Junior Freshman Course Outlines

Year Convener: Prof. Paul O'Grady

There are four courses in the Junior Freshman year:

• PI1001 – Central Problems in Philosophy (15 ECTS)
• PI1002 – History of Philosophy I (15 ECTS)
• PI1003 – Topics in Philosophy I (15 ECTS)
• PI1004 – Topics in Philosophy II (15 ECTS)

All courses comprise two lectures per week.

All students, whether single or joint honours meet for weekly tutorials with departmental teaching assistants. During Michaelmas and Hilary Terms the tutorial weeks are 3–12. There are no lectures or tutorials during reading week.

All courses are made up of four course components with eleven lectures (over five and a half weeks) in each.

Each course component covers a single coherent theme or topic (E.G. "The Mind Body Problem" or "The Empiricists") and is usually taught by the same lecturer.

Part of the assessment for each course will be by means of essays which are marked by the course teaching assistants.

The examination for each course takes place at the end of each year, during May and June. The rubric for the examination paper will nearly always contain sections reflecting the components that make up each of the above courses.

PI1001 – CENTRAL PROBLEMS IN PHILOSOPHY
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Paul O'Grady, Georg Urich, Ailsing Crean and Paal Antonsen
Contact Hours: 44 lecture hours, 11 tutorial hours

This is a problem–based course, comprising the following components:

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component 1 – Epistemology
Lecturer: Paul O'Grady

This course begins with a discussion of the analysis of knowledge. This is followed by an investigation of foundationalism and coherentism as competing accounts of epistemic justification. We conclude with an investigation of internalism and externalism as approaches to epistemology.

Component 2 – Ethics
Lecturer: Georg Urich

The main aim of the course is to introduce three classic ethical theories: virtue ethics, consequentialism and deontology, focusing on selected readings from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, John Stewart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Immanual Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, respectively. The central question is: What is the good? More specifically: What, if anything, is the highest good? What makes an action good? What makes a person good? We consider how these questions are related, compare how our three philosophers have attempted to answer them, and identify how some of their answers clash, while others are compatible, in agreement, or mutually supporting.
Along the way we encounter a number of challenges to the very idea of morality: moral relativism (Herodotus, Ruth Benedict), moral egoism (Plato, Hobbes), the fact–value gap and the alleged impotence of reason (Hume), and moral luck (Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel). We will consider briefly whether and to what extent these challenges pose problems for the respective moral theories and assess how, or how successfully they can avoid or address them.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 3 – The Mind–Body Problem
Lecturer: Aisling Crean

Human beings, and perhaps other creatures too, have minds as well as bodies. But what is a mind, and what is its relation to body, and to the physical world more generally? We shall examine four theories of the mind that attempt to answer these questions: substance dualism, analytic behaviourism, the identity theory and functionalism. We will ask how plausible each of these theories is and will finish by considering four formidable objections to functionalism.

Component 4 – Philosophy of Language
Lecturer: Paal Antonsen

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course students will be able to:

• Identify and use different methods of philosophical analysis.
• Distinguish the main areas within philosophy.
• Write essays in a critical and dialectical manner.
• Critically evaluate core arguments in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.

Assessment and Examination
Assessment: Essays–X2 50%
Examination: 1 X 3 hour examination 50%

PI1002 – HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Vasilis Politis, James Levine, Aisling Crean,, David Berman
Contact Hours 44 lecture hours, 11 tutorials

This is a historically–based course, running for two years. In the first year there are the following components:

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component 1 – Introduction to Ancient Philosophy
Lecturer: Vasilis Politis

Ancient philosophy, provided it is treated of thematically and not purely historically, provides an excellent focus for some major philosophical themes. (1) We begin with Parmenides' claim that the notion of change is incoherent, from which he derived that the appearance of change is a mere appearance or even illusion. (2) We take up Aristotle's response to this challenge, which provided him with the opportunity to develop an account of the metaphysics of changing particulars (we shall also compare his account to Plato's). (3) We turn to the Socratic conception of philosophical argument and inquiry, based on the search for the knowledge of essences as a means of answering certain central aporiai. (4) We follow the trials and tribulations of the notion of essence, from Plato's theory of forms to Aristotle's hulomorphism. (5) We conclude with some skeptical notes on this whole project of essence–based metaphyscis, as articulated by some ancient skeptics and summarized in Sextus Empiricus.

