Course Information:
PHIL 83104
- Professor Shields
- Class Meetings: Th. 12.30-15.15 in O’Shaughnessy Hall 207
Prospectus
This proseminar aims to equip beginning graduate students with the basic knowledge and skills requisite for advanced study in philosophy. These include: (i) a secure familiarity with core philosophical doctrines and distinctions; and (ii) a ready ability to deploy basic, discipline-specific techniques for advanced research and writing in philosophy at a professional level.
As regards (ii), graduate students need to develop a philosophical toolkit for advanced research and writing. Suitable tools will permit them: to read, summarize, and analyze professional literature swiftly and successfully; to write clearly and succinctly in seemly prose; and to enter fruitfully into philosophical dialectic, both offering and receiving constructive criticism.
As regards (i), while it would be foolhardy to suppose that one could develop a short, exhaustive list of core philosophical topics that every philosopher must master, it none the less behooves every graduate student—working on whatever topic, in whatever area, in whichever tradition, whether in a primarily systematic or historical idiom—to have an easy mastery of some core concepts and distinctions. These include: the objective and subjective; existence and ontological commitment; the modalities of possibility and necessity; and realism and truth.
These paired tasks provide the direction of our seminar. The topics we engage will involve in developing these tools and mastering these basic concepts and distinctions.
Office Hours and Contact Information:
- Office: Malloy Hall 327
- Office hours: Tu 11.00-13.00 and by appointment
- e-mail: CJIShields@nd.edu
- N.b. I prefer e-mail to telephone as a manner of student contact. I make an effort to answer student e-mails promptly, but please be aware that I measure promptness in this domain in days rather than hours or minutes.
Required Texts:
- Loux, Michael, Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings 2nd ed. (Routledge: 2008)
- Kripke, Saul, Naming and Necessity (Harvard University Press: 1980)
Requirements and Protocol:
- Students will: write eight brief article or book chapter overviews, primarily but not exclusively exegetical (+/- 600 words); write two seminar papers, each on some narrowly defined topic (+/- 5000 words), each in two drafts; offer two sets of assessed peer-reviews on the drafts of graduate colleagues (500-1000 words); and offer two seminar presentations, of 15-20 minutes each.
- Each week we will have a target article or chapter, to be augmented by secondary readings, some of which are to be recommended by the seminar participants. I will lead the seminar for the first half of each meeting, offering a lecture on the lead paper or topic for that week. In the second half, seminar participants will lead the seminar.
The due dates are for the two papers are:
- Essay One: 13 October
- Essay Two: 8 December
These papers are to be submitted electronically in (preferably) a mainstream word-processing format or (if you use something non-standard) as .pdf documents.. Papers will be accepted until 17.00 on their due dates.
Attendance and participation is expected at all seminar meetings.
Topics and Reading Schedule:
Please adhere to this reading schedule. Note, however, that while some readings will be discussed directly in class, others will merely be assumed as background for lectures. In either case, you are welcome—indeed, encouraged— to discuss with me readings which you find difficult or especially stimulating, either in class, when our schedule permits, or in my office hours, when not. (I have provided links where I could find them. For others, you will be able to access them through Hesburgh Library.)
Course Lecture Slides:
2. The Objective and Subjective
3. The Subjectivity of the Mental