WESTMONT COLLEGE

Department of Philosophy

PHI XXX: 19th20th Century Philosophy

Instructor: XXX

Course Description and Guidelines

I. Course Description:

A. ClosestCurrentWestmont College Catalogue course description: “A critical survey of major Western philosophers from Descartes to the present. Includes emphasis on abstract reasoning.”

B. Proposed NewWestmont College Catalogue course description: “A critical survey of major Western philosophers from Hegel to Quine. Includes emphasis on abstract reasoning.”

C. Description of the course’s role in the major: This is an upper-level course in philosophy and is one of three courses students can take to satisfy the “History of Philosophy” philosophy major requirement (students need to take two out of three courses offered in this area to satisfy this requirement).

D. The over-arching theme of this course is the career of Western philosophy from the early 19thcentury through the late 20thcentury. Particular sub-themes may include: 1)absolute idealism and existentialism, “new realism”, pragmatism, phenomenology, logical positivism and analytic philosophy as reactions to it; and 2) the emergence of Anglo-American “analytic” philosophy and “continental” philosophy as distinct approaches to philosophy.

II. Course Objectives:

A. Relative to the Westmont Philosophy Major:

Here are the Philosophy Department’s official “Student Learning Outcomes”:

Knowledge: Students will be able to explain important philosophical positions, concepts, arguments, and themes.

Skills: Students will be able to construct structurally solid arguments and to critique faulty ones appropriately.

Virtues: Students will both value and acknowledge the limits of rational inquiry. In other words, they will display both the love of wisdom and Socratic humility.

In this course, students will build on their lower-level philosophical training, and continue to acquire the above knowledge, skills and virtues, especially in relation to19th and 20th C European philosophy.

B. Relative to the Reasoning Abstractly GE Requirement:

Students in this course will be able to recognize, construct, and evaluate abstract arguments and explanations, analyze abstract concepts, and solve abstract problems.

III. Course Guidelines:

A. Class requirements:

B. Grading: Your grade will be based on two 2,000 word essays, a final exam, and a set of frequent, short quizzes on reading assignments. Each of these components will count 25%. You must provide an accurate word count at the end of your essay, and you must keep to the word limit: essays of more than 2,000 words (including quotations and footnotes, but not bibliography) will not be accepted for marking.

C. Essay Submission Procedure: Essays must be typed or word-processed and handed in to me in class, unless otherwise specified. Late essays will lowered by one third of a grade (e.g., from ‘B’ to ‘B-’) for the first day late (i.e., any time after the end of the assigned class period) and an additional third for each additional day (i.e., 24 hour period) late. An explanation of the criteria by which I assess essays will be distributed separately.

D. Cheating: cheating, including plagiarism, will result in an automatic ‘F’ for that assignment and referral to the College authorities.

E. Plagiarism: plagiarism is the presenting of someone else’s work, verbatim or paraphrased, intentionally or unintentionally, as your own. If you have studied for a paper or exam with another student and there is, as a result, the slightest chance that your answers may resemble theirs, you should indicate in your paper or exam that you have done so and identify them by name. (E.g., in a footnote, you might say, “I have discussed some of these ideas with Phyllis Stein.”)

F. Missing Exams: a missed exam will result in failure of that exam, unless prearranged with me.

G. Getting Help: If you want to discuss any aspect of the course, please see me during one of the Office Hours posted on my door, or fix an appointment to meet at another time. If you have any kind of problem that is preventing you from working on this course, speak to me or to your Personal Advisor or to anyone you feel you can approach. For help with writing assignments, the “Writer’s Corner” is a good first stop.

H. Disability: Students who have been diagnosed with a disability (learning, physical or psychological) are strongly encouraged to contact the Disability Services Office as early as possible to discuss appropriate accommodations for this course. Formal accommodations will be granted only for students whose disabilities have been verified by the Disability Services office. These accommodations may be necessary to ensure your full participation and the successful completion of this course. Contact the Director of Disability Services, Sheri Noble (x6159, ) as soon as possible.

