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Introduction to Philosophy (CC) - PHIL-1010-371

* (The Examined Life)

1. A few preliminary words.

The first requirement of the course is that you carefully read all emailings I send you and all documents I post on the Pipeline homepage of this course. If you don't read them very promptly and very carefully, you may miss an important instruction, and that may damage your semester grade. Don’t blame me if you miss some important information due to your lack of careful reading.

And what is the first thing you must read carefully? The document you are reading now. Be sure to read it very, very carefully. Then print it out so you can easily read it 3 or 4 more times. If you think I have made some error in writing this document, or if something isn’t clear to you, please let me know as soon as possible

Please feel free as well to let me know of any other mistakes you think I make during the semester. Almost every semester I do make mistakes. (I hope it won’t disillusion you to learn that your professor is not infallible. At Brown they have infallible professors. Here at CCRI, where they don’t pay us as much as Brown professors, we sometimes make mistakes.) I won’t get angry with you for pointing out my mistakes. Just the opposite, I will thank you.

2. CCRI Pipeline:

Also, don’t blame me if you don’t check your CCRI Pipeline email frequently. From time to time I may send you important notices via email. You should check every few days, just to see if something new from me has arrived. I will send notices to you at your CCRI Pipeline email address only. I will not send notices to your addresses at AOL, Hotmail, etc. And when you communicate with me by email, all your messages should be sent to my CCRI email address. (I also have a Hotmail address: please don’t send anything to that address.)

Be sure, too, to check the homepage for this course frequently. It is on the homepage that I will post all documents related to the course, including reading assignments, the essay assignment, notices of exam dates, and (maybe) “helpful hints” for studying for exams. To find these documents, go to the homepage for the course and click on “Files.”

If you ever have any difficulty accessing your CCRI email address or getting documents that I have posted, just phone 825-1112. This is the CCRI Computer Help Desk. And I can testify from personal experience – they really are helpful.

In the past I have sometimes had telecourse students who have told me, “I didn’t get your messages,” or “I didn’t know how to use my CCRI email” or “I thought you’d be sending me email at my AOL account.” These excuses are no good. If I send you an email or post a document at the homepage of the course, you will be responsible for reading it. You’ve heard the old adage, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Well, ignorance of a posted document is no excuse either.

3. Who designed this course?

As instructor, I have somewhat less control over the content of this course than I would over a course I teach “live” in a classroom. This telecourse course comes to CCRI pre-packaged. So I don't get to choose the TV programs; they're part of the package. Certain other requirements (the essay, the seminar meeting) are rules of the college. It's not that I object to any of this. It's just that I think you should know.

4. A new departure.

I have been teaching this Intro Philosophy telecourse every semester for a number of years now, and I have not been happy with the course. My unhappiness has had two sources.

a. I have relied on the textbook (Velasquez, see below) that is part of the “package” mentioned above, assigning readings from the book and then testing the students on what they have read. The trouble is, I don’t like the textbook. It’s not a bad book as far as philosophy textbooks go. But I don’t really like any philosophy textbooks. A textbook in philosophy is a very different thing from a textbook in, say, chemistry. In chemistry (and in many other subjects) almost all chemists are in agreement on almost all things; therefore an author can write a “standard” chemistry textbook that will be acceptable to almost all chemistry professors. But philosophers, as you’ll find out as the course goes along, are not like chemists. If chemists agree on almost everything, philosophers greatly disagree with one another. Maybe they don’t disagree about everything, but they disagree about lots and lots of things. Thus it is impossible to write a “standard” philosophy textbook that will be acceptable to almost all philosophy professors. The Velasquez textbook is a good textbook, but it’s not the book I myself would have written.

b. I feel that lots of my students have found the telecourse to be a not very satisfying experience. Many of them have either dropped out before the semester finished or, worse still, failed the course. But even those who did well in the course did not, I have often feared, learn much about philosophy. They were good students who studied hard and passed the exams, but they didn’t profit from the course as much as a good student should profit from an Intro Philosophy course.

c. Frustrated with this, about a year ago I decided to do something different. I have totally revamped the course. Instead of relying almost exclusively on the Velasquez textbook, I am providing you with a very ample and detailed set of notes that I have written myself. You can look on these notes as the outline of a textbook I would have written if I had written a textbook. These are the same notes I provide for my “live” in-class students at the Newport CCRI campus. I will post these notes at the homepage of the course at the same time I post the syllabus. I expect you to study these notes carefully.