Component 2 – The Rationalists
Lecturer: James Levine

This component focuses on the epistemology and metaphysics of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, primarily through examining some of their central works – Descartes' Meditations, Spinoza's Ethics and Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 3 — Empiricism 1
Lecturer: David Berman

This component begins by setting out the main theories and arguments in Locke's Essay (1690). It then examines Berkeley's philosophy and the one great age of Irish philosophy, circa 1696–1757, in which Berkeley is the centre–piece, Locke the main external influence and John Toland the seminal Irish figure.

Component 4 – Empiricism 2
Lecturer: Aisling Crean

John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume have traditionally been grouped together under the lable "empiricists" in virtue of their rejection of innate ideas and emphasis on experience as a source of knowledge. The course as a whole gives you an overview of empiricism in the early modern period (roughly, the period from 1637–1780) and this part of the course focuses on the work of David Hume. You will be introduced to three central topics in Hume's work: his theories of ideas, his discussion of necessity, and his discussion of what has since come to be known as the "problem of induction". We will critically examine Hume's views on each of these topics and then ask whether they are sustainable given that one of his primary concerns is to develop a science of human nature.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course students will be able to:

• Discriminate and connect the periods between Greek and early modern philosophy.
• Read philosophical texts in their historical context.
• Write essays sensitive to historical context.

Assessment and Examination:
Assessment: Essays X 2 – 50%
Examination: 1 X 3 hour Examination – 50%

PI1003 – TOPICS I
(SHP students only)
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Aisling Crean, Paul O'Grady, Brendan O'Byrne, Paal Antonsen
Contact Hours: 44 lecture hours, 11 tutorial hours

This is a problem–based course dealing with issues in metaphysics, philosophy of language and epistemology. It consists of four components – Problems about Persons, Philosophy of Language, Psychological Philosophy and Epistemology.

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component 1 – Metaphysics
Lecturer: Aisling Crean

In popular culture the word "metaphysics" is associated with the study of religion, the supernatural, all things New Age, or the occult. Go into a bookstore and you will probably find the books labeled "metaphysics" next to the self–help books and dream–catchers. That is not metaphysics as it is done in universities. In universities, the questions that concern metaphysicians are questions about the fundamental nature of reality. For example, what makes a person stay the same person over time despite drastic changes? What is time – does it flow? What does that mean anyway? Many of us think we are free to act and choose. How can that be? What is free–will ? What is a law of nature – does F=ma constrain or merely describe what objects do? When we say that two things are both red, that they share their colour – is there really some one thing, redness that they both have? And so on. In this course, we will largely focus on questions about persons, time, change, free–will and laws of nature. We will look at some traditional answers to these questions and then consider how plausible they are.

Component 2 – Religion
Lecturer: Paul O'Grady

This component introduces philosophy of religion and examines two classical arguments for the existence of God, as well as discussing the problem of evil.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 3 – Scepticism
Lecturer: Brendan O'Byrne

Scepticism names a group of strategies and arguments which raise and explore rational doubts about our knowledge and belief claims and even about our faculties. In this component we will look at the most influential and important of these; For example, external world scepticism, doubts about the existence of other minds and even the various arguments that throw doubt on the power of our rational and sensible faculties to attain knowledge or even just reliable belief. We shall consider some important varieties of scepticism – the practical kind, associated with Pyrrhonic scepticism, which aims at a way of life, and the theoretical, or purely epistemological kind, associated with Descartes and others, where sceptical arguments are designed to help lead us to certainty. We will also examine various responses to scepticism; how do they work and are they successful?

