Introduction to Philosophy

Table of Contents

  1. Unit I

  2. Unit II

  3. Unit III

  4. Appendices

  5. Works Cited

 

UNIT I

1. Introduction to Course

Required Reading: N/A

Supplementary Material—

2. Agrippa’s Trilemma

Required Reading: Harald Thorsrud, Ancient Greek Skepticism, Section 3

TL;DR: Jennifer Nagel, The Problem of Skepticism

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

3. The Advancement of Learning

Required Reading: Lorraine Daston, The Empire of Observation, 1600-1800

  • Note: The required reading is only the first 11 pages of the document. Here is a redacted copy of the reading.

TL;DR: 60Second Philosophy, Who is Francis Bacon?

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

  • Reading: Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

    • See in particular Book II.

  • Reading: Jürgen Klein, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Francis Bacon

4. Cogito

Required Reading: René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

  • Notes:

    • Read only Meditations I & II.

    • Here is an annotated reading of Descartes’ Meditations, courtesy of Dan Gaskill at California State University, Sacramento.

TL;DR: Crash Course, Cartesian Skepticism

Related Material—

  • Video: Nick Bostrom, The Simulation Argument

  • Netflix: The interested student should also watch "Hang the DJ" (Episode 4, Season 4) of the Netflix series Black Mirror.

Advanced Material—

5. Empiricism v Rationalism

Required Reading: John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

  • Note: Read only chapters 1 and 2.

TL;DR: Crash Course, Locke, Berkeley, and Empiricism

Advanced Material—

6. Aquinas and the Razor

Required Reading: Gordon Leff, The Fourteenth Century and the Decline of Scholasticism

TL;DR: Carneades.org, Occams’s Razor (and why you should be skeptical of it)

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

7. The Problem of Evil

Required Reading: John Mackie, Evil and Omnipotence

TL;DR: Crash Course, The Problem of Evil

Supplementary Material—

Related Material—

Advanced Material—

8. Pascal’s Wager

Required Reading: Alan Hájek, Pascal’s Wager (Note: Focus primarily on sections 1, 4, & 5.)

TL;DR: Crash Course, Indiana Jones and Pascal’s Wager

Related Material—

Video: TED, Dan Gilbert: Why We Make Bad Decisions

Advanced Material—

  • Note: In this lecture, we utilize decision theory to assess Pascal's argument. Here is an introduction to decision theory.

  • Reading: Katie Steele and H. Orri Stefánsson, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Decision Theory

9. The Problem of Evil (Part II)

TEST 1 STUDY GUIDE

Test Prep Checklist

 

UNIT II

1. Laplace’s Demon

Required Reading: A.J. Ayer, Freedom and Necessity

TL;DR: Crash Course, Determinism vs Free Will

Link: Student Health Center Info and Link

Supplementary Material—

Related Material—

Advanced Material—

2. The Person and The Situation

Required Viewing: Think 101, Know Thyself?

Supplementary Material—

Related Material—

Advanced Material—

3. The Mind’s I

Required Reading: Plato, The Republic, Book II

  • Note: Read from 357a to 367e.

TL;DR: The School of Life, POLITICAL THEORY: Thomas Hobbes

Advanced Material—

4. Eyes in the Sky

Required Reading: Steven Cahn, God and Morality

TL;DR: CrashCourse, Divine Command Theory

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

5. Virtues and Vices

Required Reading: Julia Annas, Virtue Ethics

  • Note: Read at least pages 1-14.

TL;DR: The School of Life, Aristotle

Advanced Material—

6. Patterns of Culture

Required Reading: Gilbert Harman, Moral Relativism Explained

TL;DR: Crash Course, Metaethics

Supplementary Material—

Related Material—

Advanced Material—

7. The Kingdom of Ends

Required Readings:

TL;DR: Crash Course, Kant & Categorical Imperatives

Supplementary Material—

Advaned Material—

Appendix A: Kant’s Empirical Problems

8. The Trolley

Required Reading: John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism

  • (Note: Read chapters I & II.)

TL;DR: Crash Course, Utilitarianism

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

9. The Calm Before the Storm

TEST 2 STUDY GUIDE

Test Prep Checklist

UNIT III

1. 2 + 2 = 4(?)

Required Reading: Mark Balaguer, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Platonism in Metaphysics Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4.1

TL;DR:

Supplemental Material—

Advanced Material—

Related Material—

2. The Master

Required Reading: Plato, Book VIII of the Republic

TL;DR:

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

Appendix B: Plato on Math

3. The Mind/Body Problem

Required Reading: Andy Clark, Some Backdrop: Dualism, Behaviorism, Functionalism, and Beyond

  • Note: This file includes the Introduction, Appendix, and Chapter 1 of Andy Clark’s book Mindware. The required reading is the Introduction and the Appendix. However, Chapter 1 may be of interest to some students.

TL;DR: Crash Course, Where Does Your Mind Reside?

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

4. Universal Machines

Required Reading: Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence

TL;DR: Crash Course, Artificial Intelligence & Personhood

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

Related Material—

5. The Chinese Room

Required Reading: John Searle, Minds, Brains and Programs

TL;DR: 60-Second Adventures in Thought, The Chinese Room

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

Related Material—

  • Video: ELIZA, Computer Therapist

    • ELIZA is a computer program that emulates a Rogerian psychotherapist written by Joseph Weizenbaum.

  • Link: SHRDLU

    • SHRDLU is a program for understanding natural language, written by Terry Winograd at the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1968-70. 

  • Audio: The Harvard Business Review Podcast, The State of Nanotechnology

Appendix C: On Searle

6. The Turing Test

Required Reading: N/A

Related Material—

Advanced Material—

Material on Why Some Governments Might Want AI—

  • Reading: Vally Koubi and David Lalman, Distribution of Power and Military R&D

    • Note: The central finding of this article is that the intensity of military R&D is higher when a dominant nation faces a potential challenger. The implication is that both the governments of the US and of China might have interest in exploring machine superintelligence given the recent resurgence of China.

    • The interested student can also read Graham Allison’s Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?

      • Also, here is an interview of Graham Allison.

7. Self-less

Required Reading: Mark Siderits, Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction, Chapter 2

  • Note: This PDF includes chapters 2 and 3. Only chapter 2 is required reading, but some students may also have interest in chapter 3.

TL;DR: Crash Course, Buddha and Ashoka

Supplementary Material—

Advanced Material—

8. The Labyrinth

Required Reading: Matthias Steup and Ram Neta, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Epistemology, Section 4.4 Why Coherentism?

Advanced Material—

Further Down the Spiral—

9. The Circular Ruins

Required Reading: Jorge Luis Borges, The Circular Ruins

TEST 3 STUDY GUIDE

Test Prep Checklist

Appendix A: Kant’s Empirical Problems

Appendix B: On Searle

Appendix C: Cultural Relativism