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PHILOSOPHY 201 (SPRING 2013) – CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY (TTh)
Instructor: Dr. Ted Stolze
Office: SS-132
Office Phone: 562-860-2451, extension 2774
Office Hours: MTTh 9-9:30am, M 11am-12:30pm
E-mail:
Webpage: www.cerritos.edu/tstolze
Transfer Credit:
CSU, UC
Prerequisite:
Satisfactory completion of the English Placement Process or ENGL 52 or equivalent with a grade of Credit or "C" or higher
Course Description:
This introductory level course will examine the nature of scientific reasoning and its relationship to technology, the development of modern technologies, and the impact of science and technology on society, personal life, and the environment. Major areas of philosophical inquiry will include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
Texts:
· Thomas Wartenberg, Existentialism: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld, 2008) = E
· Simone De Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (Citadel Press) = EA
· Massimo Pigliucci, Answers for Aristotle (Basic Books) = AA
Student Learning Outcomes:
At the completion of this course students will be able to:
· Understand, explain, and assess at least three major philosophical movements that characterize the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including the rise of Continental, Asian, Anglo-American, African, Feminist, Latin American, and Marxist philosophies.
· Explain successfully at least three of the following concepts examined by the above philosophical movements: self and subjectivity; mind and consciousness; alienation, anxiety, and authenticity; gender, modernity, post-modernity, and alter-modernity; race, nationality, and social justice.
· Recognize and explain the role of language, meaning, and truth in philosophical inquiry.
· Develop a philosophical analysis of a contemporary cultural, political, religious, or scientific problem.
· Distinguish between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ approaches to doing philosophy.
· Demonstrate a basic understanding of methods of philosophy.
Course Requirements:
1. Show up regularly, on time, and prepared to discuss the readings. You should carefully read the assignment before class, noting difficult passages and writing down any questions you’d like to pose in class. You should also briefly reread the assignment after class to confirm that you now understand the author’s main points. NOTE: you must turn off all electronic devices before class begins (unless you have a demonstrable need); there is absolutely no texting permitted during class.
NOTE: I reserve the right to drop any student who is absent for more than six class sessions during the semester. Also, if you leave class early without permission, you will be considered absent for that session.
2. Write six short “argument summary and response” papers (each around 500 words in length) on some topic covered in our readings. Each of these papers is worth 10% of your final grade. Although there will be eight papers assigned, you only have to turn of them. These papers have two objectives:
· Reconstruct an argument in the text (and briefly quote from it), and identify both the argument’s conclusion and support for this conclusion.
· Explain whether or not you think this argument is persuasive, and identify weaknesses with, or possible objections to, the argument. Could the argument be improved or strengthened? If so, how?
3. Take two exams, each of which is worth 20% of your final grade.
4. Final grades will be based on the following scale:
90-100 points A
80-89 points B
70-79 points C
60-69 points D
0 – 59 points F
NOTE: You should hold on to all graded work until the end of the course in case there turns out to be a dispute over your final grade.
5. Plagiarism is ethically unacceptable and will result in automatic failure for a particular assignment. For the official Cerritos College Academic Honesty/ Dishonesty Policy, see http://cms.cerritos.edu/academic-affairs/academic-honesty.
6. If you have a disability for which you would like to request an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both me and the Disabled Student Programs and Services at (562) 860-2451 ext. 2335, as early as possible in the term.
Standards for Classroom Behavior and Discussion:
Our goal in this course is to achieve respectful philosophical dialogue in which everyone feels affirmed in the value of his or her ideas and contributions to the class. This means not only that we should speak in certain ways, but also that we should listen in certain ways. Respectful philosophical dialogue demands that even if we strongly disagree with others, we should be very careful not to speak in a way that demeans them or their ideas. We should instead engage in active listening—a technique that helps us to be less defensive in responding to criticism or disagreement. Mindful, active listening requires each of us to focus on the words of the person speaking rather than on what we ourselves might want to say, and to reserve judgment until he or she has finished speaking and we are sure that we really understand his or her perspective. At the very least, active listening requires the following respectful behavior:
· No sleeping in class! If you are tired or ill, stay home and rest.
· No side conversations, passing notes, or texting.
· Body language that indicates supportive attention (e.g., eye contact with the speaker).
· No body language that is disrespectful (e.g., sighs, eye-rolling, muttering under your breath, throw-away comments after the speaker is finished).
Weekly Topics and Reading Assignments:
1/15 Introduction
1/17 E, pp. 1-30
1/22 Video on Sartre
1/24 E, pp. 31-46
1/29 E, pp. 47-69
1/31 E, pp. 70-88
2/5 E, pp. 89-106
2/7 E, pp. 107-124
2/12 E, pp. 125-145
2/14 E, pp. 146-165
2/19 E, pp. 166-171
2/21 EA, pp. 7-34
2/26 EA, pp. 35-73
2/28 EA, pp. 74-128
3/5 EA, pp. 129-159
3/7 Review
3/12 Exam #1
3/14 Quentin Meillassoux, “Spectral Dilemma” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/23792245/Quentin-Meillassoux-Spectral-Dilemma)
3/19 “ ”
3/25-31 NO CLASS – SPRING RECESS
4/2 AA, pp. 1-43
4/4 AA, pp. 45-74
4/9 AA, pp. 77-107
4/11 AA, pp. 109-124
4/16 Video: The Secret You
4/18 AA, pp. 127-142
4/23 AA, pp. 143-154
4/25 AA, pp. 157-172
4/30 AA, pp. 173-184
5/2 AA, pp. 187-201
5/7 AA, pp. 203-228
5/9 AA, pp. 231-262
5/14 AA, pp. 263-272
5/16 AA, pp. 273-287
5/23 Exam #2 (2-4pm)
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) on the Nature of Philosophy
Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? That is the question. Presumably it is no arbitrary question. “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?”—this is obviously the first of all questions. Of course, it is not the first question in the chronological sense. Individuals as well as peoples ask many questions in the course of their historical passage through time. They explore, investigate, and test many sorts of things before they run into the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” Many never run into this question at all, if running into the question means not only hearing and reading the interrogative sentence as uttered, but asking the question, that is, taking a stand on it, posing it, compelling oneself into the state of this questioning.
