Spring 2012: MWF at 8 & 9

This course aims to promote reasoning skills, especially the ability to recognize valid reasoning. We'll study syllogistic, propositional, modal, and basic quantificational logic. We'll use these to analyze hundreds of arguments, many on philosophical topics like morality, free will, and the existence of God. We'll also study informal fallacies. Our text is Introduction to Logic (by Harry J. Gensler, Routledge 2010, second edition).

We'll have four full-period quizzes plus a comprehensive final exam, which counts as two quizzes. Missed quizzes count as zero. If you can't take a quiz on time, contact me before the morning of the next class and we might be able to set up another time; you can't take a quiz after I hand them back. Cheating on a quiz will earn you a grade in the F range. A = 96 or above, A- = 95-92, B+ = 91-89, B = 88-85, B = 84-82, C+ = 81-79, C = 78-75, C- = 74-72, D+ = 71-69, D = 68-65, F = below 65.

You'll do much homework on computer using the LogiCola program. You'll download LogiCola from my Web site. Give me your scores by e-mail or flash drive when you take the corresponding written quiz; I won't accept scores after I return the quiz. Try to do the exercises at an average level of 7 or higher (levels go from 1 to 9).

Your exercise scores add a bonus or penalty to your exam score. Let's say your average level (dropping fractions) is N. You get a +1 bonus for each number N is above 7; so you get a +2 bonus if N=9. You get a -1 penalty for each number N is below 7; so you get a -3 penalty if N=4. If you fake scores on the disk, your course grade will be lowered by one grade.

You are required to attend class. You can miss 6 classes without this lowering your grade (these 6 are for sicknesses, funerals, etc.). After that, each unexcused absence subtracts one point from your final course average. Perfect attendance adds a four point bonus to your final course average.

No student use of electronic devices (phones, iPods, tablets, laptops) is allowed during class.

Students with disabilities who need special arrangements should see the instructor.

Spring 2012: MWF at 11:00-11:50 am

This course is built around the Anthology of Catholic Philosophy, edited by James C. Swindal and Harry J. Gensler (Sheed & Ward 2005). This book gives the first ever comprehensive collection of readings from Catholic philosophers, from Biblical times to the present. Its eighty-two selections are arranged historically into five main groups:

1. Preliminaries: including readings from the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle.
2. The Patristic Era: selections from Aristides to Boethius, with an emphasis on Augustine.
3. The Middle Ages: readings from the early Moslem and Jewish thinkers to Scotus, Porette, and Ockham, with an emphasis on Aquinas.
4. The Renaissance through the Nineteenth Century: including Suárez, Descartes, Pascal, Newman, Pope Leo XIII, and others.
5. The Twentieth Century and Beyond: including Thomists like Maritain and Lonergan, continentals like Blondel and Marcel, analytics like Geach and Rescher, and others like Chesterton and Teilhard.

The authors read as a Who's Who of the Catholic intellectual tradition. The readings emphasize themes integral to this tradition, such as the harmony of faith and reason, the existence and nature of God, the nature of the human person, the nature of being, and the objectivity of the moral law. We will cover a good part of the book, from the beginning to the end.

Course Requirements

You are required to do assigned readings by the assigned dates. Most or all of our readings will be from the Anthology of Catholic Philosophy, which you should buy and always bring to class. I'll update homework assignments each class and put them on a Web page (in case you miss class or are unsure of assignments):

http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/hw

You will be required to prepare some selections more thoroughly and give mini-reports about them. A typical assignment might say "Felix - objections to Christianity (Smith Jones Brown 63-65)"; this means that these three students will prepare the section by Minucius Felix on pages 62-65, which gives objections to Christianity from the early Roman Empire. I will ask a random student from the three some questions about this section, like "Could you summarize this section for us?" or "What do you think of these ideas?" Your class participation, which mostly involves these mini-reports, counts for 20 percent of your grade.

There will be four written tests, likely on February 8, March 12, April 4, and May 7. Each has an objective part (perhaps short answers) and an essay part. Each test covers a quarter of the course and counts for 15 percent of your grade.

