I moved us to a new blog.

http://introductiontophilosophy.wordpress.com/

Final exam review

Click Here to get the review. I would take it online (great discipline to have to actually type answers) and print it out for later study. Final is Friday, 12-3. I’m in all week.

online quiz on Monday’s reading

Click Here to take the quiz on the reading. The reading is below, of course, in the prior post.

reading for april 20th, David Chalmers

Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
David J. Chalmers
Published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3):200-19, 1995.

Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many have tried to explain it, but the explanations always seem to fall short of the target. Some have been led to suppose that the problem is intractable, and that no good explanation can be given.

To make progress on the problem of consciousness, we have to confront it directly. In this paper,

Epistemology for next time.

Please read the following, and link to read Goldman. Link
Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
Edmund L. Gettier
________________________________________
From Analysis 23 ( 1963): 121-123.
Transcribed into hypertext by Andrew Chrucky, Sept. 13, 1997.
________________________________________
Various attempts have been made in recent years to state necessary and sufficient conditions for someone’s knowing a given proposition. The attempts have often been such that they can be stated in a form similar to the following:1
a. S knows that P IFF i. P is true,
ii. S believes that P, and
iii. S is justified in believing that P.
For example, Chisholm has held that the following gives the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge:2
b. S knows that P IFF i. S accepts P,
ii. S has adequate evidence for P, and
iii. P is true.
Ayer has stated the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge as follows:3
c. S knows that P IFF i. P is true,
ii. S is sure that P is true, and
iii. S has the right to be sure that P is true.
I shall argue that (a) is false in that the conditions stated therein do not constitute a sufficient condition for the truth of the proposition that S knows that P. The same argument will show that (b) and (c) fail if ‘has adequate evidence for’ or ‘has the right to be sure that’ is substituted for ‘is justified in believing that’ throughout.
I shall begin by noting two points. First, in that sense of ‘justified’ in which S’s being justified in believing P is a necessary condition of S’s knowing that P, it is possible for a person to be justified in believing a proposition that is in fact false Secondly, for any proposition P, if S is justified in believing P, and P entails Q, and S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing Q. Keeping these two points in mind, I shall now present two cases in which the conditions stated in (a) are true for some proposition, though it is at the same time false that the person in question knows that proposition.
Case I
Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. And suppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition:
d. Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket.
Smith’s evidence for (d) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end be selected, and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones’s pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (d) entails:
e. The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.
Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (d) to (e), and accepts (e) on the grounds of (d), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (e) is true.
But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And, also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket. Proposition (e) is then true, though proposition (d), from which Smith inferred (e), is false. In our example, then, all of the following are true: (i) (e) is true, (ii) Smith believes that (e) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (e) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not know that (e) is true; for (e) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith’s pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith’s pocket, and bases his belief in (e) on a count of the coins in Jones’s pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job.
Case II
Let us suppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following proposition:
f. Jones owns a Ford.
Smith’s evidence might be that Jones has at all times in the past within Smith’s memory owned a car, and always a Ford, and that Jones has just offered Smith a ride while driving a Ford. Let us imagine, now, that Smith has another friend, Brown, of whose whereabouts he is totally ignorant. Smith selects three place names quite at random and constructs the following three propositions:
g. Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston.
h. Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona.
i. Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.
Each of these propositions is entailed by (f). Imagine that Smith realizes the entailment of each of these propositions he has constructed by (f), and proceeds to accept (g), (h), and (i) on the basis of (f). Smith has correctly inferred (g), (h), and (i) from a proposition for which be has strong evidence. Smith is therefore completely justified in believing each of these three propositions, Smith, of course, has no idea where Brown is.
But imagine now that two further conditions hold. First Jones does not own a Ford, but is at present driving a rented car. And secondly, by the sheerest coincidence, and entirely unknown to Smith, the place mentioned in proposition (h) happens really to be the place where Brown is. If these two conditions hold, then Smith does not know that (h) is true, even though (i) (h) is true, (ii) Smith does believe that (h) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (h) is true.
These two examples show that definition (a) does not state a sufficient condition for someone’s knowing a given proposition. The same cases, with appropriate changes, will suffice to show that neither definition (b) nor definition (c) do so either.
________________________________________
Notes
1. Plato seems to be considering some such definition at Theaetetus 201, and perhaps accepting one at Meno 98.
2. Roderick M. Chisholm, Perceiving: A Philosophical Study (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1957), p. 16.
3. A. J. Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge (London: Macmillan, 1956), p. 34.

Reading for Monday: John Rawls

Link here. Also send to you as a pdf through email.

No need to comment but feel free.

The Stoics- April 1

The Discourses

By Epictetus

Chapter 1

Of the things which are in our Power, and not in our Power

Of all the faculties, you will find not one which is capable of contemplating itself; and, consequently, not capable either of approving or disapproving. How far does the grammatic art possess the contemplating power? As far as forming a judgement about what is written and spoken. And how far music? As far as judging about melody. Does either of them then contemplate itself? By no means.