I. Courtesy: All members of the class should treat each other courteously at all times. This includes, among other things not snoozing, texting, facebooking, websurfing, reading newspapers, looking at your smartphone or doing work for other classes during our class period. You may use your laptop in class for taking notes, but do not log on to the internet during class.

IV. Course Texts:

  1. S. Cahn, ed., Classics of Western Philosophy, 6th ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002)
  2. Wallace Matson, A New History of Philosophy, Vol. II, 2nd ed.,(New York: Cengage , 1999)
  3. E.D. Klemke and H. Geirsson, eds., Contemporary Analytic and Linguistic Philosophies, 2nd eds., (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2000)
  4. Additional photocopied texts.

V. Sample Syllabus: PHI-102, “History of 19th and 20th Century Philosophy”

TopicsReadings

  1. Preliminaries

Two Types of Idealism?

  1. HegelExcerpt from Phenomenology of Mind, Cahn, 994-1006
  2. HegelMatson, ch. 42
  3. Mill“The Psychological Theory of the Belief in an External World” additional
  4. Mill“The Utilitarians”, Matson, ch. 45
  5. BradleyExcerpt from Appearance and Reality additional
  6. Royce“Reality and Idealism”, Klemke, ch. 1
  7. Royce“Reality and Idealism”, Klemke, 1

Reactions to Idealism I

  1. SchopenhauerExcerpt from World as Will and Idea additional
  2. Schopenhauer/Nietzsche“The Will in Germany”, Matson, ch. 46
  3. NietzscheExcerpt from Twilight of the Idols, Cahn, 1078-94
  4. NietzscheExcerpt from Genealogy of Morals additional
  5. Kierkegaard“The Present Age”
  6. Kierkegaard“Existentialism”, Matson, ch. 49
  7. KierkegaardExcerpt from Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Cahn, 1107-14
  8. Sartre“The Humanism of Existentialism”, Cahn 1167-81
  9. Camus“An Absurd Reasoning” from The Myth of Sisyphus additional
  10. Essay # 1 Due
  11. HusserlExcerpts from The Idea of Phenomenology

Reactions II: Pragmatism and the New Realism

  1. Peirce“Pragmaticism”, Klemke, ch. 3; “Pragmatism” Matson, ch. 47
  2. Peirce“How to Make our Ideas Clear”, Cahn, 1106-16 (also Klemke, 2)
  3. James“What Pragmatism Means”, Cahn, 1117-28
  4. James“The Will to Believe”
  5. Holt et al“The Program and Platform of Six Realists”, Klemke, 4

Reactions III: Early Analytic Philosophy

  1. Moore“The Refutation of Idealism”, Klemke, 6
  2. Moore “The Refutation of Idealism”, Klemke, 6
  3. Moore“Proof of an External World”, Klemke, 9
  4. Russell“Facts and Propositions”, Klemke, 10; Matson, ch. 48
  5. Russell“Particulars, Predicates and Relations”, “Metaphysics” Klemke, 11-12
  6. Essay # 2 Due

Reactions IV: Logical Positivism and its Critics

  1. Ayer“The Elimination of Metaphysics” (LTL I), Klemke, 13
  2. Ayer“The A Priori”, “The Function of Philosophy” (LTL II – III), Klemke, 14-15
  3. Ayer“Critique of Ethics and Theology” (LTL VI), Klemke, 17
  4. Quine“Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, Klemke 26
  5. Quine“Two Dogmas”, Klemke 26

Wittgenstein, Oxford Philosophy

  1. WittgensteinMatson, ch. 50
  2. WittgensteinPhilosophical Investigations, Questions 1-64, additional
  3. Ryle“Systematically Misleading Expressions”, Klemke, 18
  4. AustinExcerpts from Sense and Sensibilia, Cahn 1182-1098
  5. Austin“Performative-Constative”, Klemke 27

Deconstructionism

  1. DerridaExcerpt from Of Grammatology additional

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PHI-103?