INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING

RAYMOND NIGHAN, PH.D.
In the last millennium when your instructor was in college, he knew a student whose father was the CEO of a large corporation. My friend told me that he would only hire philosophy, history, or English majors for the top jobs. "Why?" I asked, never dreaming that one day I would be teaching a philosophy course. He replied that his father told him people with those majors really knew how to think, and that he was not about to entrust millions of dollars worth of equipment, technology and buildings to people who couldn't.

Yet the rumors persist that people who study philosophy "can't do anything." The Greeks surely would have been puzzled: knowledge would not be knowledge without a use, so Thucydides wrote his History to warn us of the folly of making war, a lesson apparently lost...., but knowledge is not wisdom, and hopefully this class will begin to put us in touch with whatever wisdom is. We might, for instance, wonder to whom we will turn in the next century to help us manage the technology we have created in the Twentieth. What wisdom will be required, and from where will we acquire it?
In the new Millennium, we seem to want wisdom very badly, and we might therefore be well served to examine the words of Time Magazine's man of the century, one whose very name has become synonymous with "genius"...

"Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntary
and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our
daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we
love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own." ... "The most
beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is
the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science.
He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To
sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our
mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as
a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image
of the lofty structure of all that there is."

Einstein's speech 'My Credo' to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, autumn 1932, Einstein: A Life in Science, Michael White and John Gribbin, Page 262.
WE ARE STUDENTS OF PHILOSOPHY, and WE LIVE BY A CODE:
  1. The search for truth never ends--I expect to learn a great deal in this class from you.
  2. Education without meaningful dialogue makes no sense:
    1. the Socratic method will be used--let's ask each other questions.
    2. There is no such thing as a complete answer--continued inquiry is the nature of the philosophical mind
    3. admitting ignorance is a necessary condition for growth--BOTH YOU AND I MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO ADMIT THAT WE DO NOT KNOW -- THE SOPHISTS THOUGHT THEY KNEW, AND SOCRATES KNEW THEY DID NOT; THE PHARASEES THOUGHT THEY KNEW, AND JESUS KNEW THEY DID NOT.
    4. "The only stupid question is the one that is not asked." (Bill)
  3. Admitting ignorance is potentially virtuous; achieving knowledge from the ignorance is virtue (Aristotle).
TEXT SELECTION

Selecting a text book for a philosophy course is a challenge. Convoluted abstraction make little sense.

I wanted a text that:

  1. challenged
  2. entertained
  3. amused
  4. taught
  5. intrigued

SOPHIE'S WORLD IS THE BOOK. Written in Norway by a high school teacher, the book quickly became an international favorite. Translated into many languages, SW makes philosophy come alive. It is a mystery story that invites your participation...

WEB RESOURCES:

    Obviously the INTERNET teems with resources relevant to our class. The table of contents has two elements:

    1. Excerpts from the philosophers' writings whom we will consider
    2. Best WEB sites for additional investigation

...AND THROUGHTOUT THESE PAGES. THERE ARE LINKS TO THE BEST WEB SITES IN PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE.

SEE ALSO MY GOTHIC FICTION, SHAKESPEARE, BRITISH LITERATURE, WORLD LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY OF STAR TREK AND TOLKIEN SEMINAR FOR RELATED RESOURCES AND LINKS
EVALUATIONS

PHILOSOPHY to be successful presupposes an interest in examining and discussing the material. I would prefer the Jeffersonian idea in founding the University of Virginia, that no grading would occur at all, but unfortunately something has to appear on your transcript...

I want the grade to measure our intellectual curiosity and growth. Therefore, we will use evaluation criteria that best reflects that:

  1. There will be no tests or quizzes:
    1. discussions will be 20% of your grade: class and beyond....
    2. how we discuss can be just as creative as what we discuss:
      1. in class
      2. at your locker
      3. something you read on your own
      4. a program you view
      5. a WEB site you check
      6. a short paper you present
    3. oral presentations will be worth 30% of your grade
    4. short papers will be worth 50% of your grade--2 pages
  2. I am hoping that this method of evaluation will foster an atmosphere of creativity and wonder.
  3. The assumption [and we must recall what Plato said about assumptions] is that you will read the material and come to class prepared to discuss it.
  4. I would also like to evaluate what I learn from you!