Component 4 – Animal Rights
Lecturer' Paal Antonsen

What moral considerations, if any, should we afford (non–human) animals? Most of us wouldn't condone arbitraily killing a cat down the street minding its own business$ But again, most of us wouldn*#39;t mind swatting a mosquito that happened to be bothering us. Between those two cases people's opinions diverge immensely. Some people go on safari trips to hunt exotic animals for sport, while others jeopardize their own lives to save dolphins. Could either be dead wrong?
What if the killing of the cat wasn't done arbitrarily, would it then be permissible? What if it was done for the amusement of an audience? What if it was done to make a fur coat? What if it was part of an expiriment to produce cosmetic products – or in the service of medical science? What if they owned the cat, but had a child who was allergic to cats? What if they killed the cat in order to eat it, and they were really hungry? What difference would it make in how the killing was carried out?
To answer these questions we need to look at what is morally at stake in our dealings with animals4. In this course we will consider different philosophical perspectives on the moral status of animals, and how we could go about giving satisfying answers to the dilemmas we meet when we consider our treatment of animals.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course students will be able to:

• Cricially evaluatet different views in metaphysics.
• Assess arguments for the existence of God.
• Grasp the central points of scepticism.
• Critically assess accounts of and arguments against animal rights

Assessment and Examination:
Assessment: Essays X 2 – 50%
Examination: 1 X 3 hour Examination – 50%

PI1004 – TOPICS II
(SHP students only)
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Lilian Alweiss, Peter Larsen, Antti Kauppinen, Paul O'Grady
Contact Hours: 44 lecture hours, 11 tutorial hours

This is a problem–based course, comprising the following components:

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component 1 – The Problem of Evil
Lecturer: Lilian Alweiss

Does horrendous evil render the existence of God impossible or unlikely? Can one rationally maintain that God exists while instances of seemingly pointless wickedness occur? This module begins with some central claims about the so–called problem of evil. Leibniz: whether God must create the best possible world and Hume: whether the existence of evil counts against the existence of God. We continue by addressing the question whether there is not a moral requirement to make evil intelligible or whether we should simply accept its unintelligibility. We shall be focusing on the writings of Augustine, Voltaire, Rousseau and Hannah Arendt.

Component 1 – Perception
Lecturer: Peter Larsen

In our everday lives we frequently operate under the assumption that sense perception puts us into some sort of cognitive contact with objects, usually of the material sort, that populate a world external to us. Our perceptual experience, we often think in our less reflective moments, also provides us with a basis from which we may form beliefs about, and perhaps even acquire knowledge of, this external world. This course will examine these very basic assumptions, and will explore the debates surrounding their veracity that have emerged in the philosophy of perception. We will approach our investigation thematically, with an eye to shedding some light on certain guiding questions. These include: What is the subject of perception (that which actually perceives)? What are the objects that comprise the content of perceptual experience? What relationship, if any, does this perceptual content have to objects external to the perceiver? How does the physiology of our sense organs, and sensory apparatus, contrubute to and⁄or affect the way in which we perceive? And what is the relationship, if any, between perception and knowledge? Although not primarily historical, this course will, in an attempt to grapple with these questions, look to views and arguments that span the history of Western Philosophy from the Greek Atomists to the present day.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 3 – Political Philosophy
Lecturer: Antti Kauppinen

Politicians of all stripes like to justify their proposals by appealing to notions such as justice, freedom, equality, and the general good. But what do these abstract concepts really amount to? Which of these values should be given priority in a good society? Political philosophers give general answers to these questions. We will examine them and consider what they would mean for some major political questions of our time.

Component 4 – Asian Philosophy
Lecturer: Paul O'Grady

This course introduces some of the main traditions in Asian thought. It begins with a discussion of cross–cultural philosophy. This is followed by a survey of the main schools of Indian philosophy, with a specific emphasis on the epistemology of the Nyaya school. We then turn to the Buddhist critique of this school, dealing primarily with Nagarjuna reading sectioins of his Mulamadhyamikakarika. The development of Madhyamika Buddhism is traced and we conclude with an examination of the Japanese Kyoto school.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this course students will be able to:

Grasp alternative responses to the Problem of Evil.

• Critically assess theories in the philosophy of perception.
• Identify and critically evaluate fundamental concepts in political philosophy.
• Crically evaluate various Asian approaches to philosophy.

Assessment and Examination:
Assessment: Essays X 2 – 50%
Examination: 1 X 3 hour Examination – 50%