d. Another problem with the textbook is that it is ridiculously expensive – like almost all textbooks. I’m afraid I have a prejudice against the textbook industry. They publish very expensive books that professors require their students to purchase. And then, worse still, the publishers slightly alter the book after a few years, and issue a new edition, thereby making the previous edition obsolete. So now the students have to buy a brand-new book; they can’t use a cheaper second-hand book. Now professors don’t always know how much the textbooks cost, since their own copy was provided to them free of charge by the publisher; and in many cases, it seems, professors don’t really care how much the books cost (after all, it’s not their money). Some professors – those, for instance, who teach in the sciences – have no real choice, even though their hearts may bleed for the poor students and their pocketbooks. Such teachers absolutely need a textbook, no matter how much it may cost. As a philosophy teacher, I’m not in that situation. I don’t need a textbook. And so, to save you money, I will not require you to buy a textbook.

5. Official textbooks:

Two books are part of the “package” that CCRI has acquired: (1) Manuel Velasquez, Philosophy: a Text with Readings, 10th edition. (2) White, The Examined Life Telecourse Study Guide, 4th edition. – Both are published by Thomson Learning, and both are available at CCRI bookstores. In previous semesters these books, especially the Velasquez book, have been required reading for the course. But not any more. If you would like to purchase these two books, please feel free to do so. But below I’ll have some other – and, I think, better – reading suggestions. Save your money.

6. Other reading suggestions.

To profit from my notes, you should do a good amount of follow-up reading on particular philosophers or particular philosophical ideas mentioned in the notes. You should not rely on the notes alone. When you were little, it was a good idea to trust your classroom teacher as the sole source of your information. But now that you’re big, you shouldn’t do this any more. I believe that I am a knowledgeable and trustworthy person – nonetheless I recommend that you don’t give me your complete trust as a source of information and insight. Read what I have to offer you, but go beyond me and my offerings. Do follow-up reading. But where can you find this follow-up reading. Here are a few suggestions.

a. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy. This is a big fat book (about 900 pages), written more than 60 years ago by a man who was one of the leading English 20th century philosophers. It is written in a very lively and readable style. (Russell won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950.) You don’t have to read the whole book, of course, just those parts that coincide with my notes; and I’m pretty sure Russell has something to say about nearly everyone and everything my notes talk about. One thing you should be careful of when reading Russell: he was an atheist with strong anti-religious and anti-Christian prejudices; so sometimes he does not give a fair presentation of religious philosophers. When you read him, you should keep his prejudices in mind. (For that matter, you should keep in mind that virtually everybody who writes about philosophy has prejudices one way or the other. So you should try to read writers who have opposite prejudices – just as judges and juries listen to lawyers who have opposite prejudices. This will help you to get to the real truth.) Russell’s book is available in paperback.

b. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy. The author is another Englishman, this time a Catholic priest. Perhaps surprisingly, Copleston’s pro-religious prejudices are less pronounced that Russell’s anti-religious prejudices. If Russell has written a big book, Copleston has written something that is super-big: nine volumes, most of them between 400 and 500 pages in length, about 4,000 pages altogether. Copleston gives a more complete and detailed treatment of his philosophers than does Russell, but he does so in a less lively and entertaining style. Copleston is dry but thorough. His nine volumes are available in paperback.

c. Where can you get these books? Not at the CCRI bookstore.

i. You can go to a library: a CCRI library, the HELIN system, your local public library, or the CLAN system.

ii. You can go to a big bookstore, e.g., Barnes & Noble or Border’s. If they don’t have what you’re looking for, they can order it and have it for you in a few days.

iii. You can order a new copy online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Border’s. Frequently these sites will also sell used copies.

iv. When I myself want to buy a second-hand copy of a book, I usually use a site called Abebooks.com.

7. Another reading suggestion, maybe the most important of all: Google.

For information about philosophy, you don’t have to rely on books only. You’re living in the Internet age, so you can go to Google or some other online search engine. For more information about a particular philosopher (Descartes or Locke, for example) or about some important philosophical concept (for instance, empiricism or innate ideas), you can go to Google, and you’ll usually find lots and lots of citations. (When I last typed in “Plato” I found nearly 24 million citations.) You don’t have to read everything you find, of course; you couldn’t possibly do that. But you’ll find it helpful to use this online information. I strongly recommend taking advantage of Google (or its equivalent). When my notes mention a particular philosopher or a particular philosophical concept, go to Google and look the item up.

