School of Arts

& Humanities
Department of Philosophy

4AANA101 - Introduction to Philosophy

Syllabus – Academic year 2015/16

Basic information
Credits: 30
Module Tutors: Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol (Logic), Dr Julien Dutant (Metaphysics, coordinator), Dr
Clayton Littlejohn (Epistemology, Ethics)
Offices: Philosophy Building 601 (Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol), 602 (Dr Julien Dutant), 412 (Dr
Clayton Littlejohn)
Consultation time: Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol: Thu 14-15. Dr Julien Dutant: Tue 10-11, Wed 11-12.
Dr Clayton Littlejohn: tbc.
Semesters: both
Lecture times and venues*: First mini-term: Tue 11-12 and Wed 12-13, Edmond J Safra Lecture
Theatre, King's Building. Rest of the year: Tue 9-10, K4U.12, King's Building
GTAs: Fintan Mallory (Logic), Sergio De Souza Filho, David Jenkins (Metaphysics), Amanda
Alves Moreira, Nathan Oseroff (Epistemology), Thomas Byrne, Justin Hagerman (Ethics)
*Please note that tutorial times and venues will be organised independently with your teaching tutor

Module description (plus aims and objectives)

Aim This module is intended for first year undergraduates, in particular PPE and PPL students, who will
be beginning their study of philosophy at degree level as part of a wider course of study. It aims to provide
a grounding in the subject that will give students a basic familiarity with central areas of philosophical
thought, as well as providing some appreciation of the interconnected, systematic nature of Philosophy as a
whole, and thus serving as a foundation on which more specialised study can be built.
Description The module offers a broad overview of topics and techniques in four key branches of the
discipline: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics. It runs for twenty weeks over the autumn and
spring semesters, with a five-week block devoted to each of the four key areas. The Logic block consists of
two one-hour lecture and one one-hour exercise class per week. The Metaphysics, Epistemology and
Ethics blocks consist of one one-hour lecture and one one-hour seminar per week.
Objectives By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and
practicable skills appropriate to a level 4 module and in particular will be able to demonstrate that they
have:
 Awareness and understanding of the central concepts, theories and arguments of some main areas of
Philosophy: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics.
 The ability to apply valid critical and argumentative techniques to these and other areas of the subject.
 Familiarity with selected key texts, with the ability to summarize and analytically criticize the
arguments and positions of others.
 The ability to develop philosophical views of their own, which they are prepared to defend or amend in
the light of criticism from others.
Detailed descriptions of the content and objectives of each block are given in the outline below.
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Assessment methods and deadlines
 Formative assessment: Logic exercises plus three x 1,000 words essays. Essay to be submitted to
your seminar tutor by email at 16:00 on:
o Fri Dec 11 (Metaphysics)
o Fri Feb 26 (Epistemology)
o Fri Apr 1 (Ethics)

 Summative assessment: one x three-hour exam (100%).

Outline of lecture topics (plus suggested readings)

Weeks 1-5: Logic. This block is an introduction to propositional logic. It will make students acquainted with the
notions of logical consistency and logical validity, the language of propositional logic, truth-tables and the truth-tree
methods (tableaus) to check for validity and consistency. Its aims are to allow students to understand core logical
notions, identify logically valid arguments, read and construct logical formalizations as they are used in academic
philosophy articles and make them aware of common logical fallacies and non-logical argumentation.
For this part of the module students attend two one-hour lectures per week. The lectures are common with module
4AANA003 (Elementary logic).

Week one Sept 22-23 : Consistency and validity

Week two Sept 29-30 : Logical connectives
Week three Oct 6-7 : Logical connectives
Week four Oct 13-14 : Propositional tableaus
Week five Oct 20--21 : Propositional tableaus

Suggested reading:
Tutorial on http://logic.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/.
Bergman, M, Moor, J. & Nelson, J. (2009) The Logic Book, 5th ed., Mc-Graw Hill.McGraw-Hill, 2009.
Hodges, W. (1977), Logic, Penguin.

