Intro to Phil (Tu – Th) Summer 2013

WEEK 1

Tue 5/28

Syllabus

Welcome to the House of Life

Ptah-hotep (Fordham, sofiatopia, Prisse)
Pyramid Texts
Osirian Revolution
Eloquent Peasant / Excerpt
Negative Confessions / Scroll / Text
Amenemope
Proverbs

Database query: Women & Ancient Egypt

Q&A Workshop

Thu 5/30

Hinduism
Bhagavad Gita (Dr. Ramananda Prasad’s “Red Letter” translation)
Gandhi’s Gita
Hind Swaraj

Database query: Women & Hinduism

Hymn to Prithivi
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
Vandana Shiva

Q&A Workshop


WEEK 2

Tue 6/4

Buddhism
Dhamma (Access to Insight)
Thich Nhat Hanh (Plum Village)

Database query:  Women & Buddhism

Three Basic Facts of Existence

Q&A Workshop

Thu 6/6

Workshop #1

Due at beginning of class: 2 paragraphs (of at least 200 words each, or about 2 pages) printed in MLA format (see Purdue OWL) indicating workshop number, date submitted, and a descriptive title.  To save paper, please include Works Cited without a page break.

First Paragraph: On one recently (p)reviewed text, with selected quotations, properly cited in MLA format (see Purdue OWL).  For this paragraph, select one of the texts that we have (p)reviewed in the past two weeks and present its philosophical point of view accurately, fairly, and sympathetically, using at least three direct quotes from the “primary” source materials.

Second Paragraph: On the value of philosophical claims made in the first paragraph.  In this paragraph raise a question with respect to claims made in paragraph one.  For example, does a claim seem well supported or well developed?  Does a claim seem relevant to your life?  Would it be helpful (or not) to make use of the claim in the pursuit of your own life?  After you have raised a question with respect to a claim, consider the “pros and cons.”  Display the process of your evaluation.  Show that you are trying to be fair, but also that you are setting your own standards of judgment.  At the end of the paragraph, give the best answer than you can.  Strive for clarity of expression.  Is the question clear?  Is the process of evaluation clear, fair, and sound?  Is your answer clear?


WEEK 3

 

Tue 6/11

Confucius
-Great Learning (classics.mit.edu)
-Analects (YellowBridge)
see Bks. 2, 7: after Foust 2012 (The Dial); also see 12.1, 17.6: after Shirong Luo 2012
-Doctrine of the Mean (nothingistic.org)
Mencius (nothinistic.org)
Xunxi (excerpts)

Database query: Women & Confucian
Q&A Workshop

Thu 6/13

Taoism: Preface: Confucius and the Rectification of Names
Laozi: Dao de Ching
Chuang Tzu (nothingistic.org)
Zhou Dunyi (Kenyon.edu)
overview
image
Tongshu
Afterword: Hindu Self and Buddhist No-self
Database query: Women & Daoism (Wang: Kundao)
Quingjing Jing (qingjing.net / lapislazulitexts.com)
Q&A Workshop


WEEK 4

Tue 6/18

Popol Vuh
Prof Notes: May be slow loading
Christenson Translation: Click on “English Translation” to get a free pdf

Dekanawidah
Iroquois Constitution (Fordham)
Franklin on Canassatego
Black Elk

Deloria
Anzaldua
-Borderlands / La Frontera (The Homeland, Aztlan)(How to Tame a Wild Tongue)
-keywords: Coatlicue / Nepantla / la Facultad / nahual / mestiza / mestizaje

Thu 6/20

Workshop #2

Due at beginning of class: 2 paragraphs (of at least 200 words each, or about 2 pages) printed in MLA format (see Purdue OWL) indicating workshop number, date submitted, and a descriptive title.  To save paper, please include Works Cited without a page break.

First Paragraph: On one recently (p)reviewed text, with selected quotations, properly cited in MLA format (see Purdue OWL).  For this paragraph, select one of the texts that we have (p)reviewed in the past two weeks and present its philosophical point of view accurately, fairly, and sympathetically, using at least three direct quotes from the “primary” source materials.

Second Paragraph: On the value of philosophical claims made in the first paragraph.  In this paragraph raise a question with respect to claims made in paragraph one.  For example, does a claim seem well supported or well developed?  Does a claim seem relevant to your life?  Would it be helpful (or not) to make use of the claim in the pursuit of your own life?  After you have raised a question with respect to a claim, consider the “pros and cons.”  Display the process of your evaluation.  Show that you are trying to be fair, but also that you are setting your own standards of judgment.  At the end of the paragraph, give the best answer than you can.  Strive for clarity of expression.  Is the question clear?  Is the process of evaluation clear, fair, and sound?  Is your answer clear?


