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Queen's University
 

Lesson Schedule

Dates & Deadlines Ares & Topics Texts

Preliminaries
Week One An exemplar: Death
  1. Epicurus – "Letter to Menoeceus" (coursepack)
  2. Nagel–"Death" (coursepack)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Week Two Some tools for doing philosophy
  1. Bailey–"A brief introduction to arguments" (text, pp. 5-11)

Philosophy of Religion
Week Three Arguments for the existence of God
  1. Anselm–Proslogion (text, pp. 21-23)
  2. Gaunilo–"On Behalf of the Fool" (text, pp. 23-26)
N.B.:  Tutorials this week
Week Four More arguments
  1. Aquinas–Summa Theologiae (text, pp. 41-42)
  2. Pascal–"The Wager" (coursepack)

Week Five

Hume's Dialogues
  • Hume–Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (text, pp. 49-82)

Week Six

Paper one due

Hume (continued)
  • Hume–Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion(text, pp. 49-82) 
N.B.:  Tutorials this week

Ethics
Week Seven Divine Command Ethics
  1. Excerpts from the Bible (coursepack)
  2. Quinn–"theological Voluntarism" (coursepack)
Week Eight D.C.E. (continued)
  1. Plato–Ethyphro (coursepack)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Week Nine Utilitarianism
  1. Mill–Utilitarianism (text, pp. 680-703)
Week Ten Utilitarianism (continued)
  1. Mill–Utilitarianism (text, pp. 680-703)
  2. Singer–"Famine, Affluence, and Morality" (coursepack)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Week Eleven Kantianism
  1. Kant–Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (text, pp. 647-670)
Week Twelve Kantianism (continued)
  1. Kant–Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (text, pp. 647-670)
  2. O'Neill–"Kantian Approaches to Some Famine Problems (coursepack)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Exam Period
Mid-term test TBA

 

Preliminaries
Week One An exemplar: Happiness
  1. Aristotle–Nicomachean Ethics (text, pp. 624-627)
  2. Feldman–"Some puzzles about happiness" (coursepack)

N.B.: Tutorials this week


Epistemology
Week Two Rationalism
  1. Descartes–Meditations (text, pp. 144-150 and 157-161)
Week Three Empiricism
  1. Locke–An Essa Concerning Human Understanding (text, pp. 179-189)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Week Four Idealism
  1. Berkeley–Three Dialogues (text, pp. 195-215)
  2. Moore–"Proof of an external world" (text, pp.250-263)
Week Five Transcendental Idealism
  1. Kant–Critique of Pure Reason (text, pp. 222-224 and 225-228; also coursepack)

N.B.: Tutorials this week


Metaphysics (1):

Causation


Week Six The problem of induction
  1. Hume–An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (text, pp. 296-303)
  2. Goodman–Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (text, pp. 319-322)


Week Seven Solutions to the problem
  1. Hempel–"Scientific Inquiry: Invention and Text" (text, pp. 326-330)
  2. Peirce–"The Fixation of Belief" (text, pp. 379-386)

N.B.: Tutorials this week


Metaphysics (2):

Free Will


Week Eight That we do have free will
  1. Descartes–Letter to Princess Elizabeth(coursepack)
  2. Ayer–"Freedom and Necessity" (text, pp. 558-563)
Week Nine That we don't have free will
  1. Spinoza–selections from theEthics (coursepack)
  2. Rée–The Illusion of Free Will(text, pp. 530-542)

N.B.: Tutorials this week


Political Philosophy
Week Ten Historical approaches to justice
  1. Aristotle–selections from Nicomachean Ethics Book V (text, pp. 748-755)
  2. Hobbes–selections from the Leviathan Part I (text, pp. 765-776)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Week Eleven

  1. Continuing historical approaches to justice
  2. Starting contemporary approaches to justice
  1. Mill–selections from On Liberty Chapter IV (text, pp. 816-826)
  2. Rawls–selections from Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (text, pp. 897-902, 909-914)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Week Twelve Continuing contemporary approaches to justice
  1. Nozick–selections from Anarchy State and Utopia (text, pp. 878-893)
  2. Moller Okin–various readings (text, pp. 897-902, 909-914)

N.B.: Tutorials this week

Exam Period
End-of-year test to be held sometime between April 11-27 (exact date TBA)

More information:

Kingston, Ontario, Canada. K7L 3N6. 613.533.2000