Time & place

Tuesday & Thursday from 9:30-10:45, in 346 Grace Hall

Topic

We will begin the seminar by discussing the central arguments for and against the existence of God. The philosophical questions we discuss for the remainder of the semester will be up to the class; I'll distribute a list of questions we might discuss on the first day, and we'll decide which ones to cover then. In most cases, we'll be discussing in sequence a number of arguments for opposing views on the chosen topics. Students will be asked to understand these arguments, and form and defend their own views about which among them are most successful. We will spend a bit of time at the beginning of the course, and occasionally throughout, discussing what good arguments are, and why they might be worth pursuing.    

Format

This course is a seminar rather than a lecture; classes will be be discussions of the readings, with the class and professor as participants. Accordingly, students should come to class ready to discuss the reading assigned for that day, rather than just ready to listen.

Texts

Students will be required to obtain Peter van Inwagen's Metaphysics. Other readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.

Assignments

There will be four written assignments. The first will be a short 1-2 page assignment worth 10% of the grade; the next three will each be 5-7 pages in length, and worth 25% of the grade. Late papers will be penalized 3 points/day, including weekends. The remaining 15% of the grade will be given on the basis of class attendance and participation.

Grading

The midterm exam and (non-cumulative) final exam will each be worth 35% of the final grade; short take home assignments will, collectively, be worth 10%. The remaining 20% of the final grade will be given on the basis of class attendance and participation.

Each assignment is required, in the sense that failure to complete one or more assignments is sufficient to fail the course.

Notre Dame has no official way of indexing numerical grades to letter grades. This is the system that will be used in this course:

A	94+
A-	90-93
B+	87-89
B	83-86
B-	80-82
C+	77-79
C	73-76
C-	70-72
D	60-69
F	59-

Honor code

In all of their assignments, students are responsible for compliance with the University’s honor code, information about which is available here. You should acquaint yourself with the policies and penalties described there.

Sometimes, it can be hard to know what, exactly, the honor code implies with respect to different disciplines. For this reason, the philosophy department has prepared a document explaining, using examples, what the honor code requires of students when writing a philosophy paper. I strongly recommend that you read this document, which is available here. It is possible to violate the honor code without intending to do so; the best way to avoid this is to carefully read through the philosophy department's guidelines.

If you are in doubt about what the honor code requires of you in a particular case, please ask me.