 | Introductory Discussion: What is Philosophy? |
| Read Norman Melchert, Who's to Say?, "The First Conversation," pp.
1-23.
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| Make a public folder contribution
reacting
to one of the arguments given by a participant in the dialogue OR
to something that one of your classmates has written.
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| Read Who's To Say? "The Second Conversation," pp. 25-52. Be
prepared to talk about the following questions:
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| There is no new reading, but go to the public folder and make a new entry (a solid �
or so), addressing the following. You must post your entry by Thursday night,
that is, before I wake up and check them Friday morning! PLEASE USE THE "POST REPLY" OPTION in the "Who's to
Say?" folder for our class by first opening one of the
entries under the "Conversation 2" heading. IF YOU DO NOT OPEN THE
ITEM, THE "POST REPLY" OPTION WILL NOT APPEAR AND YOU WILL END UP STARTING A NEW
AND SEPARATE CONVERSATION TOPIC.
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| Read the Third (and Final) Conversation, 53-82. You'll find that it breaks into a
couple parts: First Peter and Mike resume their discussion/argument from
Conversation 2; then Anita explains her way of looking at the question of "Who's to
Say?" and finally they get Elizabeth to explain her own perspective. Be ready
to talk about the following:
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| Continue discussion of Conversation 3. |
| Make a public folder entry that addresses either Anita or Elizabeth's stance with regard to the question of truth and relativism (or someone's response to them). Choose something that we have not specifically dealt with in class yet. Entries should be posted before you go to bed Wednesday! |
| A writing assignment will be due next Wednesday, September 20. Here are the suggested topics. |
| Bring both the Plato book and Who's to Say? to class. |
| Read Plato, Five DIalogues, the Apology (pp. 23-44). Questions to be ready to answer when we discuss this in class Monday: |
- Socrates says that there are really two sets of accusers for him. Who are these two sets of accusers and what are their specific accusations?
- What did you especially notice as you read about what we might call the "drama" of the Apology? In other words, try to be attentive to the dynamics, the interaction of Socrates and his audience. Especially pay attention to details that might raise questions for you, even if you're not sure of what conclusion to draw.
- The purpose of Socrates' speeches might seem obvious--to defend himself from the charges raised against him. But is this all he is doing? See if you can find other purposes that Socrates might have in mind, especially once the votes have been taken to find him guilty and to sentence him. Tie these observations as much as you can to specific passages.
| We are reading P-L-A-T-O ! Don't make this mistake! |
| Paper due: Topics reminder. |
| Continue discussion in class of the Apology. |
| Read Plato's Meno (in Five Dialogues), pp. 58-92. Concentrate on understanding what is being said in the dialogue as well the dramatic interaction between Socrates and Meno (as well as Anytus, who makes a cameo appearance here). In other words, what is the tone of their interaction, and where does it change, etc. | ||||||
| If you were asked "What do we learn from this dialogue?" how would you answer? This is a tougher question than it would be if we asked it about the Apology. | ||||||
| We will also look to a couple of the areas to see how the seeming/being
theme runs through Apology.
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| Finish on your own the "blocking" of the dialogue as a drama that we
began in class. We seemed clear that the "middle section" will be the "slave
boy section," which leaves a first section and a third section. You should
further divide these major into their natural
blocks or episodes, even using more subdivisions if that's needed.
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| Public Folder posting: use the folder labeled "Socrates." Use
one of the following topics or make an observation/commentary of your own.
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| Look through the dialogue with a suspicious ear for clues as to Meno's
underlying agenda and attitude toward the discussion about
virtue and whether it can be taught. Is he really sincerely interested in
this question?
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| Exam 1 on Plato, Apology and
Meno.
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| Read Plato, Phaedo, 57a-69e. pp. 94-107 (top). Stop at the paragraph, "When Socrates was finished..." |
| Read Plato, Phaedo, pp. 107-122 (70a-84b). | ||||
| Take notes for yourself on the several different "arguments" used to "prove"
the immortality of the soul--be able to identify them and explain a little
about each one.
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| Read Phaedo, 122-134 (84c-95e). Stop at the � that starts, "Socrates paused for a long time, deep in thought." | ||||||
| Make a Public Folder entry before you go to bed Thursday night. Options:
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| Read Phaedo, pp. 134-144 (96a-107a). This section includes some of the
densest arguments in the book.
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| Finish the Phaedo, pp. 144-154. This final section includes both a kind of mythological story and the actual scene of Socrates' death. (You might be interested in this famous neo-classical painting by Jacques-Louis Dav�d, The Death of Socrates) | ||||
| Public Folder: Choose one of the following and write a public folder
response to it, before Tuesday morning.
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| We will start reading Ren� Descartes,
Meditations on First Philosophy. The text you have also contains a
preliminary text to this, Discourse on Method. For Monday, read:
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| You should make some notes on these short (16 pages) but dense readings.
Be able to say:
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| Public Folder: Descartes, Meditation 2. |
| Topic suggestions. You can also write about
anything else you find interesting in Meditation 2.
