Time & place

Lectures on Monday and Wednesday from 10:30-11:20 in 102 DeBartolo; discussion sections on Friday.

Topic

Bertrand Russell suggested that philosophical theories can be tested by their ability to deal with logical puzzles. This is the approach to philosophy that we will take in this course. The puzzles with which we will be concerned are paradoxes: sets of propositions each member of which is intuitively true but which nonetheless seem jointly inconsistent. Paradoxes of various sorts have been a focus of study in almost every area of philosophy; accordingly, this course will use paradoxes as a tool to raise questions about the following topics, among others: the nature of space and time; the nature of physical objects and change; the possibility of an omniscient and/or omnipotent God; the rules which govern what we rationally ought to believe, and what we rationally ought to do. We will also discuss more purely logical paradoxes such as the sorites and the liar. A subsidiary aim of the course will be to help students to appreciate the importance of consistent beliefs and to improve their ability to think clearly about the logical relations between claims.

Texts

Students will be required to purchase Sainsbury's Paradoxes (3d edition, isbn 0521720796). Copies are available in the bookstore or online. Other readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.

Assignments

There will be a midterm and non-cumulative final exam, each of which will consist of essay questions. There will also be three short analytical papers.

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.