Senior Freshman Course Outlines

Year Convener: Prof. Lilian Alweiss

All courses run for both terms. There are four courses in the Senior Freshman year (Single Honours students, SHP, take all four; TSM and Phil/Pol students take only PI2006 and PI2002). The courses are as follows:

• PI2006 – Logic & Philosophy of Science (15 ECTS)
• PI2002 – History of Philosophy II (15 ECTS)
• PI2003 – Texts I (15 ECTS)
• PI2004 – Texts II (15 ECTS)

The two components of PI2006 comprise two lectures per week each. Each course component covers a single coherent theme or topic (e.g. "Informal Logic" or "Kant's Epistemology and Metaphysics") and is usually taught by the same lecturer. PI2003 and PI2004 make up six course components between them and comprise two lectures per week., PI2002 is made up of four course components with eleven lectures (over five and a half weeks) in each term.

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, and 2–12 respectively. There are no lectures or tutorials during reading week.

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.

PI2006 – LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE A
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Paal Antonsen, Peter Simons
Contact Hours: 44 lecture hours, 11 tutorial hours

Course Content / Outline
This course introduces the elements of formal logic including the propositional and predicate calculi and basic proof procedures. It also deals with issues in the philosophy of the natural and social sciences.

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Components 1 and 2 – Formal Logic
Lecturer: Paal Antonsen

This course is intended as an introduction to classical logic. The course has three components: propositional logic (PL), first order logic (FOL). The first component introduces the language of PL and gives an account of how to do translations from natural language into the language of PL. It then introduces truth tables and the tree method to test the validity of arguments in PL. The second component proceeds similarly for FOL. It introduces the extended language of FOL and gives an account of how to translate the structure of some sentences from natural language into the language of FOL. It introduces basic model theory and an extended tree method to test the validity of arguments in FOL.
Course book: Restall, Greg (2005) Logic: An Introduction. Routledge. New York.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Components 3 and 4 – Philosophy of Science
Lecturer: Peter Simons

Since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries modern science has expanded our knowledge of the universe immeasurably. The philosophy of science investigates what it is about science that has made this explosion of knowledge possible. This part of the course will examine various aspects of scientific method and practice: forms of inference in science; the role of experiment; theory and hypothesis; social and economic factors in science; the question of scientific realism.
Suggested reading: James Ladyman, Understanding Philosophy of Science. Routledge: 2002.

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

• Elucidate and critically assess the principal concepts, methods and theoretical issues in science as interpreted by contepmorary philosphy of science

Assessment and Examination:
Assessment : Essay X 1 + Logic exercises + Test
Examination : 1 X 3 hour examination

PI2002 – HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY II A
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Damián Bravo Zamora, Manfred Weltecke, Lilian Alweiss, James Levine
Contact Hours: 44 Lecture hours, 11 tutorial hours

This course continues the sequence of the history of western philosophy. Beginning with Kant, it moves through post–Kantian continental philosophy and on into analytic philosophy.

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component 1 – Kant's transcendental idealism: the debate regarding its consistency
Lecturer: Damián Bravo Zamora

Transcendental idealism, the doctrine that we can know only phenomena and not things in themselves, constitutes arguably the core of Kant's theoretical philosophy. However, this doctrine has been the target of importat criticisms by philosophers from the most diverse philosophical traditions. Prominent amongst these criticsims is the one according to which it is an inconsistent doctrine. On the other hand, modern–day interpreters of Kant sympathetic to his idealism contend that those criticisms rest either on uncharitable interpretations or on mistaken philosophical presumptions. In this course we will first concentrate on the two main arguments provided by Kant in favour of transcendental idealsim. Secondly, we will exaimne the charge of inconsistency. Finally, we will be concerned with the question whether the contemporary defenses of Kant's doctrine succeed in dispelling all the doubts regarding its inconsistency.

Component 2 – Later German Philosophy: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Later Voluntarism
Lecturer: Manfred Weltecke

The lectures will initially consider Schopenhauer's mixed relationship to Kant's theoretical and moral philosophy, which is one of veneration as well as rejection. Whereas Schopenhauer was, Like Kant, a very systematic philosopher, producing a single magnum opus (his World as Will and Idea) Nietzsche's many writings are highly aphoristic. An exceptioin to this is his mature Genealogy of Morals from 1887 which consists of three separate but related essays and which he saw as the culmination and summary of this main ideas concerning the nature of morality. Reading this text closely will afford the opportunity to engage with some of Nietzsche's central views. His relationship to Schopenhauer is similar to that of Schopenhauer's to Kant: he admires him greatly, but is ultimately highly problematical toward him, accusing him of nihilism, whereas he himself wants to affirm life at all costs.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 3 – History of Continental Philosophy / The Legacy of the Enlightenment
Lecturer: Lilian Alweiss

This unit attempts to provide an overview of modern 19th and 20th century European thought by drawing on the writing of Jacobi, Hamann, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Adorno and Habermas among others. The overall aim is to discuss how these thinkers question the Enlightenment project, in particular, the relationship between faith and reason.

