hume’s atheism is different than Sartre’s).

You should also be better able to express your ideas clearly and coherently.

And you should have had fun in the process. (Most of the fun rests in letting yourself get into the mind of the philosopher in question and suddenly seeing why he is asking his question.)

INSTRUCTOR:

Clyde Ebenreck, (more details about me appear on the Blackboard site)

Office: Marlboro 3023

(Campus Mail Box: Marlboro 3072)

Campus office hours: MWF 9-11

(I am often on campus at other times, but call first to save yourself the trip if you want to see me face to face.)

Distance Learning office hours (chat sessions): will be posted on the Blackboard Course site.

Phone: 3013220947 (office, has voice mail)

The best way to reach me is email:

On an e-mail message, clearly indicate PHL 101 DL in the "subject" or "topic" area, otherwise I may not recognize your name and delete the message unread and unanswered. Also add the code CCGP06 to the subject line, this is a code that tells the college’s spam filter that your message is a legitimate one.

I usually check my mail daily, so you can expect a reply within 24 to 36 hours.

Mailing/hand delivery address (you would use this only if your computer broke down or your internet provider was not functioning - the ordinary and required way of sending me your lesson is by means of the Blackboard course site [more on that later]):

Clyde Ebenreck

Philosophy Department

Prince George's Community College

301 Largo Road

Largo, MD 20772

No FAX number

REQUIRED BOOKS

T.Z. Lavine's From Socrates to Sartre: the Philosophical Quest.

Dr. Lavine is the video lecturer you will be watching, and this book is the complete text of her talks. The sequence of programs follows the chapters in her book

(only the last program is not presented in print format), but note that the book’s Introduction is program 1 in the TV series, so Program 2 is contained in the book’s "Chapter l", Program 3 is "Chapter 2" and so on. This book will simplify your note taking from the screen (and, if you really want to, free you from the screen and cable completely the broadcasts add no new content <all the words are practically identical> to the book, but they do make it easier for some students to get what the book is talking about)

Gurland, From Socrates to Sartre: study guide.

This will direct you through the supplemental readings and give you background information on the programs as presented. The questions you need to answer each week come directly from the study guide, and they cannot be answered adequately without using the material in the guide.

And a book for self-study: A Rulebook for Arguments, third edition: Anthony Weston.

Philosophy is about putting together good arguments for a position that you hold to be true. . . this book shows you how to do that and how to recognize good arguments when others (politicians or philosophers) fail to do so. It is an excellent guide to constructing valid and useful arguments. Before you write your final paper it would be very advisable to have read through this book (especially chapters VII - IX “Composing an Argumentative Essay”) and absorbed its basic guidelines. (This book is required in all of my on-campus and distance learning courses, so if it is not on the bookstore shelf next to the Socrates to Sartre books it may be elsewhere in the philosophy section.)

ADDITIONAL BOOKS (SUGGESTED, NOT REQUIRED)

The introduction to the study guide lists the books that the guide and Dr. Lavine are referring to. These books are available for optional purchase in the bookstore (you will get the fullest benefit from the course by consulting these books, but they are not required). (If you are going to purchase some, but not all, I would strongly urge both the Plato and the Marx, then, next in the order of priority, I would put Hume and Sartre, then finally Descartes and Hegel.) Copies of these books are also on reserve in the library: ask at the circulation desk. These reserved books can only be used in the library, they cannot be checked out.

THE WORK OF THE SEMESTER

A) any time you have QUESTIONS either about what the lessons or the assignments mean contact me by way of Blackboard’s discussion board (your question may well be important for all the members of the class, so I will answer those questions for the whole class). I check the site daily, so you can usually expect a response within 24 hours. You would be well advised to check into the forum at

least once a week to catch any information I may be sharing and to take part in the ongoing discussions which apply what you have been learning to the current world.

This web site will also have brief hints specific to each lesson’s question.

IF it looks like the class needs a quiz, it will be posted to this same location.

B)In taking the course you will need to READ the study guide and WATCH the programs, and you will profit from also working your way through the readings that the study guide lists at the start of each lesson. However those readings are not required and you can pass the course by concentrating on understanding the programs and the study guide (in the past, those who have gotten an “A” in the course have also often done those readings).

NOTE: “understanding” the text, does not mean repeating what the book says in your answer, but rather using your own words and examples to show that you grasped the idea or issue. If I find your wording to be close to the wording of the text, you will not be able to earn full credit for your answer. It is wisest to use your own words even if you think the author says just what you want to say but in a better way. Let me alert you here – I have access to Turnit-In.com which is a massive on-line data base which allows me to easily and quickly compare your words to those of published (on paper or electronically) authors. If I find your words to be the same as theirs you would be guilty of plagiarism (see page 10 of this syllabus).

IF you are unable to watch the program for any reason, you can come to campus and watch the program in the library, or you can simply read Dr. Lavine’s book. There is no reason to miss an assignment simply because you missed the broadcast or your VCR did not record it.

C)Since philosophy is a process of thinking rather than a process of memorizing certain bits of data, there will be NO TESTS in the usual sense, although I reserve the right to post an occasional QUIZ if it seems too many in the class are missing central material.

However there will be TWO QUESTIONS that must be answered in writing EACH WEEK (one question for each lesson) and sent to me by way of the Blackboard site’s ”Digital Drop Box”. I will read, comment on and grade those questions and return them to you within 48 hours through that same Blackboard drop box. Most of the time each question can be answered in less than two pages. If you are using multiple computers (home, work, school, friends) one of the easiest ways to keep your work with you is to store (upload) it on the Blackboard web site in your own “Digital Drop Box” Only you have access to that location, and you can put the files you are working there, download them to the computer you happen to be using to continue the work, and upload them back to the drop box. The files do not move

out of your control and your drop box until you send the file to your instructor.

Before you send your file electronically, you must first store the file* on your own disk and give it a name - this will be the name by which the file is transmitted to me. Do notcall it simply "Philosophy" or "lesson 1" if several of you happen to use the same file name, my system may overwrite the earlier file thus one of you would end up not having your file delivered to me. Instead, use the following FILE NAMING convention:

R for “response”

XXXXXXXX - Your user ID (myPGCC) [this is the user ID you have for Blackboard] Followed by a hyphen

101 for the course (I am teaching two other online philosophy courses, so calling your file “philosophy” would not be adequate and would lose the file so you would not get credit for it) another hyphen

and then lesson number: 01, 02, etc

Thus, for example, someone with the ID of “JohnDoe” would submit his first file as RJohnDoe-101-01. My reply to Mr. Doe with grades and comments would be CJohnDoe-101-01. If you submit two lessons at once (since two are due each week, just number the file according the first lesson in it. John Doe’s submission then could include both lessons 1 and 2, and his next file for lessons 3 and 4, would be RJohnDoe-101-03.