Weeks 6-10 Metaphysics. This block is an introduction to Metaphysics. Its aim is to familiarize students with some
of its central debates in order to enable both further study and independent thought on metaphysical topics and their
connections with other areas of philosophy. Four weeks are devoted to classic issues (persistence, persons, identity,
free will) and one to more original ones (social groups and kinds). The issues are interconnected and together cover a
significant amount of core metaphysical notions such as parthood, time, existence, possibility, reference, particulars
and properties, causation.

Suggested readings
Most readings come for three books. They are an excellent source of further readings on our topics and on
metaphysics more generally:
RE E. Conee & T. Sider (2005) Riddles of Existence: a Guided Tour of Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. An
accessible but rich and rigorous introduction to metaphysics.
MA J. Kim, E. Sosa & D.Z. Korman (eds) (2011) Metaphysics: an Anthology, 2nd edition Wiley-Blackwell. An
extensive thematic anthology of contemporary metaphysics that combines "classic" with more recent papers.
CDM T. Sider, J. Hawthorne, D.W. Zimmerman (eds) (2008) Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, Wiley-
Blackwell. Up-to-date, fairly advanced essays on some of the most active current debates in metaphysics.
Sider's brief introduction to CDM is a clear and thoughtful presentation of what metaphysics is. You may want to
start there. There is also a clear textbook that you can use throughout the course:
A. Ney, Metaphysics: an Introduction, Routledge 2014.

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Week six Nov 3 : Persistence
T. Sider (2005) "Persistence", ch. 7 of RE.
R.M. Chisholm (1976) "Identity through time", ch. 3 of from his Persons and Objects, Open Court. Reprinted in MA,
ch. 40.
Recommended additional readings
J. Jarvis Thomson (1983) "Parthood and Identity Across Time", Journal of Philosophy, 80:4, 210-20. Reprinted in
MA, ch. 35.
M. Heller (1990) "Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects", ch. 1 of his The Ontology of Physical Objects.
Reprinted in MA, ch. 36.

Week seven Nov 10 : Personal Identity

D. Parfit (1971) "Personal Identity", The Philosophical Review 80, 3-71. Reprinted in MA, ch. 42.
J. Jarvis Thomson (2008) "People and their bodies" in CDM, ch. 4.1.
Recommended additional readings
D. K. Lewis (1976) "Survival and Identity", in A.O. Rorty (ed.), The Identities of Persons, University of California
Press 17-40, reprinted with postscripts in D.K. Lewis (1983) Philosophical Papers vol. I, Oxford University Press.
Reprinted in MA ch. 43.
D. Parfit (2008) "Persons, Bodies and Human Beings" in CDM, ch. 4.2.

Week eight Nov 17 : Identity

S. Kripke (1971) "Identity and Necessity", in M.K. Munitz (ed.), Identity and Individuation, New York University
Press 135-164. Reprinted in MA, ch. 10.
Recommended additional readings
S. Kripke (1980) lectures 1 and 2 of Naming and necessity, Harvard University Press.
A. Gibbard (1975) "Contingent Identity", Journal of Philosophical Logic 4, 187-221. Reprinted in MA, ch. 11.
R. Stalnaker (1988) "Vague Identity", in D. Austin (ed.) Philosophical Analysis, Kluwer, 349-60. Reprinted in MA,
ch. 13.

Week nine Nov 24 : Social Groups and Social Kinds

G. Uzquiano (2004) "The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Justices: A Metaphysical Puzzle", Noûs 38:1, 135-
53.
S. Halsanger (2000) "Gender and Race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be?" Noûs, 34:1, 31-55.
Recommended additional readings
K. Ritchie (2013) "What are groups?" Philosophical Studies 166:2, 257-72.
J. Saul (2006) "Gender and Race", Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80:1,119-143.

Week ten Nov 31 : Free Will

P. van Inwagen (1975) "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism" Philosophical Studies 27: 185-99.
D. Dennett (1984) "I Could not have Done Otherwise - So What?" Journal of Philosophy 81:10, 553-565.
Recommended additional readings
R. Kane (2008) "Incompatibilism" in CDM, ch. 7.1.
K. Vihvelin (2008) "Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, Impossibilism" in CDM, ch. 7.2.

