Course Outline : PHILOSOPHY 10 (SSP)

Course Title : APPROACHES TO PHILOSOPHY

I. The Nature of Philosophy (Weeks 1-2)

• Philosophy as Love of Wisdom
• Philosophy as Comprehensive/Systematic Worldview
• Philosophy as Clarification of Meanings
• Philosophy and Ideology: Differences
• Philosophy and Theology: Similarities and Differences

II. The Major Traditions of Philosophical Thought (Weeks 3-12)

• Idealism: Spirit is the Substance of Reality

• The World as Spirit: Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita
• Knowledge Essentially Involves Mind: Berkeley, Kant
• Knowledge Essentially Involves the Senses: Locke, Hume
• Human Practice Determines Truth: John Dewey, William James, W.V. Quine

• Materialism: The World as Matter and Motion

• The Stuff of the World is Matter: Democritus, Marx
• Mind Itself is Material: Hume, Bertrand Russell.

• Realism: The World as Objectively True

• The Mind Reflects the Nature of Things: Aristotle, Descartes
• The Senses Reflect the Nature of Things: Locke

• Ethics: Life as Valuation

• Life Can be Perfected: Plato, Rabindranath Tagore
• The Good Can be Known by Reason: Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas, Confucius
• Reason is a Slave of the Passions—it cannot Know the Good: Hume
• Material Forces Determine Moral Consciousness: Marx
• God is Dead: Nietzsche
• Out of Emptiness Comes All Being and Worth: Lao Tzu, Shunryu Suzuki, Alan Watts, Raymond Smullyan

III. Applications: Selected topics in Applied Philosophy (Weeks 13-16)

• Society and Politics: Is a just society possible?
• Art and Culture: What is a creative culture?
• Medicine, Technology, and Environment: Philosophical Challenges to Mankind in a Technologically Advanced World

Readings for the Course:

There is more than one possible set of readings for an introductory course in Philosophy. The following list of works, all available at the U.P. Main Library, is meant as a pool from which the instructor may select readings for his/her classes. This is a provisional list, to be amended and extended as the need arises.

• Plato, Apology; Republic VI ; Republic VII
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I; Metaphysics Bk. A
• Augustine, selections from City of God
• Aquinas, selections from Summa Theologiae; Summa Contra Gentiles
• Confucius, The Doctrine of the Mean
• Rene Descartes, selections from the Meditations
• John Dewey, selections from Experience and Nature
• Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World
• David Hume, selections from A Treatise of Human Nature
• Immanuel Kant, selections from Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
• William James, selections from Pragmatism
• Karl Marx, selections from the 1844 Manuscripts
• Friedrich Nietzsche, selections from Genealogy of Morals
• W.V. Quine, selections from The Pursuit of Truth
• Bertrand Russell, selections from The Problems of Philosophy
• Raymond Smullyan, 5000 B.C. And Other Philosophical Fantasies
• Selection from the Upanishads: the Katha, Taittiriya, Chandogya, and Maitri Upanishads
• Selections from the Bhagavad Gita: chapters 1-6
• Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
• Rabindranath Tagore, selections from Sadhana: The Realization of Life
• Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way
• Lao Tzu, selections from Tao Teh Ching
• D.T. Suzuki, "East and West"

The teaching of Philosophy 10 will not impose a resource burden on the department, since it requires no special equipment. All members of the Department’s faculty are capable of teaching Philosophy 10. Instead of being a burden, the necessity of teaching an introductory course in Philosophy will be a challenge to the Department’s faculty to make their discourse and teaching not merely intelligible but also stimulating to beginners in Philosophy.

6. Number of sections:

The Department can offer at least fifteen (15) sections of Philosophy 10 every semester. Currently, the Department offers more than fifty (50) sections of Philosophy I, a required G.E. course under the old G.E. curriculum. When Philosophy I ceases to be a required G.E. course, at least 15 sections formerly allotted to Philosophy I can instead be offered in Philosophy 10.