Cuesta College
Jacqueline Marcus

Introduction to Philosophy

Our discussion is not about just any question,
but about how one should live one's life.
—Plato

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."
—Joseph Brodsky

Click here for class assignments and test dates

Class Syllabus / Spring 2006
 
Course Title: Introduction to Philosophy
Instructor: Jackie Marcus
Office: Bldg. 6900 (For messages, please use the email address below)
Office hours: M 12:00 or by appointment
Email:
Jacqueline Marcus' poetry website:ForPoetry.com

About Jacqueline Marcus: Degrees, credentials, publications, books.

Required Texts:   Plato: Great Dialogues of Plato, W.H.D. Rouse translator. Books that Changed the World; Robert B.Downs;  Introduction to Philosophy (Primary Selected Readings; Douglas J. Soccio; Thomson Custom Books), Close to the Shore (poems); Jacqueline Marcus; The American Heritage Dictionary book version (strongly recommended) 

IntroPhilosophy.com: Philosophy Class website for updates on reading assignments, test dates, research material, online philosophy texts and glossaries.  

Recommended Readings:  Kitto, H.D.F., The Greeks.  Plato, The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics), Stone, I.F. The Trial of Socrates, Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World


Objectives:

Why Study Philosophy?
 
Introduction to Philosophy / Humanities: Moral and Political Philosophy

Definitions:

Moral Philosophy: the study of moral principles-imperatives and the application of those principles as a means of resolving moral problems; from Latin moralis, refers to what people consider good or bad, right or wrong. The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct. 

Political Philosophy: the study of human rights, inalienable rights, constitutional rights, natural rights; the branch of philosophy concerned with the state, laws, policies and issues of freedom and sovereignty.

Existentialism: "The refusal to belong to any school of thought, the repudiation of the adequacy of any body of beliefs whatever, and especially of systems, and a marked dissatisfaciton with traditional philosophy as superficial, academic, and remote from life--that is the heart of existentialism." --Walter Kaufmann

Environmental Ethics: Environmental ethics is the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. This entry covers: (1) the challenge of environmental ethics to the anthropocentrism (i.e., human-centeredness) embedded in traditional western ethical thinking; (2) the early development of the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s; (3) the connection of deep ecology, feminist environmental ethics, and social ecology to politics; (4) the attempt to apply traditional ethical theories, including consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, to support contemporary environmental concerns; and (5) the focus of environmental literature on wilderness, and possible future developments of the discipline. plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/ (Stanford University Philosophy Department)

Philosophy is classified as a "Lecture Series Course."   Generally, students begin with the wrong presumption that philosophy is nothing more than an exchange of subjective opinions that are all equally valid.  However, philosophy is an objective study in that you are required to learn the philosophers' arguments as you would learn math, science or literature.  In other words, this class is not about sharing subjective, personal opinions on life; if it were, the course title would have to change from the study of Great Thinkers to "Student Chat-Groups 101."  You are welcome, of course, to express independent conclusions on written assignments, and to participate in asking questions on the reading material, but the object of this course is for students to learn the classics.  As one sage put it, "Learn first, then express opinions."      

The lectures are based primarily on the history of philosophical thinking in humanities. 

Class Outline

This course will be taught as a course in Humanities:  The study of revolutionary thinkers that contributed to the culture of philosophy, literature, science and art i.e. philosophical theories that profoundly changed our views of reality and knowledge.  "Philosophers and artists have for centuries sought effective ways to perceive and express the "truth' of the world and the human condition." (Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces) 

Philosophers raise the eternal questions that ought to be addressed by everyone
but are not asked in ordinary life or expected to be answered there.--Allan Bloom

The Greeks: Background in Greek culture: Homer, the Greek Playwrights, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato: Sections from The Republic, The Apology and The Phaedo: Central Questions: What is Justice? What is the Good life and is it inseparable from the moral life?

Kant: Kant's moral imperatives and how they determine if an incentive is morally acceptable or not. 

Marx, Darwin, Kafka and Hegel:   Das Kapital and Origin of Species: The history of class struggle, the problem of poverty and capitalism during Mid-Victorian period.  Kafka's "The Bucket Rider".  The problem of wealth concentrated in the hands of the few: A return to the exploitation of workers? Global Trade v the Ethics of Economics

Mary Wollstonecraft: Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Equal rights for voting, education and job opportunities

Nietzsche, Poetry and Existentialism: Beyond Good and Evil: Aesthetics:The creative process; The Overman v. Slave mentality: Independent virtues v. conformity and blind obedience to authority figures

John Stuart Mill: On Liberty.  Political Philosophy: What liberties constitute a free society.  The Bill of Rights v The Patriot Act. 

Environmental Ethics: Major universities now offer degrees in environmental ethics in philosophy.  It's included in the study of philosophy for important moral reasons.  Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.  Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency - five Republicans and one Democrat - accused the Bush administration of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011906C.shtml  

Buddhist Ethics: The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path:  Life involves suffering.  What are the causes of suffering? How do we end suffering for ourselves and for others?

Requirements
     
If your reading and writing skills do not meet college standards, you could have a difficult time passing this course i.e. written assignments call for comprehensive reading, research and concise summations of arguments from the texts.

The formal grading requirements are as follows:

Objective tests, quizzes, take home paper assignments and short in-class essay questions. The class participation portion of your grade will be based on periodic pop quizzes.  If you're absent on the day that assignments or quizzes are given, you cannot do the assignment or make up the quiz unless you can provide proof of a medical problem from a physician. 

Make-up exams are not normally given. Exceptions may be made for genuine medical emergencies; you must provide a doctor’s verification note, although in such cases the format of the exam may be changed. Pop Quizzes will be given at any given time. If you miss a quiz, you cannot make it up under any circumstances unless you have proof of a medical problem or from your coach, if you're in a Cuesta athletic team. Quizzes check on attendance and how well you’ve kept up on the readings. I do not have exact dates for the examinations for the reason that I don’t want to limit class discussion or explanations; I will inform you well in advance, however, when I’ve arrived at a date for exams.