PHL 105 Homepage

SYLLABUS

READINGS

• "The Five Ways", Thomas Aquinas
• "Natural Theology", William Paley
• "Proslogion", St. Anselm
• "Free Will and the Problem of Evil", John L. Mackie
  • An Internet Comic About Faith in God (thanks to Rima Basu for the link)
• "Pascal's Wager", Alan Hajek (from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• "The Will to Believe", William James
• "An Interview With Alvin Plantinga", Roy Varghese and Alvin Plantinga
• A Dialogue on Personal Identity & Immortality, by John Perry
• "The Mind Body Problem", William Lycan
• "Minds, Brains, and Programs", by John Searle
• Selection from "Enquiry Concering Human Understanding", David Hume
• "Meditations on First Philosophy", Rene Descarates
  • read only the First and Second Meditations (up to page 10)
• "The Regress Problem and Foundationalism", Laurence Bonjour

NOTES

• The Existence of God
  • The Cosmological Argument
  • The Teolological Argument
  • The Ontological Argument
  • The Problem of Evil
  • Pascal's Wager
  • James & Plantinga
• Personal Identity & Immortality
• Philosophy of Mind
• Epistemology
  • The Problem of Induction
  • Science & Certainty
  • The Regress Problem
• Paradoxes
  

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Third Essay Assignment
   • Turnitin.com
   • How Not To Plagiarize
2. Fourth Essay Assignment
   

EXAMS

• Midterm -- March 11
• Study Questions (updated April 6)