Professor: W. Sweet
Office: 518 Nicholson Hall
Telephone: 867-2341
Office Hours: M. 3:15 p.m.-5:00 p.m.; 7:00-10:00 p.m.; T. 10:15 a.m.-12:00 p.m.; W. 3:15 p.m.-5:00 p.m. and by arrangement.
Home page: http://iago.stfx.ca/people/wsweet/phil100.html

The objectives of this course are to provide students with an opportunity to develop critical thinking and clear expression and to introduce them to the history of philosophy and to some of the traditional problems of philosophy.

I. What is philosophy and the 'philosophic life'? [What is life about? Is there a meaning to life? Are there answers to these questions?]

Readings
Apology; excerpts from the Republic (on 'the happy life/just society' and education).
See also web pages on Plato:
The Last Days of Socrates from Clarke College.
Plato and his dialogues by Bernard Suzanne.
For the complete text of the Apology, on slow, graphically enhanced, pages, click here
For complete text, in one file and without graphics, click here

• traditional divisions of philosophy
• reason, emotion and truth
• timeline of philosophers (click here or here).

•    statements and sentences; non-assertive sentences [15-17]
•    arguments
•    other kinds of discourse (descriptions, explanations, etc.) [92-97]
•    premise and conclusion indicators [16
•    re-presenting and evaluating arguments
•    argument trees and diagramming [99-104]
•    principle of charity and supplying missing premises [64-66; 86-91]
•    assessing arguments: logical strength and soundness [17-22; 117-119]

Reasoning and Language
Matters of Clarity and Content I: Vagueness and Ambiguity:

• statements and terms
• sense and reference
• ambiguity and vagueness [pp.  66-72]
• ambiguity
• use and mention
• semantic [referential] and syntactic [grammatical] ambiguity
• distributive and collective uses of terms
• multiple meaning
• fallacies: equivocation [pp. 145-6], division and composition
• vagueness
• advantages and disadvantages
• fallacies: `no-black-or-white'; slippery slope [pp. 179-83]; all or nothing [pp. 146-8]
• verbal and factual disputes: definition
• lexical and stipulative definitions [pp.  48-54]
• conditions for definition [pp.  54-60]
• fallacy: question begging (or circular) definition

Reasoning and Language
Matters of Clarity and Content II: Emotivity

• emotivity
• descriptive and emotive meanings [pp.  75-7]
• fallacies: irrelevant emotional appeals (ad misericordiam [appeal to pity; pp 105, 143]; ad vericundiam [appeal to illegitimate authority; pp. 146-8]; appeal to force [ad baculum]; appeal to fear; appeal to the masses [ad populum]; personal attack [ad hominem--to the person; tu quoque--"you're another"; pp. 148-152]
• suggestion and slanting
• suggestion
• slanting by selection [pp. 247-250] and by distortion
• other fallacies:
• appeal to ignorance [ad ignorantiam; pp. 164-5];] red herring [distraction; pp. 251-2]
• other problems:
• begging the question [p. 130]; double question [pp. 244-6]

Formal Logic:

• logical operators, sentence form and necessary truth
• necessary and sufficient conditions [72-6]
• general characteristics of deduction and induction
• deduction [pp. 176-90]:
• valid argument forms: modus ponens, modus tollens, disjunctive syllogism, conditional chain
• invalid argument forms [formal fallacies]: affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent, affirming a disjunct, circular arguments
• syllogisms

Inductive Reasoning:

• generalization by enumeration and sampling [generalization]; fallacy: hasty generalization;
• causal reasoning [Mill's methods]; fallacy: false cause [post hoc ergo propter hoc]; common cause
• analogy [pp. 175-8; ]; fallacy: false analogy

Readings and sample arguments
the origin of our knowledge in experience (e.g., Hume on our knowledge of causality; Plato's allegory of the cave; on method in social science)

• Cause and effect, the relation of the mind and the body; free will, miracles

• William HUGHES, Critical Thinking, 3rd ed., Broadview Press.
• PLATO, Great Dialogues of Plato, (ed./tr. W.H.D. Rouse), Mentor Books
• PLATO, (Euthyphro), AQUINAS (Summa theologiae), DESCARTES (Meditations on First Philosophy), HUME (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), and ANSELM, texts and photocopied notes
• TBA
  

Students might consult web pages on:

Philosophy Pages (from Garth Kemerling):

Method of the course and the role of the student:

The class will have a `lecture and discussion' format. The professor will introduce a topic with a summary of the relevant arguments or a commentary on a text. This will be followed by questions and discussion of the material by the class as a whole (e.g., points of clarification or criticism and of comparison; comments on the relations between or among different issues).

Students are expected to have prepared the readings before class, to attend all of the classes and to participate in discussion. Students who have more than 4 unjustified absences in a term will be subject to sanctions.

It is essential in learning how to do philosophy that students be prepared to ask and answer questions in class.

Evaluation:

Attendance, class notes, and (surprise) quizes (20%); Christmas examination (20%); 2 written assignments (test in mid October - 10% and a short essay in early March - 15%);  Final examination (35%)