Introduction to Philosophy: Selected Problems
Philosophy 1 B: Fall 2009

Prof. Adam Wager
Office Hours: Tues. & Thurs. 2-3 or by appointment
70 S. Williams St. Room 202

Readings

Below are the dates by which readings should be completed (things may change a bit depending on our pace). Many of these readings are on the library's e-reserve system. The link should take you directly to the reading, or from the library homepage, click on course reserves and search by class or by my name. You will need to log in with your uvm net id and password.

Note: Readings on e-reserve require may Adobe Acrobat Reader, they may not open with other pdf readers (including Preview for the Mac).

• 9/1-9/8 Introduction – Logical Reasoning
  • Slide: Basic concepts of informal reasoning
  • Additional sources (optional reading): Arguments and Inference, Constructing a Logical Argument
  • Slides
  • Quiz
• Knowledge of the external world
  • 9/15 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditation 1
  • 9/17 Descartes, Meditation 2
  • 9/22 Anselm, Proslogium (selection)
  • 9/24 Paley, Natural Theology (selection)
    • Gould, "The Panda's Peculiar Thumb"
      • Slides
  • Quiz
  • 9/29 Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, Ch. 1
  • 10/1 ----- Ch. 2
    • Slides
  • 10/6 Moore, “Proof of an External World,”
  • 10/8 Moore (cont); review
    
• 10/13 Midterm 1
• Minds and Machines
  • 10/15-10/20 Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"
    • Slides
  • 10/22-27 Searle, "Minds, Brains and Programs"
    • Slides
  • 10/29 Jackson, "Epiphenomenal Qualia"
    • Optional: Jackson, "What Mary Didn't Know"
    • Slides
• Free Will
  • 11/3 - 11/5 Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature (selections)
    • Section 1: "Of Liberty and Necessity"
    • Section 2: "The Same Subject Continued"
  • 11/10 Ayer "Freedom and Necessit
• 11/12 Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self"
  
• Slides
• Ethics
  • 11/17 Mill, Utilitarianism
    • Slides
  • Nagel, "War and Massacre"
  • Hardin, "Lifeboat Ethics"
  • Singer, "Rich and Poor"
    • Slides
      
      
    • Optional Reading: The Gift, profile of Zell Kravinsky
      • (must be on campus or connected via VPN)
    • Give globally: Oxfam
    • Give locally: Vermont Foodbank
    • Give a heifer: Heifer.org

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Handouts, Overheads, etc.

Also look for links under the section headings above.

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Other Resources

• Descartes
  • Meditations online.
• Turing Machines and AI:
  • Turing Machine simulator - implemented as a Java applet. Allows you to enter a program, specify the starting state of the tape, and execute the program.
  • Eliza - Chat with a fairly old program designed to fool users into thinking it was a form of artificial intelligence. It is designed to mimic a Jungian-style psychotherapist. Nobody who understands how the program is designed (including its creators) believe it is genuinely intelligent. It has been fairly successful at fooling some users, though.
  • A.L.I.C.E. - Chat with the winner of the 2000 and 2001 Loebner prize (a restricted domain version of the Turing test)
  • List of several other Turing Test contestants
• Logic links:
  • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Informal Logic.
  • Virtual School, Constructing a Logical Argument.
• Writing guides
  • Guidelines to writing a philosophy paper (James Pryor)
  • UVM's Academic Integrity Policy

 

Last Modified 11/16/09

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