And yet, we are each touched once, maybe even now and then, by the concealed power of this question, without properly grasping what is happening to us. In great despair, for example, when all weight tends to dwindle away from things and the sense of things grows dark, the question looms. Perhaps it strikes only once, like the muffled tolling of a bell that resounds into Dasein and gradually fades away. The question is there in heartfelt joy, for then all things are transformed and surround us as if for the first time, as if it were easier to grasp that they were not, rather than that they are, and are as they are. The question is there in a spell of boredom, when we are equally distant from despair and joy, but when the stubborn ordinariness of beings lays open a wasteland in which it makes no difference to us whether beings are or are not—and then, in a distinctive form, the question resonates once again: Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?
But whether this question is asked explicitly, or whether it merely passes through our Dasein like a fleeting gust of wind, unrecognized as a question, whether it becomes more oppressive or is thrust away by us again and suppressed under some pretext, it certainly is never the first question that we ask.
But it is the first question in another sense—namely, in rank. This can be clarified in three ways. The question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” is first in rank for us as the broadest, as the deepest, and finally as the most originary question.
The question is the broadest in scope. It comes to a halt at no being of any kind whatsoever. The question embraces all that is, and that means not only what is now present at hand in the broadest sense, but also what has previously been and what will be in the future….The scope of our question is so broad that we can never exceed it. We are not interrogating this being or that being, nor all beings, each in turn; instead, we are asking from the start about the whole of what is, or as we say for reasons to be discussed later: beings as a whole and as such.
Just as it is the broadest question, the question is also the deepest: Why are there beings at all…? Why—that is, what is the ground? From what ground do beings come? On what ground do beings stand? To what ground do beings go? The question does not ask this or that about beings—what they are in each case, here and there, how they are put together, how they can be changed, what they can be used for, and so on. The questioning seeks the ground for what is, insofar as it is in being….This why-question does not seek causes for beings, causes of the same kind and on the same level as beings themselves. This why-question does not just skim the surface, but presses into the domains that lie “at the ground,” even pressing into the ultimate, to the limit; the question is turned away from all surface and shallowness, striving for depth; as the broadest, it is at the same time the deepest of the deep questions.
Finally, as the broadest and deepest question, it is also the most originary. What do we mean by that? If we consider our question in the whole breadth of what it puts into question, beings as such and as a whole, then it strikes us right away that in the question, we keep ourselves completely removed from every particular, individual being as precisely this or that being. We do mean beings as a whole, but without any particular preference. Still, it is remarkable that one being always keeps coming to the fore in this questioning: the human beings who pose this question. And yet the question should not be about some particular, individual being. Given the unrestricted range of the question, every being counts as much as any other. Some elephant in some jungle in India is in being just as much as some chemical oxidation process on the planet Mars, and whatever else you please….
The question loses its rank at once in the sphere of a human-historical Dasein to whom questioning as an originary power remains foreign.
For example, anyone for whom the Bible is divine revelation and truth already has the answer to the question "Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?" before it is even asked: beings, with the exception of God Himself, are created by Him. God Himself “is” as the uncreated Creator. One who holds on to such faith as a basis can, perhaps, emulate and participate in the asking of our question in a certain way, but he cannot authentically question without giving himself up as a believer, with all the consequences of this step. He can act only “as if”—. On the other hand, if such faith does not continually expose itself to the possibility of unfaith, it is not faith but a convenience. It becomes an agreement with oneself to adhere in the future to a doctrine as something that has somehow been handed down. This is neither having faith nor questioning, but indifference—which can then, perhaps even with keen interest, busy itself with everything, with faith as well as with questioning.
Now by referring to safety in faith as a special way of standing in the truth, we are not saying that citing the words of the Bible, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth, etc.,” represents an answer to our question. Quite aside from whether this sentence of the Bible is true or untrue for faith, it can represent no answer at all to our question, because it has no relation to this question. It has no relation to it, because it simply cannot come into such a relation. What is really asked in our question is, for faith, foolishness.
Philosophy consists in such foolishness. A “Christian philosophy” is a round square and a misunderstanding. To be sure, one can thoughtfully question and work through the world of Christian experience—that is, the world of faith. That is then theology. Only ages that really no longer believe in the true greatness of the task of theology arrive at the pernicious opinion that, through a supposed refurbishment with the help of philosophy, a theology can be gained or even replaced, and can be made more palatable to the need of the age. Philosophy, for originally Christian faith, is foolishness. Philosophizing means asking: “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” Actually asking this means venturing to exhaust, to question thoroughly, the inexhaustible wealth of this question, by unveiling what it demands that we question. Whenever such a venture occurs, there is philosophy….