Honors 100b: Knowledge and Theory (Rationality ancient and modern: Prof. Bailly)

Syllabus

Professor Jacques A. Bailly
Classics Dept.
481 Main St., Room 300
656-0993
jacques.bailly@uvm.edu Classics Home
Prof. Bailly's UVM Courses

Attendance: Required. See below under "Grades: evidence of engagement."

Texts:
Required (in bookstore):

• Stanley Lombardo's The Essential Iliad, Hackett Publishing. ISBN 0-87220-542-8
• Paul Griffiths' What Emotions Really Are, Chicago. ISBN 0-226-30872-3.
• Lawrence Becker's A New Stoicism, Princeton. 0-691-00964-3
• Lombardo and Bell, Plato Protagoras, Hackett, ISBN 0-87220-094-9
• Barnes and Annas, The Modes of Scepticism, Cambridge, ISBN 0-521-27644-6
• Sophocles, Paul Woodruff, transl., Antigone, Hackett 0-87220-571-1
• Logue, Christopher, War Music, Chicago, ISBN 0-226-49190-0
• Jonathan Bennett, Rationality: An Essay Towards an Analysis, Hackett, 0872200663
• CDC Reeve, ed., The Trials of Socrates, Hackett, 0-87220-589-4
• NP White, transl, The Handbook of Epictetus, Hackett, ISBN 0915145693

Grades: I am, willingly if they are high, unwillingly if low, required to record them. Do not ask me for a grade: earn it.
Artificially established limits for number-graded assignments: 91-100%=A, 81-90%=B, 71-80%=C, 61-70%=D, 60% or lower fails. Plus and minus will be given for the top three and bottom three points of each range respectively.

Graded Elements of this Course
Answers to Interesting Questions	30%
Sets of three interesting questions	10%
Oral presentations	20%
Final exam*	10%
7 page Final Essay	20%
Evidence of engagement with the class**	10%

*I see no need for a final if the attendance rate is higher than 93% overall for the whole class. Hence I will take attendance. All absences will count in this calculation, whether they are for an unavoidable or good reason or not.
**Such evidence includes attendance, participation in class, contacts outside of class, enthusiasm, and attitude. In other words, it includes whether or not it is obvious to me that you are engaged (this is a discussion class: absence, even if unavoidable, necessarily hampers engagement, and so will count against you [miss more than three sessions, and each absence will reduce your grade by 1% up to 10%]).

Written and Oral Assignments

• Answers to Interesting Questions:
  • Every third week starting with Week 3 (depending on whether you are in the "alpha," "beta," or "gamma" group), you will answer one of your classmates' interesting questions from the previous week and post it to your website as well as give me a printed copy (from your website) on Thursday. No answers that are not printed from a website and no late answers will be accepted. I will not drop any of these from your grade. You may hand your assignment in on the Tuesday before it is due.
  • The minimum length for an answer is 500 words. Since your answers will be on the web, it is very easy for me to get word counts in case I worry that an answer is too short. If an answer is too short, it will be docked by whatever percent short it is (i.e. if you write 450 words, you will be docked 10%).
  • Your answer should be a well-formulated essay that addresses a specific question using material from the course reading as well as your own rational argument.
  • At the end of the semester, you will have a website that has all of your answers to questions. That website will constitute 10% of the "answers" portion of your grade for the answers (i.e. if you do it, regardless of the grade on the individual answers, you will get the full 10%: this is an easy way to buffer your grade, but also an easy way to sabotage it: if the website and summaries are not accessible to me, you get 0%, so set your permissions correctly).
  • I will grade the answers with a simple grade: there will probably be little or no comments on them. If you want comments, and I hope you do, you must come see me. At such a discussion, you can expect me to take a few minutes to reread your paper and then we will start discussing.
• Interesting Questions
  • On weeks when you do not write an answer to a question, you will formulate three interesting questions about the reading material for the week's reading. These questions are due on Wednesdays (they must be in my inbox Thursday morning when I first check it), and no late questions will be accepted, but I will drop two sets of them.
  • I will grade these questions with a check or a check minus. A check means full credit, while a check minus translates to a C or lower. Failing to hand questions in is a 0. No late questions will be accepted.
• Oral Presentation
  • You will lead the class for part of at least one session. You are responsible for covering the material with some thoroughness: i.e. you must keep track of which points are most important and be sure to cover them. Pacing a presentation can be the hardest part: be sure to know what you MUST cover, and what you can leave out or use to fill up time. If discussion is so excited and excellent that you cannot cover the important points, your grade will be lower, UNLESS it is clear to me that YOU were very active and contributed to the discussion greatly. If YOU are the one who made the discussion so good that people would not let you get to other points, then you will get a good grade. If you sat back and let discussion happen without steering it and contributing to it, I will see your contribution as low.
• 7-page Final Essay
  • Due on or before May 10 at 4PM. Late papers will not be accepted and the recorded grade will be 0%. It is to be on a topic of your choosing. You are to post it on your website and give me a copy printed from your website (be sure to verify that you can access it).
  • You should choose a topic area no later than the second full week of March. I am happy to help you with choosing a topic or I can suggest one.
  • You will have to discuss the topic and sources with me by Week 9. This discussion will be graded insofar as it is evidence of engagement and in that it will remain in my memory when I do grade the final essay (i.e. if I have a positive memory of being impressed by your preparation and engagement, I will naturally be likely to view your project favorably).
  • There must be some ancient and some modern material that figures largely in your essay (if it does not, the assignment will be incomplete and you will get at best a B-). It must also use at least 5 sources that are not internet sources, encyclopedias, dictionaries, or other general reference works (again, if it does not, the assignment will be incomplete and you will get at best a B-).

Your assignments must be good English and proofread: if I find, on average, >2 typoes or negligent grammatical infelicities on a page (or every 250 words), then one of two things will happen: If it is an answer, you will be automatically docked 13% for that assignment, and your mistakes will be on the web for all to see; If it is the final essay, you will be docked 13% on your final grade. Do what you must do to avoid this. I should tell you that I have in the past had to dock over half the students in some classes for bad English.

Website
You must set up a website for this class. You must provide me with the address of that site by January 29th. I do not care what it looks like (I am concerned with content more than form), but you must make it accessible to me and the rest of the class, and it must be easy to use and navigate in. The minimum things that should be in it are your answers and your final essay. You should make it clear somehow which week each assignment was for and what question you are answering. You may also do your presentations using your website (I hope: it depends on how our room works for that) in class.
If you do not know how to set up a website, go to: http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/clas158/ look for "bigrecipe.html" and click on it, then follow the directions. Your fellow classmates usually are excellent resources for such things.

Class Procedure:

We will have three sorts of reading:

1. Required Full Reading
2. Required Skimming
3. Recommended

• The Required full reading is always the first priority and should be prepared first. Read it carefully and fully.
• The Skimming reading is the second priority: it is also required, but if you don't have time, it is OK to just skim it and get the main ideas.
• The recommended reading is material I will assume that some of you have read and I will be using as part of my contributions to the discussion.

• We will have an oral presentation or oral presentations, followed by discussion. Everyone is encouraged to interrupt the presentation(s).
• Sometimes we will have guests: they will set the agenda, but come prepared to ask questions.

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.
(John Dewey, UVM 1879)