A paper of 5 to 10 pages in length will be due on Wednesday, April 18. Papers can be on readings that we don't take in class - or, with approval, on any other topic. I want the paper in both printed and disk forms and will likely run the disk version through plagiarism software; lateness and plagiarism will be penalized. I'll give you an information sheet about the paper assignment later. The paper counts for 20 percent of your grade.

The final exam will be at 10 am on Monday, May 7. This is like the other tests; it is an hour long, covers the last quarter of the course, and counts for 15 percent of your grade.

You are required to attend class. You can miss 5 classes without this itself hurting your grade (these 5 are for sicknesses, funerals, etc.). After that, each unexcused absence subtracts one point from your final course average. Perfect attendance will add a four point bonus to your final course average.

Click here to see my grading scale.

No student use of electronic devices (phones, iPods, tablets, laptops) is allowed during class.

Students with disabilities who need special arrangements should see the instructor.

Fall 2011: MWF at noon

This course aims to promote reasoning skills, especially the ability to recognize valid reasoning. We'll study propositional, basic quantificational, relational, and modal logic. We'll use these to analyze hundreds of arguments, many on philosophical topics like morality, free will, and the existence of God. We'll also study some related areas, like metalogic, history of logic, deviant logic, and philosophy of logic. Our text is Introduction to Logic (by Harry J. Gensler, Routledge 2010, second edition).

We'll have four full-period quizzes plus a comprehensive final exam. Missed quizzes count as zero. If you can't take a quiz on time, contact me before the morning of the next class and we might be able to set up another time; you can't take a quiz after I hand them back. Cheating on a quiz will earn you a grade in the F range. Your lowest quiz gets dropped if it's lower than the final; then final counts as two quizzes. If the final is your lowest grade, then the final counts as one quiz. A = 96 or above, A- = 95-92, B+ = 91-89, B = 88-85, B = 84-82, C+ = 81-79, C = 78-75, C- = 74-72, D+ = 71-69, D = 68-65, F = below 65.

You'll do much of your homework on computer using the LogiCola program. You'll download LogiCola from my Web site. Give me your scores on a USB flash drive or by e-mail when you take the corresponding written quiz; I won't accept scores after I return the quiz. Try to do the exercises at an average level of 7 or higher (levels go from 1 to 9).

Your exercise scores add a bonus or penalty to your exam score. Let's say your average level (dropping fractions) is N. You get a +1 bonus for each number N is above 7; so you get a +2 bonus if N=9. You get a -1 penalty for each number N is below 7; so you get a -3 penalty if N=4. If you fake scores on the disk, your course grade will be lowered by one grade.

You are required to attend class. You can miss 6 classes without this itself hurting your grade (these 6 are for sicknesses, funerals, etc.). After that, each unexcused absence subtracts one point from your final course average. Perfect attendance will add a four point bonus to your final course average.

Students with disabilities who need special arrangements should see the instructor.

Spring 2006: MWF at 11:00-11:50 am

Philosophy = reasoning about the ultimate questions of life. In this course, we'll consider these questions about religion:

• What evidence do we have that there is a God? Can we prove that there is a God?
• Is there strong evidence against the existence of God? Does the evil in the world show that there is no God?
• For our belief in God to be reasonable, do we need evidence or proof? Is belief in the afterlife reasonable? Is God the source of morality?

We'll examine various answers to these questions and look for problems and objections. So we'll search for the most reasonable answers.

I welcome people from diverse perspectives. My purpose in this course isn't to convince you of the existence of God. My purpose is to help you to understand different views and sort through them -- and so to arrive at well thought-out answers to some of the deepest questions that humans face.

We'll use two textbooks:

• Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, second edition, edited by Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach, and Basinger: various readings, including religious and anti-religious perspectives, mostly from contemporary sources. Click to order it from Amazon.
• God: The Evidence, by Patrick Glynn: a vigorous and controversial defense of theism, based largely on recent scientific discoveries. Click to order it from Amazon.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
Part One - Rationalism (Orals February 21-23): Can we give strong evidence for God's existence?
1. Introductory Materials: A1 Nature of Philosophy (handout), read for Jan 23. A2 Anthology - Introduction (1-3), Jan 25. A3 Glynn - Introduction [1-20, readings in brackets are from the Glynn book], Jan 25; no class Jan 30. A4 Aquinas - Faith and Reason (67-71), Feb 1. A5 Abraham - Soft Rationalism (98-108), Feb 3.
2. The Cosmological Argument: B1 Theistic Arguments (163-4), Feb 6. B2 Aquinas's Five Proofs (handout), Feb 6. B3 Moreland - In the Beginning (196-209), Feb 10. B4 Mackie - Critique of B3 (215-7 only), Feb 10. B5 Taylor - Why a World? (187-96), Feb 13. B6 Mackie - Critique of B5 (209-11 only), Feb 13.
3. The Teleological Argument: C1 Betty - Anthropic Design (218-30), Feb 17. C2 Glynn - A Non-Random World [21-55], Feb 17.

