| PHIL 314.001 Dr. Deborah Achtenberg |
Spring 2018 Tues., Thurs. 9:00 – 10:15 a.m. |
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| INTRODUCTION (1 class)
PART 1: MEANING, THE OTHER
PART 2: TIME, ESSENCE, THE OTHER COURSE TOPICS: some 20th century continental European philosophers’ views on meaning, time, essence and the other COURSE OUTCOMES: Through reading 20th century continental philosophy, students will achieve familiarity with important views on meaning, time, essence and the other; in class discussions and papers, students will learn to interpret, analyze, explain, compare and assess those views. Students will be able to: (SLO 1) State a thesis about a problem in 20th century Continental European philosophy, and provide evidence and philosophical argument (including replies to counter-arguments) in its defense.
(SLO 2) Interpret the ideas (by comparison and contrast) associated with major 20th century Continental European philosophers in the course survey. (SLO 3) Distinguish better and worse reasoning, and recognize conceptual relationships, in a 20th century Continental European philosophical text. (SLO 4) Show what is at stake, for current philosophical debates, in a 20th century Continental European philosophical text. COURSE TEXTS: the course text is available from the university bookstore or from online distributors: The Phenomenology Reader, Dermot Moran and Timothy Mooney (Routledge) Other readings will be linked to the course webpage. COURSE REQUIREMENTS: ATTENDANCE: Much of the important work in this course goes on in class. Students are expected to be in attendance except in cases of illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity, to be present for the entire seventy-five minute period and not to make appointments that conflict with class sessions. Graded assignments are based, in part, on class discussion. As a result, it is to your disadvantage to miss class. Attendance is required and will be taken at the beginning of each class session. it is the student’s responsibility to sign the roll sheet in each class. Students may miss three classes without penalty. Five points will be subtracted from the final course grade for the fourth class missed and two points for each class missed after that. Exceptions will be made in the case of illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity. A written excuse or other evidence must be provided in timely fashion for exceptions to be made. If you miss class, contact one of your fellow students to find out what we did in your absence and to get notes on the class you missed. Once you have done that, you may wish to talk to the instructor about what you missed. SPRING BREAK: March 17 – 25, 2018 TAKE-HOME ASSIGNMENTS: The take-home assignments are writing assignments designed to help you achieve a basic understanding of the conceptual framework and arguments of the readings. PAPERS: The papers will be essays (not research papers) on topics pertaining to the course texts. They will be five to seven pages long. You need use no books other than the course texts in order to write the papers. Papers are due as scheduled on the course outline. In an essay, you state a thesis, explain it and argue for it. The basic structure of an essay is: an introduction in which you state your thesis, the body of the essay in which you explain and argue for your thesis, the conclusion in which you summarize or highlight what you have done in the essay. Essays will be typed or word-processed, double-spaced, in 10- or 12-point type. They will have a title and a title page. The pages will be numbered. There will be no extra spaces between paragraphs. Long quotations will be block-indented. All quotations will be accompanied by a reference in parentheses. Essays will be in finished form and without errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation. Essays will be evaluated on the following basis: 1. Do you have the parts mentioned above (introduction, body, conclusion)? REFERENCES: Quotations in the text should end with quotation marks followed by a reference in parentheses followed by a period. For example: Heidegger challenges human essence when he says that dasein’s “essence lies rather in the fact that in each case it has its Being to be, and has it as its own” (32-33). Levinas says that it is “also necessary that the saying call for philosophy in order that the light that occurs not congeal into essence what is beyond essence, and that the hypostasis of an eon not be set up as an idol” (44). “The idea of the book is the idea of a totality, finite or infinite, of the signifier” according to Derrida (280). About woman, Cixous says “she doesn’t defend herself against these unknown women whom she’s surprised at becoming, but derives pleasure from this gift of alterability” (320). EXTRA CREDIT: 1. Any student who visits the instructor’s office during office hours to discuss the instructor’s comments on the first take home will receive five extra points on that take-home. To receive the points, the visit must take place before the due date for the second take-home. 2. Any student who visits the instructor’s office during office hours between February 2 and March 15 to discuss his or her progress in the course will receive five extra points on the third take-home. To receive the points, the student must bring previous written assignments to the meeting. EVALUATION: Grades will be based on the papers and take-homes weighted equally (1/2 each). Excellent class participation may raise your grade somewhat over the mathematical average, at the discretion of the instructor. Any points for non-attendance will be subtracted, and any extra credit points will be added, as described above. Late papers will lose a letter grade (ten points) for each class session they are late. Exceptions will be made only in the case of serious illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity. A written