Component 4 – Modern Analytic Philosophy
Lecturer: James Levine

In this component we will focus on the work of major figures within the analytic tradition, including Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein, A.J. Ayer, Rudolf Carnap, W.V. Quine and Saul Kripke. In doing so we will examine how these philosophers have differed on a number of central issues, including a priori knowledge, the status of metaphysics and the role of philosophy.

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

• Critically assess the views of key analytic philosophers on questions of truth and reality
• Analyse the development of analytic philosophy

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

PI2003 – TEXTS I
(SHP students only)

(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: David Berman, Peter Larsen, Lilian Alweiss
Contact Hours: 33 seminar hours, 11 tutorial hours

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

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component 1 – Schopenhauer's Essays
Lecturer: David Berman

It was the publication of Schopenhauer's essays in 1859 that made him famous – and not surprisingly, since they are more direct and lively than his main philosophical work. This course looks at some of the essays, with particular focus on his long essay called "An essay on Spirit–seeing and Everything connected".

Component 2 – Aristotle's De Anima
Lecturer: Peter Larsen

Aristotle's De Anima – his study of the nature of the soul – represents one of the foundational texts in the history of philosophy. It is rich both in the novel approach that it takes to the conception of the soul, as well as the impact that it has had on subsequent thinkers. It provides a careful reader with insights into the precise way in which Aristotle differed from his predecessors on various points of interest not just with respect to psychology, but also physics and metaphysics. Additionally, this short treatise, like many of Aristotle's works was crucially influential on the philosophical ideas of that developed during the medieval period. This course will begin by highlighting the sense in which Aristotle.s hylomorphic conception of the soul is consistent with, and follows from his views on change and explanation developed in his Physics and Metaphysics. It will then turn to a close examination of Aristotle's account of the nature of the soul, the relationship between the soul and the body and the faculties that distinguish the types of souls that comprise Aristotle's tripartite division. Particular attention will be given to the faculty of sense perception, and the relationship between Aristotle's theory of sense perception developed in the De Anima and modern debates in the philosophy of perception.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 3 – Sartre's Being and Nothingness
Lecturer: Lilian Alweiss

We will be reading Being and Nothingness by Jean–Paul Sartre which is sometimes described as a "bible" of existentialism. We shall focus in particular on the problems of freedom, existence, bad faith and the other.

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

• Analytically interpret classic philosophical texts
• Interpret and evaluate the work of Schopenhauer, Aristotle and Sartre
• Defend philosophihcal interpretations of these texts

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

PI2004 – TEXTS II
(SHP students only)
(15 ECTS Credits)
Lecturers: Vasilis Politis, Ciaran McGlynn, James Levine
Contact Hours: 33 lecture hours, 11 tutorial hours

1st Semester / Michaelmas Term

Component I – Plato's Republic
Lecturer: Vasilis Politis

Plato's Republic weaves together major themes in ethics, politcs, psychology, epistemology and metaphysics; and does so in a way that relates to issues of critical relevance not only to his contemporaries but arguably to us. In this course we shall focus on five themes: (1) the defense of injustice, based on Plato's description (through Thrasymachus) of the actual ethical and political world; (2) the account of a radical divide in humans between rational and irrational desires; (3) the response to this description of the actual human condition through the articulation of a paradigm of a good community and man; (4) the conception of education, in general and for this end; (5) the conception of philosophy and the philosopher underlying this grand project.

2nd Semester / Hilary Term

Component 2 — Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Lecturer: Ciaran McGlynn

"The worst speculative sceptic I ever knew was a much better man than the most superstitious Devotee and Bigot"; so wrote David Hume in a letter regarding his classic critique of religious belief: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In this relatively short work (it runs to one hundred, or so, pages) Hume asks if belief in God can be justified by what we know about the universe. Hume's constantly sceptical stance about the claims of religion constitutes an important element of the Enlightenment development towards religious tolerance. Above all, Hume is the champion of reason. As the dialogues discuss some of the main contemporary issues relating to the existnece of God, including the argument from design as well as the problem of evil, Hume has been described as the founder of the modern form of the philosophy of religion. As such the Dialogues is a key text in the contemporary debate about the rationality and standing of religion.

Component 3 — William James' Pragmatism
Lecturer: James Levine

We will study William James' Pragmatism, an influential and engaging book, which is based on a series of lectures he gave in 1909, and which presents controversial views on a number of issues, including the nature of truth, meaning and reality, the relation between temperament and philosophy, and the possible justification of religious belief. Time permitting, we will also consider how certain other philosophers – including Bertrand Russell, Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty – have responded to, and been influenced by, James' book.

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

• Analytically interpret classical philosophical texts
• Interpret and evaluate the work of Plato, Hume and James
• Defend philosophical interpretations of these texts

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