Part Two - Non-belief (Orals April 3-4): Can we show that belief in God is irrational?

4. The Problem of Evil: D1 An Introduction (249-50), Feb 24. D2 Hume - An Attack (255-62), Feb 27. D3 Mackie - An Inconsistency (263-73), Mar 1. D4 Plantinga - A Defense (274-87 only), Mar 3. D5 Hick - A Theodicy (301-15), Mar 15 [papers due Mar 20].
5. Language Arguments: E1 Logical Positivism (handout), Mar 22. E2 Hick - Afterlife Evidence (handout), Mar 24.
6. Evidence & Freud: F1 Clifford - We Need Proof (80-5), Mar 27. F2 Freud - An Illusion (handout), Mar 29. F3 James - We Don't Need Proof (86-94), Mar 29. F4 Glynn - Theists Live Better [57-97], Mar 31.

Part Three - Fideism and Other Topics (Orals May 4, 5, 8, 9, or 10): Can we reasonably believe in God without proof? Is there an afterlife? Does morality presuppose belief in God?

7. Reformed Epistemology: G1 An Introduction (327-8), Apr 5. G2 Plantinga - Basic Beliefs (329-41), Apr 5. G3 Pargetter - Assessment (342-8), Apr 10 [papers due Apr 12].
8. The Afterlife: H1 Glynn - Experiencing Death [99-137], Apr 18. H2 Badham - No Afterlife (469-78), Apr 21.
9. Ethics and Religion: I1 Lewis - The Moral Argument (241-6), Apr 26. I2 Supernaturalism (handout), Apr 28.
REQUIREMENTS
• Do the readings by the assigned dates (see the tentative schedule).
• Do computer exercises on the readings; I'll give you a disk for these (click on the RUN icon). You're required to get at least 90 on each exercise; for each exercise not done at this level, your corresponding oral exam score is lowered by 2 points.
• Take a 10-minute oral exam for each of the three parts of the course. I will give you more information on these later.
• Write two papers of 4 to 10 pages in length on an anthology reading not taken in class or on an approved alternative topic; these are due on March 20 and April 12. I will give you more information on these later.
• Participate in class.
• Attend class regularly. You can miss 5 classes without this itself hurting your grade (these 5 are for sicknesses, funerals, etc.). After that, each unexcused absence subtracts one point from your final course average.

Each oral exam and paper counts for 20% of your grade. To your course average, I may add a class participation bonus/penalty (from +4 to -2) and a penalty for excessive absences (see above).

Click here to see my grading scale.

Fall 2005: 8:00-8:50 am MWF

This course is about the foundations of ethics. We will focus on the nature of morality and how to reason and argue about ethical issues. Philosophers differ greatly on these topics; some take ethics to be about social conventions or feelings, while others base it on religion or reason.

In this course, we'll wrestle with some of the deepest questions of life, learn to think better about morality, and sharpen our general thinking skills.

Our texts will be Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (by Harry Gensler) and Ethics: Contemporary Readings (edited by Harry Gensler, Earl Spurgin, and James Swindal).

Our course has four parts:

1. Three classic views of morality: cultural relativism, subjectivism, supernaturalism.
2. Three contemporary views of morality: intuitionism, emotivism, prescriptivism.
3. An approach to moral rationality based largely on moral consistency and the golden rule.
4. Consequentialist and nonconsequentialist views of duty; and a synthesis chapter applying all the views to abortion.

We'll apply the various views to issues like racism and moral education.

