PHIL 100: Introduction to Philosophy

PHIL 100-DL2: Introduction to Philosophy
(Fall 2022)

12:00 PM to 01:15 PM TR

Online

Section Information for Fall 2022

  Please note this class section is taught on online synchronous format: students should expect to be available for virtual class meetings at the scheduled class times.     

This course is designed to introduce students to philosophy through close study of texts from the ancient, modern, and contemporary periods; and through investigation of basic issues and problems to which philosophers have addressed themselves. No previous experience in philosophy is required.

        People have engaged in philosophy for thousands of years, sometimes at the risk of their lives. This is a sign that they have valued philosophy highly. Philosophy has been valued in part for its useful results: it has been a source both of scientific thought and of social and political transformations.

        So, to the question, “What can you do with a philosophical education?” we might rightly answer, “Change the world!”

        Philosophy has also been valued apart from its useful applications: it seeks knowledge and understanding for their own beauty and meaning. Asking fundamental questions out of a desire to understand is (as far as we know) a uniquely human endeavor, and one that reflects an essential part of being human.

        Besides introducing students to some fundamental works of philosophy, the course aims as well to introduce students to reading and thinking philosophically. These are capacities whose applications and benefits extend beyond the course itself. For example, philosophy courses are excellent preparation for careers in law (many law schools recommend them), education, medicine, nursing, natural sciences, computer science, technical writing, government, and journalism, among other things - as well as for graduate study in many fields.

        Unifying themes we will investigate throughout the course as they arise in the readings include the relationship between the search for understanding and the search for the best kinds of life to lead; the role of the search for knowledge in a democracy; and the relationship between questions of the nature of reality and questions of the nature of good and right.

        Philosophia, historiē, and dizēsis (ancient Greek names for what we call ‘philosophy’) began in respect for diversity in ideas, cultures, beliefs, and ways of thinking. Ancient Greek practitioners of these activities traced them to Miletus, a crossroads for a variety of cultures including Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and other cultures of the Middle East, southern Europe, and northern and eastern Africa. In Miletus, the early philosophers sought out, investigated, and tested a variety of ideas and ways of thinking, treating foreign ideas and familiar ideas with equal respect — including subjecting them to equal scrutiny. The fact that an idea or person was Greek in origin did not incite in philosophers more respect or less respect than was due a foreign person or idea; and the fact that an idea was new did not make it any more or less suspect than an older one.

        For the first philosophers, respect for the diverse and the familiar was compatible with — it even required — inquiry and testing. This is because what these philosophers valued was understanding, even where this went beyond and challenged what passed for understanding in their communities.

        PHIL 100 endeavors to continue this philosophical project. Only by respectful yet critical systematic questioning will we be able to discover and move beyond the prejudices and gaps in knowledge we might not yet realize we have, to a more comprehensive and powerful understanding.

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Course Information from the University Catalog