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| Read Descartes, Meditations 3, pp. 69-81. There are a number of difficult bits of
reasoning presented in this meditation, but they are comprehensible with a
bit of work. Make some notes in your notebook on the following questions,
and be ready to answer as best you can each of them in class. These questions
proceed in order through the text:
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| Paper due: A Noble Risk |
| Continue discussion of Descartes, Meditation 3. |
| Exam Review . We will cover a few last things from Meditation 3 before going over the review. |
| You may arrive 10 minutes early and work 10 minutes late on the exam if you wish. |
| Remember that it is not good to leave the exam too early. You have to build up a grade from zero, earning every point you end up with. An answer in which everything is correct may still be incomplete. And fuller explanations do the job better than brief ones, which often leave things not fully clear. |
| Read Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chapter 1, pp. 7-16. You do not have to read the introduction, although the first two pages, with biographical details about him, could be interesting. |
| You will find Russell asking similar questions to Descartes, but answering them differently. |
| Read Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, chapters 2-3, pp. 17-36.
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| Make a public folder entry addressing the following question: From your understanding of Russell so far, what can we confidently know about the relation of sense data to physical objects? Explain why you answer as you do. Raise any questions about this you'd like to as you answer. |
| Read Russell, chapter 4 "Idealism" 37-45. |
| Read the first 4 paragraphs of Russell, Chapter V: "Knowledge by
Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description"; then jump to chapter VI: "Induction,"
60-69. Post a Public Folder entry:
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| The rest of Chapter 5 that we are skipping skip is rather technical. It furthers the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. The key point is that Russell argues that not all knowledge has to come through direct experience (acquaintance), but that some knowledge comes through "description." Ultimately, all knowledge by description rests upon other knowledge that we have by acquaintance, such as when we say that there must be a physical table that is the cause of the hard, smooth, flat-topped, rectangular, wooden grained sense data that we perceive. Because we're "acquainted with" all these sensory impressions, we can describe some truths about the table. To further his example, he shifts to people. You may be "acquainted" with various monks--the FR's on the floors of the dorms, me as your teacher, Fr. Jerome who says mass on Sunday nights, etc. And, Russell says, you can claim to know a statement is true such as, "There is a monk older than all the other monks" because you are acquainted with what monks are, and with what age is. (You "know" your own age by acquaintance.) You also are acquainted with numbers, which are concepts you use all the time to count with. And so with all of these, you can utter the "truth" that "there is a monk older than all other monks." You probably don't know that this is Father Angelo, who turned 105 last Spring. Even if you're a continuing student and read last April's description and photo of him in the Record, you're still probably not personally acquainted with Father Angelo, unless you've met him. Russell's point is that you can know some things without immediate acquaintance or experience of them because of your inferences from other things you are acquainted with. And in the "Induction" chapter he describes some ways we make these judgments. |
| Read Ortega y Gasset (photocopy packet), Some Lessons in Metaphysics, Lesson 1, pp. 13-27. |
| Prepare answers to the following questions and be ready to discuss them
in class. Take notes in your notebook or using this
“Word” document as a template,
fill it in and print it out.
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| Read Ortega y Gasset, Some Lessons in Metaphysics, Lesson 2. |
| No Public Folder, but pick out one of the things that Ortega says about life in "Lesson 2" that causes you to think, to wonder. What does it make you wonder about? Write a paragraph or so in your notebook, wondering out loud, so to speak. The point is to do a little actual thinking, either trying to understand what Ortega means, giving examples that you think are relevant (and say why), or going off on your own, exploring your own thoughts in relation to what he's said. We'll use these as starting points for class discussion on Monday. |
| We'll continue the discussion of the things above through the Public
Folder.
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| Read Ortega, Lesson 3. Be prepared to explain how Lesson 3 revises and/or clarifies what Ortega meant in Lesson 2 when he said, "Life is awareness." |
| Read Ortega, Lesson 4. |
| Public Folder Entry: As is his habit, Ortega either makes surprising statements and then goes on to explain why they are truer than they may at first seem, or else he analyzes a quite ordinary statement and then draws a rather surprising conclusion out of it. Choose one of the Ortega's observations in Lesson 4--one that strikes you as "surprising" in some way, and reflect on it in a Public Folder entry. You are welcome to raise questions related to his thoughts or to reflect on the truth or the implications of his idea. Please identify the passage you are reflecting on by page number. |
| No new reading. Review "Lesson IV," especially the section Ortega says to entitle "Semantics of the term, 'to exist'" (66-70). This helps explain what he means by the statement, "To live is to exist outside myself." | ||||
| To help discussion, make
some notes on the following and be ready to discuss in class:
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| Read Ortega, Lesson 5. | ||||||
| Answer one of the following questions in a � in the Public Folder.
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| Read Ortega, Lesson 6. |
| Public Folder: You are free to respond to anything in Lesson 6 that strikes your interest. Pick an idea and run with it a little, reflect on it, find other examples of how it's true in our lives, challenge it, etc. |
| Review Session for exam @ 7:30 PM in Quad 349. |
