Honors Philosophy Reading Schedule Autumn, 2017

(IPCC = Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings)

Weeks One-Four: Rational Theology

  • Week One: Introduction 
  • Week Two:
    • Saint Anselm, ‘The Ontological Argument,’ IPCC, 40
    • Saint Thomas Aquinas, ‘The Existence of God,’ IPCC 42
  • Week Three:
    • Leibniz, ‘God, Evil, and the Best of All Possible Worlds,’ IPCC, 89
    • Perry, ‘Dialogue on Good, Evil, and the Existence of God,’ IPCC, 91
    • Adams,’Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God,’ IPCC, 115
  • Week Four:


Weeks Five-Eight: The Mind and its Place in Nature

  • Week Five
    • Descartes, ‘Meditations on First Philosophy I-II,’ IPCC, 157
    • Ryle, Descartes’s Myth,’ IPCC, 272
    • Jackson, ‘What Mary Didn’t Know,’ IPCC, 291
  • Week Six:
    • Churchland, ‘Eliminative Materialism,’ IPCC, 287
      • N.b. No seminar meeting on 26 September
  • Week Seven:
    • Armstrong, ‘The Nature of Mind,’ IPCC, 279
    • Turing, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence,’ IPCC, 295
    • Searle, ‘Minds, Brains, Programs,’ IPCC, 308
  • Week Eight:
    • Perry, ‘A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality,’ IPCC, 91 [2]
    • Parfit, ‘Personal Identity,’ IPCC, 353
    • Shields, ‘Personal Identity’ (podcast) 


Week Nine: Mid-semester Break


Weeks Ten-Twelve: Free Will and Human Responsibility

  • Week Ten: 
    • Chisholm, ‘Human Freedom and the Self,’ IPCC, 387
    • Van Inwagen, ‘The Powers of Rational Beings: Freedom of Will,’ IPCC, 395
  • Week Eleven:
    • Hume, ‘Of Liberty and Necessity,’ IPCC, 407
    • Frankfurt, ‘Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,’ IPCC, 424
  • Week Twelve:
    • Fischer, ‘Responsiveness and Moral Responsibility,’ IPCC, 440
    • Wolf, ‘Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility,’ IPCC, 459

      • N.b. No seminar meeting on 9 November


Weeks Thirteen-Sixteen: Morality and its Critics

  • Week Thirteen:
    • Shaver, ‘Egoism'
    • Plato, ‘The Republic,’ IPCC, 708
    • Mackie, ‘The Subjectivity of Values,’ IPCC, 777
    • ‘The Trolley Problem,’ IPCC, 883
  • Week Fourteen: 
    • Mill, ‘Utilitarianism,’ IPCC, 483
    • Carritt, ‘Criticisms of Utilitarianism,’ IPCC, 500
    • Williams, ‘Utilitarianism and Integrity,’ IPCC, 510
    • Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence, and, Morality,’ IPCC, 518
    • 'Ducking Harm and Sacrificing Others,’ IPCC, 884
  • Week Fifteen:
    • Kant, ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,’ IPCC, 527
    • Velleman, ‘A Brief Introduction to Kantian Ethics,’ IPCC, 544
    • Aristotle, ‘Nicomachean Ethics,’ IPCC, 568
  • Week Sixteen:
    • Nagel, ‘The Absurd,’ IPCC, 813


© Christopher Shields 2014