WEEK 5

 Tue 6/25

Plato (ProfNotes)
-Alcibiades (@ Sanderson Beck)
-Phaedrus (@ Adelaide)
-Symposium (@ Adelaide)
-Republic (See esp. Bk IV @Adelaide)
-Timaeus (Adelaide / ProfNotes)
Database query: Feminism & Plato
Q&A Workshop

Thu 6/27

Aristotle
-Four Causes, Nature (Metaph 5.2, 5.4 @ adelaide)
-First Mover (Metaph 12.6-7 @ adelaide)
–See also: Thomas on Book XII / and the First of his Five Ways
-On the Soul (2.1 actuality, 2.2 separate @ adelaide)
-Ethics (1.1 @ nothingistic.org)
Database query: Feminism & Naturalism (Karen Barad / Jaggar “Ethics Naturalized” 2000)
Q&A Workshop


WEEK 6

Tue 7/2

Contract Theory:
Schleitheim
Hobbes
Locke
Jefferson
Douglass
Database query: Feminism & Contract Theory (Pateman, Mills)
Q&A Workshop

Thu 7/4

JULY FOURTH HOLIDAY – NO CLASS


WEEK 7

Tue 7/9

Hume
Kant (Right / Mine)
Hegel (Recognition)
Database query: Feminism & Kant, Hegel (de Beauvoir)
Q&A Workshop

Thu 7/11

Workshop #3

Due at beginning of class: 2 paragraphs (of at least 200 words each, or about 2 pages) printed in MLA format (see Purdue OWL) indicating workshop number, date submitted, and a descriptive title.  To save paper, please include Works Cited without a page break.

First Paragraph: On one recently (p)reviewed text, with selected quotations, properly cited in MLA format (see Purdue OWL).  For this paragraph, select one of the texts that we have (p)reviewed in the past two weeks and present its philosophical point of view accurately, fairly, and sympathetically, using at least three direct quotes from the “primary” source materials.

Second Paragraph: On the value of philosophical claims made in the first paragraph.  In this paragraph raise a question with respect to claims made in paragraph one.  For example, does a claim seem well supported or well developed?  Does a claim seem relevant to your life?  Would it be helpful (or not) to make use of the claim in the pursuit of your own life?  After you have raised a question with respect to a claim, consider the “pros and cons.”  Display the process of your evaluation.  Show that you are trying to be fair, but also that you are setting your own standards of judgment.  At the end of the paragraph, give the best answer than you can.  Strive for clarity of expression.  Is the question clear?  Is the process of evaluation clear, fair, and sound?  Is your answer clear?


WEEK 8

Tue 7/16

Epicurus
Marx: On Epicurus / On Feuerbach / On Capital
BenthamMill / Singer
Nietzsche: (Zarathustra: First Part XV)
Carol Gilligan: “Pleasure will become a marker, a compass pointing to emotional true north” (The Birth of Pleasure, III). “I had approached the study of morality as a naturalist” (Joining the Resistance, Ch. 5)
Remarks on an absence: Feminism and Epicurus
Q&A Workshop

Thu 7/18

al-Kindi
Averroes
Maimonides
Aquinas
MacIntyre
Laurence Thomas
Database query: Feminism & Natural Law
Q&A Workshop


WEEK 9

Tue 7/23

Philo
Plotinus: Notes | On Virtue | The Good
Augustine: Faith, Hope, Love | On Christian Doctrine
Ghazali: Happiness | Revival
Buber
Database query: Feminism & Faith
Q&A Workshop

Thu 7/25

Workshop #4

Due at beginning of class: 2 paragraphs (of at least 200 words each, or about 2 pages) printed in MLA format (see Purdue OWL) indicating workshop number, date submitted, and a descriptive title.  To save paper, please include Works Cited without a page break.

First Paragraph: On one recently (p)reviewed text, with selected quotations, properly cited in MLA format (see Purdue OWL).  For this paragraph, select one of the texts that we have (p)reviewed in the past two weeks and present its philosophical point of view accurately, fairly, and sympathetically, using at least three direct quotes from the “primary” source materials.

Second Paragraph: On the value of philosophical claims made in the first paragraph.  In this paragraph raise a question with respect to claims made in paragraph one.  For example, does a claim seem well supported or well developed?  Does a claim seem relevant to your life?  Would it be helpful (or not) to make use of the claim in the pursuit of your own life?  After you have raised a question with respect to a claim, consider the “pros and cons.”  Display the process of your evaluation.  Show that you are trying to be fair, but also that you are setting your own standards of judgment.  At the end of the paragraph, give the best answer than you can.  Strive for clarity of expression.  Is the question clear?  Is the process of evaluation clear, fair, and sound?  Is your answer clear?


WEEK 10

Tue 7/30

Peirce (Fixation of Belief / How to Make our Ideas Clear / Evolutionary Love)
James (The Will to Believe)
Dewey (Democracy and Education)
Habermas

Q&A Workshop

Thu 8/1

Addams
de Beauvoir
Gilligan
Butler

Q&A Workshop

WEEK 11

Tue 8/6

Chavez (Plan of Delano [pdf] / Struggle in the Fields 53:21)
Dussel (Articles)
Q&A Workshop

Thu 8/8

Farmer, Sr. (TSHA)
Thurman (Jesus and the Disinherited)
King (Letter from Birmingham Jail)
Database query: Feminism & Civil Rights

Q&A Workshop

WEEK 12

Tue 8/13

FINAL WORKSHOP, Four pages (mindful of previous guidelines).

• Pose a philosophical question (?)

• Present one page answering the question from one text that we surveyed this semester.

• Present a second page answering the question from another text that we surveyed this semester.

• Present a third page evaluating the comparative worth of the two answers presented so far. Which do you most agree with, disagree with, why?

• Present a fourth page answering the question for yourself. What is your answer to the question, and why?

• Please remember “best practices” from previous exercises.