As I've been transitioning from Spring term to Summer term, I have been dealing with a bit of a challenge in trying to get my five-week condensed summer course in order. It's an Introduction to Philosophy course for two hours a day, MTWTh throughout June, and is supposed to be roughly equivalent to a normal sixteen-week course. I've done several condensed Ethics courses in the past several years, but the last condensed Intro I did was so long ago the syllabus is really not usable anymore; my condensed Ethics is just a condensed version of my ordinary Ethics, but my sixteen-week Intro is very much not condensable, so I've had to restructure everything quite a bit. Essentially, the two-hour class is best done by splitting each class into two, an A part and a B part. Here's the schedule for the course that I've more or less ended up with:
Course Calendar
This schedule is tentative and liable to change; for changes, consult the schedule in Blackboard. N indicates a reading from the Norton anthology.
WEEK I
May 31
A: Introduction
B: Background to Gorgias
June 1
A: PLATO I (Knowledge)
--- Meno (N 137-142)
B: Gorgias Reading Group I
June 2
A: PLATO II (Platonic Myths)
B: Logic Lesson: Terms
WEEK II
June 6
A: ARISTOTLE I (Change)
B: Gorgias Reading Group II
Week I Quiz due today by the beginning of the class.
June 7
A: ARISTOTLE II (Cause)
B: Logic Lesson: Propositions
June 8
A: ARISTOTLE III (Knowledge)
B: Gorgias Reading Group III
June 9
A: THOMAS AQUINAS I (God)
--- The Five Ways (N 13-18)
B: Logic Lesson: Syllogisms
WEEK III
June 13
A: THOMAS AQUINAS II (Law)
--- Aquinas on Law (reading to be provided in Blackboard)
--- Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (reading to be provided in Blackboard)
B: Gorgias Reading Group IV
Week II Quiz due today by the beginning of class.
June 14
A: RENE DESCARTES I (Knowledge)
--- Meditation I (N 264-268)
B: Logic Lesson: More on Syllogisms
June 15
A: RENE DESCARTES (Mind and Body)
--- Meditation II (N 312-319)
--- Elisabeth of Bohemia, Correspondence with Descartes (N 320-321)
B: Gorgias Reading Group V
June 16
A: RENE DESCARTES (God)
--- Anselm of Canterbury (N 8-12)
--- Gideon Rosen (N 476-485)
B: Logic Lesson: Even More on Syllogisms
Philosophical Analysis due today at the end of the day.
WEEK IV
June 20
A: DAVID HUME I (Cause)
--- Sceptical Doubts (N 166-177)
B: Gorgias Reading Group VI
Week III Quiz due today by the beginning of class.
June 21
A: LADY MARY SHEPHERD I (Cause)
--- Shepherd on Cause (reading to be provided in Blackboard)
B: Logic Lesson: Basics of Propositional Logic
June 22
A: DAVID HUME II (External World)
--- Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses (N 269-284)
B: Gorgias Reading Group VII
June 23
A: LADY MARY SHEPHERD II (External World)
--- Shepherd on the External World (reading to be provided in Blackboard)
B: Logic Review
Gorgias Character Paper due today by the end of the day.
WEEK V (assorted topics; these are especially tentative)
June 27
A: Pascal's Wager
--- The Wager (N 68-71)
B: Mengzi and Xunzi on Human Nature
Week IV Quiz due today by the beginning of class.
June 28
A: Aesthetic Paradoxes
--- Aaron Smuts, The Paradox of Painful Art (reading to be provided in Blackboard)
B: The Nyaya School on Pramanas
June 29
A: Mill's Harm Principle
--- On Liberty (N 1086-1096)
B: Poinsot and Peirce on Signs
June 30
Final Presentations will be given in class today.
FINAL DEADLINE: All work for the course due by the end of class today.