If you need the syllabus, it is here

Introduction to Philosophy: Beliefs and Values
PHIL 101- 085
Dr. Jennifer Baker
Monday, Wednesday 3-5.45
Robert Scott Smalls Building 002
March 11th to April 27th
Final Exam: May 1st. 12-3, same room.

Office: Room 103 in 16 Glebe
(Note: the Philosophy Department is in two buildings. Our mailboxes are next door in 14 Glebe.)
Office hours: Tuesday, Thursday 10-12. Office phone: 953-7272
Email: Bakerja@cofc.edu
Class blog: http://philosophy101.wordpress.com
To post, start at www.wordpress.com and enter user name: EthicsClass; password: Phil101

Text: The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford)– available in the campus book store. Many of our readings will be posted on the blog.

In this course students will be introduced to the various subfields of philosophy through the analysis of primary readings. There are four goals for students in this course.
1. One goal is that students get a useful introduction to the field of philosophy and its unique methodology by critically engaging the various views we will read.
2. A second goal is that students get comfortable with the subject matter of philosophy, so they will recognize philosophical topics for what they are.
3. The third goal is that students develop and defend their own positions, becoming, in this sense, philosophers themselves.
4. A fourth and final goal is to merely learn some of the views of our well-known authors. It is crucial to become familiar with many of these authors for the sake of a liberal education.

10% of the grade is the reading responses and any in-class quizzes;
20% midterm;
10% class presentation project (requires blog posts and hand-outs);
30% final exam;
30% final paper.

Participation in this Course
There are not many subjects where disagreement will be inevitable, and there are not many subjects where debate with others will help you to understand your own position and elucidate your own values. But our class subjects have these qualities. This makes class discussion particularly important. We will learn to disagree with each other without rancor or embarrassment. But this requires that you do come to class ready to discuss the topics in the reading.

In the first class, you will be asked about the time and place you have devoted to reading for this course. Our readings are not very long (on occasion, however, they can be up to 40 pages), but philosophy is slow to read, because it requires that you do more than skim and memorize. You will need to think about the views you are reading.

For this reason, it will help you to do a reading response for every reading assignment we have. These will be posted to the class blog. These need to include a careful description and criticism of the reading’s argument or main ideas. These can be very short if they are thoughtful. You do not need to edit very carefully, and may type as you think (as long as you do answer the questions.)
To get credit for completing the assignment, these must be sent before the start of class. I will not accept any of these late (the purpose of them is just to get you ready to discuss the issues in class.)

Presentation/ Class Post. Students will also be required to post their position on a topic once in this course. I’ll explain how this works in the first class.

Paper
There is one 6-8 page paper required for this course. The final paper is worth 30% of your grade.

Academic Integrity
Do not plagiarize or cheat. It is not fair to the other students. It is insulting to your own abilities. It is also surprisingly easy to detect work that is not original, especially since the topics in this course are rather unique.

If you do not understand the material, see me as soon as possible (right after a confusing class or reading, for example.) You can certainly come to understand all of the material with some help. The penalties for cheating are very stiff, and I will report any cheating to the deans.

Attendance policy
Attendance is required. This is even more important in an Express course. The students who miss classes are going to be the ones who complain about the difficulty of the material. Crucial information about class logistics is given out in class, and students will need the help of lecture to make sense of the material. Any absence will need to be excused. Three absences are grounds for a loss of participation credit in the final grade.

SCHEDULE (B: posted on blog, M: Meaning of Life text)
March 11: Introduction. What philosophy is like. Epistemology, Metaphyics, Ethics. Plato, in class.

March 16: Plato. Forms, Knowledge, and Goodness. B.

March 18: Modernity. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sysphus, p. 72-81. M. Thomas Nagel: The Absurd, p. 143-152. M.

March 23: The methodology of analytic philosophy. Joel Feinberg: Absurd Self-Fulfillment, p. 153- 183. M.

March 25: Aristotle. Science, Knowledge, and Virtue. B.

March 30: The Meaning of Life. Susan Wolf, “The Meaning of Lives”, B.
Arthur Schopenhauer, p. 45-54. M.

April 1: The Stoics. B.

April 6: A. J. Ayer, p. 199- 202. M.
Steven Cahn, p. 236- 238. M.
Robert Nozick, p. 224-231. M.

April 8: Midterm.

April 13: Political Theory. Rawls. B.

April 15: Epistemology. Gettier and Goldman. B.

April 20: Chisholm. B.

April 22: Quine. B.

April 27: Final papers due.

Final Exam: May 1st. 12-3, same room.

READ THIS FOR MONDAY. ARISTOTLE. EXCERPTS FROM THREE WORKS.

Rhetoric
From Book I, Chapter 5
It may be said that every individual man and all men in common aim at a certain end which determines what they choose and what they avoid. This end, to sum it up briefly, is happiness and its constituents. Let us, then, by way of illustration only, ascertain what is in general the nature of happiness, and what are the elements of its constituent parts. For all advice to do things or not to do them is concerned with happiness and with the things that make for or against it; whatever creates or increases happiness or some part of happiness, we ought to do; whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its opposite,

For the 25th- read Wolf and Schopenhauer

The reading by Susan Wolf. LINK
How to write a philosophy paper. LINK
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