8. Still another online suggestion.

Wikipedia is another useful source of information. My guess is that every philosopher mentioned in my notes will have an entry in Wikipedia.

9. TV programs:

The CCRI website provides a listing of the times and dates of TV programs connected with this course. The name of the TV series is “The Examined Life.” If you cannot catch the TV programs, the video tapes are available, I believe, at all CCRI Learning Resource Centers (a fancy and somewhat silly name for libraries). You should watch these TV programs, even though I don't consider them nearly as important or as helpful as the readings we'll be doing. However, they are helpful in that they will give you something of a "feel" for philosophy.

10. Students with disabilities.

If you happen to fall into the “disabilities” category and you feel that this will create problems for you in taking the course (e.g., problems related to attendance at the seminar or exams), please let me know as soon as possible. With the assistance of CCRI’s “Access” office, you and I can work out some reasonable accommodation.

11. Seminars/workshops:

I will be holding one seminar (or workshop). This will be held early in the semester (probably mid-February), at a time and date to be announced later. The single seminar will meet on two occasions: you can choose which of the two you prefer to attend; you are not expected to attend both meetings, since the second meeting will simply be a repetition of the first meeting. One of these meetings will be held at the Warwick campus (room 3090), the other will be held at the Newport campus (room 244).

You are obliged to attend this seminar (this is a CCRI requirement). No points will be deducted from your grade if you are forced to miss the seminar, but a small number of points will be added to your numerical grade when you attend. It will be an orientation session, where you may pick up some useful information about the course. I will not lecture on course material at this seminar, but I'll try to answer questions. Apart from exam dates, it will be your only chance in the course to sit in a room with other students and the professor. One of the great deficiencies of telecourses is the lack of classroom meetings and classroom interactions. In some small measure (very small), this seminar attempts to make up for this lack.

12. Contacting the professor:

You may feel that the contact you have with me at the seminar is not sufficient. You may, for instance, have questions about the readings or the TV programs. Feel free to give me a call at my home phone number, which is the number I have given at the top of this syllabus. (It is unwise to phone me at my office number, since the only time I answer such calls is when I am actually sitting at my desk. I never check my office voicemail. In fact I don’t know how to check my office voicemail. This is one more indication of my lack of infallibility. At Brown, I’m sure, all the professors know how to check their voicemail. But we CCRI professors are not as smart as Brown professors.) If I don't answer at my home phone, leave a voicemail message, making sure you do the following: (a) speak slowly and clearly, (b) leave your name, (c) leave your phone number(s), and (d) give me a brief message. I'll try to get back to you within 24 hours, maybe a little longer over the weekend.

Better still, and usually much better, you can e-mail me with your questions.

If you feel the need to meet with me in person, we can arrange that; we can meet at my office. Unfortunately, however, for those of you who live along way off, my office is at the Newport campus of CCRI, rather a long drive for people who live in, say, Woonsocket or Westerly.

13. Exams:

There will be three exams given, two shorter ones and longer one, that is, the final exam. The exams will be based entirely on my written notes; no exam questions will be taken from the TV programs connected with the course. Theoretically, you should be able to get 100 on all exams by reading my notes alone, not watching the TV programs and not doing and follow-up reading to the notes. All the same, you should watch the TV programs, and you should do a good amount of follow-up reading. If you restrict yourself to my notes, you do so at your own peril. The exams will have no essay questions. Rather, all questions will be true or false, multiple choice, or matching. Bring a #2 pencil and a good eraser.

14. Two shorter exams:

One of these exams, which will contain 30 to 50 questions, will (probably) be given sometime in late February or early March, the other in April. I will inform you later of the precise dates. The exams will be given at two sittings, one at Warwick, the other at Newport. You can choose which of the two you’d prefer to attend. If both are impossible for you (I mean impossible, not merely inconvenient), let me know, and you and I can arrange another date for a make-up – but this must be taken at the Newport campus.

It used to be, some years ago, that the first two exams for this telecourse were at-home, open-book exams. The good thing about these at-home exams was that students could look up answers and consequently get very high scores. The bad thing was that it many left students unprepared for the shock of the final exam, which had to be taken at CCRI with books closed. Thus it was not unusual for a student to get grades of nearly 100 in the first two exams and then a grade of about 40 in the final. Fortunately, the college has changed the rules, and now all exams are given on campus, and they are all closed-book exams. This is better for students since it forces them to study seriously for all exams.

