I don’t think that one-and-a-half classes on Mind is too much, especially if you finish off the class with it. That way, you can provide some contemporary experiments that might interest the students… like Mary’s Room, the Chinese Room, brain-in-the-vat, and The Matrix (since I imagine a lot of your students would be familiar with it; now they would have some groundwork to understand some more underlying themes and consequences, especially if you discussed more contemporary ethics in the meantime). A sort of “bringing it all together” class, yes?
But, if you were going to follow Mind with something else, then it seems like a lot of this would seem too tangential to the bigger picture.
In case people are interested, here’s a revised list of readings:
Schedule of Meetings:
What is Philosophy?
Evaluating Arguments
Philosophical Thought Experiments
Euthyphro
Apology
Crito, passages from Meno and Phaedo
Exam 1
Meditations 1&2
Meditations 3&4
Meditations 5&6
Exam 2
“What is it Like to be a Bat?” by Nagel, in Basic Readings
“Where Am I?” by Dennett, in Basic Readings
“Minds, Brains and Programs” by Searle, in Basic Readings
“Why Expect the Sun to Rise Tomorrow?” by Law, in Basic Readings
“Nature” by Sartre, in Basic Readings
“How to Defend Society Against Science” by Feyerabend, in Basic Readings
“The Wager” by Pascal, in Basic Readings
“Evil and Omnipotence” by Mackie, in Basic Readings
“Why God Allows Evil” by Swinburne, in Basic Readings
“The Intentional Fallacy” by Wimsatt and Beardsley, in Basic Readings
“Two Paradoxes” by Clark, in Basic Readings
“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” by Borges, in Basic Readings
I’m thinking about changing the last three to the following:
“Two Paradoxes,”
“Mimesis in Plato’s Republic” (which is a fairly interesting piece on issues like censorship, the place of mass art in culture and so on)
“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”
“The intentional fallacy” “goes” most naturally with “Pierre Menard,” while “Two Paradoxes” “goes” most naturally with “Mimesis…” so I’m a little torn here. I think “Mimesis” is probably more accessible and more likely to be interesting to Phil 1 students, so that may be the deciding factor.
Feedback welcome!
-Kris
(By the way I should have explained some of the readings where the title doesn’t make their topic obvious.
“Two paradoxes” is about the paradox of fiction and the paradox of tragedy. (You can probably google these. Not paradoxes properly speaking but they get called that nevertheless.)
“The Intentional Fallacy” argues that authorial intention has no place in criticism of art.
“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” is a Borges story about a guy who is trying to write a work every word of which is exactly identical to the corresponding word in Cervantes’ Don Quixote–but where every word comes out of Menard’s life and experience. Hard to explain. Borges is just fun to read.
“Nature” is a very short excerpt from something or other where Sartre imagines what it would be like if a lot of the scientific generalizations upon which we rely for every day life were suddently to turn out to be false. So people’s tongues, for example, can spontaneously morph into centipedes. That kind of thing.
“Where am I” is a playful piece about a guy who’s brain is in one place but his (effectively so to say) body is in another. (Been a while since I read that one so I may have gotten this wrong, but it’s something like that.)
I’d say it looks like a good syllabus. The thing is, you have to be aware of what you’re trying to do in an introductory philosophy class. To the extent that there is a philosophy canon, it is not the sort of thing you can teach in an intro class. And since students seldom retain the content they learned in a course, in my view the best thing you can try to do in an introduction to philosophy class is instill in the students (or some of them) an interest in philosophy and philosophical problems. Your syllabus has a nice mix of classic problems approached through traditional and non-traditional texts. I think the students will get a lot out of it, if you do it right.
Sorry; I meant for the “bigger picture” to refer to the entire introductory experience, making the class flow smoothly from beginning to end without getting side-tracked.
As for your syllabus, I like that you are bookending the class with philosophical experiments at the beginning and shorter texts at the end. Although you did say “meetings” in your syllabus, it isn’t entirely clear how many actual class periods this is. 10 classes in 5 weeks? 20 classes in 10 weeks?
Can you photocopy or type up the thought experiments you want to use from the What if… book and distribute them in a handout to your students, or would that violate some sort of academic policy? Seems cheaper than making them pay $30 for a book they’re not going to use that much. If not, well, every college course I’ve taken I have paid a minimum of $40 for my book(s), even used.