PHIL&
101 Syllabus
Spring Quarter 2012
Instructor:
W. Russ Payne
E-mail: wpayne@bellevuecollege.edu
Phone: (425)
564-2079
Office
location: B100 E
Office Hours:
12:30 – 1:20 Monday – Thursday
Website: http://facweb.bcc.ctc.edu/wpayne/
Philosophy
department’s web site: http://bellevuecollege.edu/philosophy/
Course Information
The range of
questions that philosophers investigate is perhaps as diverse as can be found
in the empirical sciences. We will cover a broad range of topics including but
not limited to the nature of mind and consciousness, free will and determinism,
knowledge and skepticism and the nature of morality. We will read a broad range
of classic and contemporary philosophers. No text purchase is required for this
course. All readings will be available free online or on the website for this
course.
In case you
are considering majoring in philosophy, you should be prepared to answer you
parents and friends when they ask what you plan to do with a philosophy degree.
Tell them you plan to live well and make a living. Tell them that philosophy
majors earn more than any other arts and humanities major and more than most
social science majors (the exceptions being the dark arts of economics and
political science.)
http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp
Of course,
you might find philosophy enjoyable even if you are already anxious to go into
Management Information Systems or Aerospace Engineering
.
Course Outcomes
The official
outcomes for this course are as follows:
Some unofficial
commentary: People come in all kinds of different. What you get out of studying
philosophy depends as much on who you are and how you’ve experienced the world
so far as anything I or any other philosopher can tell you. Philosophy provides
rich intellectual (and emotional and spiritual) nourishment. But to commit to
specific outcomes about what you will understand or be able to do at the end of
this course is analogous to a gardener saying plant here and you’ll get a nice
zucchini. But maybe you are a rose, not a zucchini.
According to
Socrates, the point of doing philosophy is the leading of the examined life.
But the examined life is not a bit of knowledge or a specific skill or ability
that can be captured in any sort of course outcome. Leading the examined life
does involve applying one’s capacity for reason to better understanding one’s
own nature as a human being and the nature of the world. But given our unique
backgrounds, talents and limitations, there is no saying just what route your
examined life will take or what perspectives it will open up for you. The real
outcomes for studying philosophy can only be identified after the fact. For me
to specify the outcomes for your study of philosophy up front would amount to
stating the moral of your story without having read it (much less lived it).
One shudders at the arrogance of it.
Though
Socrates was among the founders of philosophy as an academic discipline (and
I’m not so sure he’d be happy about that) this hardly gives him the final say
about the point of doing philosophy. My motivation for doing philosophy has
never been quite so noble as attaining enlightened self-awareness or acquiring
wisdom. I’ve simply found the problems of philosophy to be amusing and
absorbing. Finding the interplay of philosophical ideas amusing and absorbing
is the course outcome I’d most sincerely wish for you.
How Outcomes will be met
A good deal
of reading and writing and lots of conversation.
Course
Requirements:
Attendance: A college course requires a significant
amount of time and attention. While we do not meet on campus at a set time,
attending the course is required in other ways. A 5 credit course is defined as
one that meets for 5 hours a week. While you get to choose the hours, you are
required to be in class for 5 hours a week. This includes activities on the
site like reading lecture notes, reading and participating in discussions and
taking assessments. In addition, you should expect to put well over 5 hours a
week into reading and writing outside of class. I do run activity logs that
show how much time students are putting into various activities on the site,
what documents you are reading and so forth. If my logs show significantly less
than 50 hours of active time in the course, then you have an attendance problem
that will adversely affect your grade.
Assignments and Assessments:
Your grade in this course will
be determined by your performance on a variety of assignments and assessments
plus your participation on class discussion boards. There will be short
comprehension quizzes on the reading assignments, brief essay assignments that
may ask you to reflect on ideas from the reading or explain arguments offered
by the philosophers we will read. Most assignments and assessments will be
fairly brief, but a few (2 or 3) will be more involved tests including multiple
choice, true false, short answer and essay questions.. Assignments and
assessments will have deadlines. There will usually be ways for you to work
ahead, but do not fall behind and try not to let things wait until the last
minute (do you really trust your router that much?). I need to adhere to
deadlines in order to get timely feedback to the class.
Grading: Essay questions and brief essay
assignments will typically be graded on a 10 point scale with 9 or 10 point
scores representing the A to A- range, 8 point scores representing B work, 7
point scores representing C work and so forth. Points for assignments will show
up in you grade book. So, at any point in the course, you should be able to
identify how many of the available points you have earned. My deliberations for
letter grades for the course start with a 10% scale where point totals above
90% are A range, 80% to 89% are B range and so forth. But I may adjust the
scale for final grades based on the overall performance of the class.
There will be points available for
participation on the discussion boards. Here I will be looking for engagement
with the material, including but not limited to explanation and analysis of
arguments, insightful questions, questions of clarification, objections to
arguments and so forth. Philosophy is done by critically questioning ideas and
arguments. So do this, but there is generally little to be gained by
criticizing people. So keep your critical focus on ideas and lines of
reasoning. If one of your ideas draws some critical attention, you should (a)
remember that it is an idea or argument that is being critically examined, not
you, and (b) be flattered that someone considers your idea or argument worthy
of careful attention. Approach discussions with humble good humor and don’t be
shy. If you are shy anyway, you can earn some discussion points from personal
emails with me. If a personal discussion is interesting, I may want to share it
with the class, but I’ll protect the identity of the innocent should they
prefer.