15. Final exam:

The final will be the same kind of exam as the first two, only longer – about 100 questions instead of 30 to 50. This exam will be comprehensive or cumulative; that is to say, it will cover material from the beginning to the end of the semester. The final exam, like the two earlier exams, will have no essay questions. Rather, all questions will be true or false, multiple choice, or matching. Bring a #2 pencil and a good eraser. The final exam will be given in May. Later I will announce the precise time and date. This exam too, like the first two exams, will be offered at both Warwick and Newport; and again, if the Newport and Warwick dates prove impossible for you, we can arrange an alternative date at Newport.

16. Make-up exams.

It sometimes happens that a student has a good reason for being unable to take an exam at the scheduled time and date. Such good reasons include, but are not limited to: a death in the family, an out-of-state job assignment, a cruel boss who has chained you to your desk and won’t set you free, a serious illness, hospitalization, being arrested and thrown in jail, getting kidnapped by terrorists, being abducted by aliens, etc. In such cases I will arrange for a make-up exam – but only if you let me know in a timely fashion. “Timely fashion” means either that you let me know prior to the exam date or that you let me know as soon as humanly possible after the exam date. Normally “as soon as humanly possible” means within a few hours. If you fail to notify me in timely fashion, you will not be allowed to make up the exam and you will get a failing grade for the exam you missed.

You may be concerned that your job schedule will conflict with your exam schedule and that your boss (nasty man that he is) will not give you a few hours off to take the exam. To accommodate such situations, as noted above, I will offer each exam twice: once at 7 in the evening at the Warwick campus and once (probably the following day) at noon at the Newport campus. The two sittings for the exams will probably be on two different days. If you are the very rare person whose boss will not allow you to be free either at noon or at 7 PM, let me know, and we can make arrangements for an alternative.

But missed exams can sometimes create a certain problem for me, the professor. What problem? Well, for quite understandable reasons, I don’t want to return exams to students until all students in the class have taken the exam. But in the past I have sometimes had a student who was unable to do a make-up for a week or two. That means that everybody else was kept waiting a week or two to get his or her exam returned. I don’t want to keep people waiting this long. So now you’ll have to do your make-up within a few days of the missed exam. If you cannot do this for either of the first two exams, the alternative arrangement will be as follows: you won’t take the exam you missed, but the grade you get on your next exam will count also as the grade for the missed exam. (For instance, you don’t take the first exam, and you get a grade of 75 on the second. This will leave you with a grade of 75 for both the first and the second exams.) In the case of the final exam this arrangement will not be in play. To complete the course, you have to take the final exam, no matter how late. If you take it a week or two late, this will not inconvenience the other students, since normally I don’t return final exams to students.

17. Essay:

Agreements CCRI has with URI and RIC require that all telecourses offered by CCRI have a required essay assignment. So you'll have to write an essay/term paper. I'll be looking for something in the neighborhood of 1,000 to 1,500 words (about 4 to 6 normal-sized typed pages). The due date will be the first of May, 2010. There are two ways of submitting the paper: either give me a “hard copy” or send me an email attachment. I'll get back to you with more details on this assignment – including dozens of suggestions as to potential topics

18. Submitting the essay/term paper late.

If you submit your term paper later than the due date, points will be taken off your grade; and the later the paper arrives, the more points that will be subtracted. There are three ways that the paper can be “on time.” (1) A hand-delivered copy of the paper must arrive at my office or my Newport CCRI mail box no later than May 1; (2) a copy sent by US mail must be postmarked no later than May 1; or (3) an email attachment of the paper must arrive at my CCRI email address no later than May 1.

19. Components of the semester grade:

The two shorter exams will count for 20 percent each. The final exam will count for 40 percent. The essay will count for 20 percent.

20. Number grades and letter grades:

• 93-100 = A
• 90-92 = A-minus
• 87-89 = B-plus
• 83-86 = B
• 80-82 = B-minus
• 77-79 = C-plus
• 70-76 = C
• 67-69 = D-plus
• 60-66 = D
• Below 60 = F

21. A very important warning.

Let me point out something I have learned from many years of teaching telecourses. Many students enter a telecourse with the expectation that the course will be easier than ordinary courses. After all, you don’t have to travel to the campus for regular meetings of the class, and you can learn at your own pace. But the fact is that for the great majority of students a telecourse will be harder than ordinary courses. Nothing can be more ridiculous than to think that this will be an “easy” course. Having to go to class on a regular basis provides a structure and discipline that is extremely useful in studying. In the telecourse, you have to provide your own structure, your own self-discipline. For most students, this is far from easy. Besides, an ordinary course gives you the benefit of being in frequent direct face-to-face contact with the teacher and the other students. This is a great advantage – an advantage lacking in a telecourse. In the many telecourses I have taught over the years, an unusually high percentage of students have either failed or dropped out before finishing the course – and these are students who, I believe, would do just fine if they were taking a regular on-campus course.