Semester 2, weeks 1-5: Epistemology. This block is an introduction to Epistemology.

1. Knowledge & Epistemic Luck
Gettier, E. 1963. Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23: 121-3
Nozick, R. 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Harvard University Press.
Sosa, E. How to Defeat Opposition to Moore. Philosophical Perspectives 13: 141-153

2. Regress & Perception

BonJour.1978. Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation? American Philosophical Quarterly 15: 1-13.
Smithies. 2014. Can Foundationalism Solve the Regress Problem? In R. Neta (ed.), Current Controversies in
Epistemology. Routledge.

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3. Induction
Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 4
<http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdfs/hume1748.pdf>
Strawson, "The Justification of Induction", Introduction to Logical Theory
Van Cleve. 1984. "Reliability, Justification, and the Problem of Induction", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 9: 555-
67.
Recommended
Weintraub. 2008. Skepticism about Induction. In J. Greco (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism. Oxford
University Press.

4. Disagreement
Feldman. 2006. Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement. In Stephen Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology
Futures. Oxford University Press. 216-236.
Elga. 2010. How to Disagree about How to Disagree. In R. Feldman and T. Warfield (ed.), Disagreement. Oxford
University Press.
Zagzebski, "Ethical and Epistemic Egoism and the Ideal of Autonomy"

5. Skepticism
Moore. Proof of an External World.
Lewis. Elusive Knowledge. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74: 549 – 67
Recommended
Coliva. The Paradox of Moore's Proof of an External World.
Byrne. How Hard are the Skeptical Paradoxes?

Semester 2, weeks 6-10: Ethics. This block is an introduction to Ethics.

1. Death & Well-Being

Epicurus, Selections
Lucretius, Selections
Frances Kamm, “The Asymmetry Problem: Death and Prenatal Nonexistence”
Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia

2. Consequentialism
Mill. Utilitarianism
Vallentyne, “Against Maximizing Act Consequentialism”
Norcross, "Two Dogmas of Deontology”

3. Kant's Ethics
Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Recommended
Baron, "On the Alleged Repugnance of Acting from Duty"

4. Pluralism & Particularlism

W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good Jonathan
Dancy, “Ethical Particularlism and Morally Relevant Properties”

5. Animals
Singer, "All Animals are Equal" [Good to refer to because it is a classic in the field, but the important argument is the
marginal cases argument and you can find that in the Norcross reading. The Norcross reading is much more
entertaining and it touches on some important questions about responsibility that we’ll discuss in the lecture.]
Kant, Lectures on Ethics
Norcross, “Puppies, Pigs, and People”
Recommended
Korsgaard, “Fellow Creatures”

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Suggested Questions for Essays
Metaphysics
Suggested essay questions will be posted on Keats.
Ethics and Epistemology
1. Is death bad for the one who dies? If so, why? If it is not, why not?
2. Would it be bad for a person to be plugged into the experience machine?
3. Can a reasonable and morally conscientious person decide to do something that they know isn’t for the best?
4. What is the separateness of persons objection? What, if anything, does it tell us about consequentialism?
5. Would a morally good person be moved by the motive of duty?
6. Are there any general moral principles? Will there always be a general principle to cover the cases we're in?
7. Is it ever permissible to make a lying promise?
8. Is inductive reasoning a source of knowledge and justification? Is it possible to justify the use of inductive
reasoning?
9. What distinguishes knowledge from merely true belief?
10. If it's possible for someone to have a mental life like yours and be systematically deceived, is it possible for you
to know anything at all? Is it possible to know that you're not systematically deceived?
11. If you discover that a peer disagrees with you about something, what should you do next? Does the discovery of
such a peer require you to be conciliatory and suspend judgment or can it be acceptable for you to 'stick to your
guns'? Is it possible for a disagreement between you and a peer to be reasonable?
12. To know anything at all, must some things be known directly or immediately without any inference from
anything else we believe?

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