You are required to:

• Do the readings by assigned dates. I recommend that you work through the study questions, but you don't have to write out the answers.
• Do class presentations (maybe a half dozen or so) on readings in the Contemporary Readings book. These will go for maybe ten minutes and cover the cover the main ideas and issues in the reading and your reactions.
• Do the computer exercises on the readings in the Ethics book (you'll get a floppy disk with these). You're required to get at least 90 on each exercise (if you don't get 90 the first time, you can do it again until you get 90); for each exercise not done at this level, your corresponding oral exam score is lowered by 2 points.
• Attend class regularly. You can miss 5 classes without this itself hurting your grade (these 5 are for sicknesses, funerals, etc.). After that, each unexcused absence subtracts one point from your final course average. You can be excused for university functions.
• Take a 10 or 15 minute oral exam for each of the four parts of the course.

Your four oral exams each count for 1/6 of your grade. Your presentations in the first half of the course count for an additional 1/6 of your grade, as do your presentations in the second half of the course.

Click here to see my grading scale.

PL 270 - 20th Century Anglo-American (Analytic) Philosophy

Fall 1998: 11:00-12:15pm TH

This course is an introduction to analytic philosophy, which is currently the dominant approach in the United States and England.

Analytic philosophers emphasize clear thinking and reasoning - but hold a wide range of views on substantive issues. We'll study major currents and figures, including:

1. Early figures: Russell, Moore, and the early Wittgenstein.
2. Logical positivism: Ayer.
3. Ordinary language philosophy: Austin and the later Wittgenstein.
4. Later approaches: Quine, Chisholm, and Plantinga.

We'll deal with areas like philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, metaphysics, ethics, and philosophy of religion. We'll also learn analytic tools for dealing with philosophical issues - tools that are useful even for people who are mostly interested in areas other than analytic philosophy.

Our texts include a course packet plus four small paperbacks:

• Analytic Readings for PL 270. (A course packet with readings from Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Chisholm; get this from the philosophy office in the Ad. Bldg. basement.)
• Language, Truth and Logic, by A.J. Ayer. (On logical positivism.)
• Sense and Sensibilia, by J.L. Austin. (On ordinary language philosophy.)
• God, Freedom, and Evil, by Alvin Plantinga. (A later analytic approach.)
• Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction, by Harry Gensler. (About some main issues and controversies in analytic approaches to ethics.)

Here's a tentative schedule of readings:
1. Logical positivism: Ayer (Chapters 1-6, except pages 90.7 to 99.4). Gensler: "Introduction" and "Emotivism."
2. Early figures: Russell, Quine, Wittgenstein, and Moore. Gensler: "Intuitionism" and "Consequentialism."
3. Ordinary language philosophy: Austin (Chapters 1-3, 5, 7, and 10, except pages 105.5 to 111.9). Gensler: "Prescriptivism."
4. Later approaches: Chisholm and Plantinga (pages 1-44, 54-55.1, 57.7-67.9, 75-91, 98.6-102.8, and 111-112). Gensler: "Consistency" and "The Golden Rule."

I'll tell you when to do each reading.

You are required to:

1. Do readings by assigned dates.
2. Keep an "analytic folder" in which you write out the answers to the study questions. Use correct grammar and spelling, and complete sentences. I'll sometimes collect the folders to check up on your work. I penalize for lateness.
3. Participate in class.
4. Take three 10-minute oral exams
5. Do computer exercises on the readings. You're required to get at least 90 on each exercise; for each exercise not done at this level, your corresponding oral exam score is lowered by 2 points.
6. Attend class regularly. You can miss 5 classes without this itself hurting your grade (these 5 are for sicknesses, funerals, etc.). After that, each unexcused absence subtracts two points from your final course average.

The three oral exams each count for 25% of your grade. The last 25% (your fourth grade) brings in class participation and your analytic folder. To calculate the fourth grade, I take the average of your three orals, add a class participation bonus/penalty (from -4 to +4 or +8 or more), and add cumulative bonus/penalty points for your analytic folder (you typically get a "good" or +0 each time, but can get "very good" or +2 for unusually good work or up to -4 for late or poor work).

Click here to see my grading scale.

We'll study these thinkers:

Bertrand Russell	G.E. Moore	Ludwig Wittgenstein	A.J. Ayer
V.W.O. Quine	John Austin	Roderick Chisholm	Alvin Plantinga