The absence of in-class interaction with the teacher and with other students is more of a handicap in philosophy than in most courses. For philosophical ideas and theories are often hard for the teacher (or the textbook) to clarify without a certain amount of back-and-forth between teacher and students. Teacher says that X means such-and-such. Student: “I don’t get it.” Teacher says it again, but this time in different words. Student: “Do you mean [student gives explanation]?” Teacher say, “No, not exactly,” and tries to explain it again. Eventually student says: “Now I get it.” This process, unfortunately, is pretty much absent in a philosophy telecourse.

My strong advice: If you wish to do well in the course, study extra-hard, harder than you would in an ordinary course. If you are not prepared to do this, it might be wise for you not to take the course. (By the way, I give this advice every semester – and every semester there are students who don’t take it seriously. They think I’m kidding about the degree of hard work required, and in the end they either flunk or drop the course. I’m not kidding.)

As I indicated above (section #4, “A new departure”), I am trying to make this course user-friendly. I hope, both for your sake and mine, that I’m successful in doing this. But even if I am, that success won’t nullify the warning I am giving you here.

22. Some good news.

I just gave you the bad news, that the course is difficult and requires self-discipline. But there’s good news too. It is this, that every semester there are students who rise to the challenge; students who really are self-disciplined enough to do the hard work; and they get not just barely passing grades but good grades of A and B. So it can be done. But every semester, let me repeat, there are more than a few students who fail or drop the course.

23. A few final words:

Telecourses (a misleading name if it suggests that these are primarily TV courses; they are not; they are primarily correspondence courses) are not easy to do, either for student or for teacher. To my mind, there is something "unnatural" about telecourses. For a student who has a real choice between taking a telecourse and taking an on-campus course, I would recommend the latter every time. At the same time, telecourses are a blessing to certain persons who – for reasons having to do with health or physical handicaps or family or work or lack of transportation – find it impossible, or at least exceedingly difficult, to attend normal, on-campus, face-to-face classes. So let's do the best we can. Let's make the best of a situation that is less than ideal.

Remember that I am eager to see you do well in the course. I am ready to help you in any way I can. Don’t be shy about emailing me or phoning me or even visiting me at my office. Don’t feel that when you do these things you are “imposing” on me in any way. I get paid for teaching this course, and among the things I get paid for is to be available to students when they feel they need me. I'm available to help out whenever you need help. I'm only an email or a phone call away.

Keep in mind that I am not a mind reader. If you are having some difficulty in the course, or if there is something in the readings you don’t understand, I won’t know this unless you tell me. And it is better to tell me earlier than later.

What you should also keep in mind that I am not Mother Teresa or the Salvation Army. That is to say, when dealing with students I try to be fair and professional, but I don’t provide acts of mercy. If you earn a passing grade for the course, I will give you a passing grade. But if you earn a failing grade, I will give you a failing grade. I may feel a little bit sad that I have to flunk you, but flunk you I will. I’m not a mean guy, but I would flunk my grandmother if she got bad grades. I will not boost your grade because you have a sad story to tell.

Now I never had my grandmother as a student in my course. But I once had my wife as a student; so let me tell you about her grade just to convince you that I’m neither Mother Teresa nor the Salvation Army. It was a course in which a term paper was not required except for students who wanted an A. If you didn’t write a paper, and a good paper at that, you couldn’t get an A no matter how well you did on exams. Well, my wife, who is very intelligent and hard-working, got an A on every exam. But she was very busy at the time: she had a job, she took care of the house, and she did the lion’s share of taking care of our kids (who were little at the time). So she decided not to write a paper. And so I gave her a B for the course. (I am happy to report that our marriage survived this outcome.) If I was “tough” with her, I can be tough with you.

24. Where do you go from here?

If you’ve read everything above, and read it carefully, here’s what you should do next – read it again.

Good luck.  (You’ll need it.)

Sincerely,
David R. Carlin
Professor of Philosophy

*Denotes Telecourse title

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This page last modified on: January 14, 2010