Secrets to success
Stay active
and engaged. Being active starts with keeping up with the reading and
discussion. Being engaged with the material will show in your writing and
participation in discussion. I will be encouraging scholarship and looking for
evidence of it and the intellectual maturity scholarship brings.
Well-intentioned contributions in class can help you significantly.
Inappropriate or disrespectful behavior may adversely affect your grade in the
course. You should consult the BC course catalog for information on grading
standards at this institution. http://bellevuecollege.edu/about/publications/catalog/
Maintaining a
good learning environment will be your responsibility as well as mine.
Philosophy is best learned through actively engaging in discussion of the
issues. You may have strong feelings about some of the issues we will discuss.
This is fine and it will present no problem so long as we all make respect for
each other a guiding principle of our inquiry. While the experience will be new
to many of you, talking about the existence of God or the nature of morality
with people that disagree with you can actually be fun. Keep in mind that what
matters most in philosophy is that we do a good job at evaluating the reasons
for and against the views we consider. And we can do a good job at this quite
independent of our feelings about those views. That we all end up agreeing is
not essential to a fruitful philosophical dialogue. That we are amicable and
gracious towards one another is.
I take a dim
view of cheating and plagiarism. Write your own stuff. I have a duty to report
cheating, plagiarism and other conduct that is destructive to the course to
administration and student services. I would appreciate not having to act on
that duty.
Affirmation of Inclusion
Bellevue
College is committed to maintaining an
environment in which every member of the campus community feels welcome to
participate in the life of the college, free from harassment and
discrimination.
We value our
different backgrounds at Bellevue College, and students, faculty, staff
members, and administrators are to treat one another with dignity and respect. http://bellevuecollege.edu/about/goals/inclusion.asp
Division Statements
You should
also the Arts and Humanities Expectations posted here: http://bellevuecollege.edu/artshum/policy.html
Information
about Bellevue College’s copyright guidelines can be found at: http://bellevuecollege.edu/lmc/links/copyright.html
A good
resource for Plagiarism is the Writing Lab: http://bellevuecollege.edu/writinglab/Plagiarism.html
Student Code
“Cheating,
stealing and plagiarizing (using the ideas or words of another as one’s own
without crediting the source) and inappropriate/disruptive classroom behavior
are violations of the Student Code of Conduct at Bellevue College. Examples of
unacceptable behavior include, but are not limited to: talking out of turn,
arriving late or leaving early without a valid reason, allowing cell
phones/pagers to ring, and inappropriate behavior toward the instructor or
classmates. The instructor can refer any violation of the Student Code of
Conduct to the Vice President of Student Services for possible probation or
suspension from Bellevue College. Specific student rights, responsibilities and
appeal procedures are listed in the Student Code of Conduct, available in the
office of the Vice President of Student Services.” The Student Code, Policy
2050, in its entirety is located at: http://bellevuecollege.edu/policies/2/2050_Student_Code.asp
Important Links
Bellevue College E-mail and access to MyBC
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account. Your student network account can be used to access your student
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network and log in to MyBC. To create your account,
go to: https://bellevuecollege.edu/sam
BC offers a
wide variety of computer and learning labs to enhance learning and student
success. Find current campus locations for all student labs by visiting the
Computing Services website.
DisabilityResource
Center(DRC)
The
Disability Resource Center serves students with a wide array of learning
challenges and disabilities. If you are a student who has a disability or
learning challenge for which you have documentation or have seen someone for
treatment and if you feel you may need accommodations in order to be successful
in college, please contact us as soon as possible. If you are a person who
requires assistance in case of an emergency situation, such as a fire,
earthquake, etc, please meet with your individual
instructors to develop a safety plan within the first week of the quarter. The
DRC office is located in B 132 or you can call our reception desk at
425.564.2498. Deaf students can reach us by video phone at 425-440-2025 or by
TTY at 425-564-4110. . . Please visit our website for application information
into our program and other helpful links at www.bellevuecollege.edu/drc
Public Safety
The Bellevue
College (BC) Public Safety Department’s well trained and courteous
non-commissioned staff provides personal safety, security, crime prevention,
preliminary investigations, and other services to the campus community, 24
hours per day,7 days per week. Their phone number is 425.564.2400. The Public
Safety website is your one-stop resource for campus emergency preparedness
information, campus closure announcements and critical information in the event
of an emergency. Public Safety is located in K100 and on the web at: http://bellevuecollege.edu/publicsafety/
Final Exam Schedule
http://bellevuecollege.edu/classes/exams
Academic Calendar
The Bellevue College
Academic Calendar is separated into two calendars. They provide information
about holidays, closures and important enrollment dates such as the finals
schedule.
Enrollment
Calendar - http://bellevuecollege.edu/enrollment/calendar/deadlines/.
On this calendar you will find admissions and registration dates and important
dates for withdrawing and receiving tuition refunds.
College
Calendar - http://bellevuecollege.edu/enrollment/calendar/holidays/0910.asp.
This calendar
gives you the year at a glance and includes college holidays, scheduled
closures, quarter end and start dates, and final exam dates.