excuse or other evidence must be provided for exceptions to be made. Papers will be submitted on Canvas by midnight on the due date. Papers submitted after that will be considered late. The student will be held responsible for knowing what goes on in class. Absences will not excuse you from knowing due dates of papers or take-homes. The grading scale is: 94-100, A; 90-93 A-; 87-89 B+; 84-86 B; 80-83 B-; 77-79 C+; 74-76 C; 70-73 C-; 67-69 D+; 64-66 D; 60-63 D-; below 60, F. It is the instructor’s policy that cheating, plagiarism or submission of written work for this course which was submitted in another course merits a course grade of F. COURSE LINKS: The course outline and class assignments are posted on the world wide web. They can also be accessed by visiting my homepage: <deborahachtenberg.com/courses> or by visiting Canvas. USE OF THE INTERNET: Use of the internet for research purposes is appropriate. However, students should use their own ideas in their papers. In addition, they should be aware that papers plagiarized from internet sources can easily be detected. PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism is a serious offense. You plagiarize when you use someone else’s words or ideas without attribution. When you do this, you are putting forward someone else’s work as if it were your own. Changing a few words in a phrase or sentence is not enough to avoid plagiarism. (1) Instead, when you utilize someone else’s exact phrases, put them in quotation marks and cite in parentheses the person whose words you have used. (2) It is fine to paraphrase someone, but when you do, you must say so. You can make it clear by saying “As Heidegger says…” or “According to Cixous…”. (3) Finally, do not utilize even short phrases from another person’s work without a citation. If you follow these guidelines, you will find it is easy to use sources in your own writing without being academically dishonest. INTERNET RESOURCES: Some websites of interest for this course include <www.spep.org>, the site of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and <www.phenomenology-carp.org>, the site of the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The on-line edition of Routledge’s encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Another good on-line encyclopedia of philosophy, this one from Stanford University .Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper
In addition to suggestions I will make in class, you may find this webpage from Jim Pryor at NYU’s Department of Philosophy helpful. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
The electronic version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Oxford English Dictionary
The electronic version of the OED with the latest new and revised entries. WordReference.com
An on-line French, Italian and Spanish translation dictionary provided by Michael Kellogg. German-English Dictionary
An on-line German translation dictionary provided by the Chemnitz Technical University and Frank Richter. Liddell, Scott, Jones Lexicon
Perseus’s on-line version of the Liddell, Scott, Jones lexicon (dictionary) of ancient Greek. (To look up a transliterated Greek word–such as logos or physis–type the word in the Find space, click on the Submit Query button, then double-click on Middle Liddellwhich will take you to definitions found in the middle-sized Liddell, Scott, Jones Lexicon.) Words
William Whitaker’s on-line translation dictionary of Latin. CLASS FORMAT: This class will be a combination of lecture and discussion. Discussions generally will have a focus rather than being general discussion or debate. Students will be expected to respond to questions asking them to reflect on the texts and the issues raised, to speculate in a thoughtful way when not sure, and in general to participate in discussion. Class discussions will refer to the course text. Students will need to bring the course text to class if they are to benefit from lectures and discussions. Web surfing and sending or reading e-mail or text messages during class are not allowed. In addition, please refrain from carrying on extensive side conversations during class discussion, please silence cell phones before class, and please refrain from eating during class. STUDYING: Many students will find that they do better work in this course if they study together with other students. * * * REQUIRED STATEMENT ON DISABILITY POLICY: “Any student with a disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations is requested to speak with the Disability Resource Center (Pennington Student Achievement Center, Suite 230) as soon as possible to arrange for appropriate accommodations.” REQUIRED STATEMENT ON AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDING: “Surreptitious or covert video-taping of class or unauthorized audio recording of class is prohibited by law and by Board of Regents policy. This class may be videotaped or audio recorded only with the written permission of the instructor. In order to accommodate students with disabilities, some students may be given permission to record class lectures and discussions. Therefore, students should understand that their comments during class may be recorded.” * * *
My office hours are Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon, or by appointment (Jones 101A). Please feel free to come by to discuss the course topics or your progress in the course. I look forward to meeting with you for such discussions. Please contact me as much as possible in person or by phone so that I can get to know you better! Please note that I do advising in person, not by email. Please try to meet with me during my scheduled office hours, if possible. If you cannot, and wish to make an appointment to see me at another time, call 784-6742 (my office), see me before or after class, or drop by my office and see if I am there, to make an appointment. If you try to get in touch with me and cannot, leave a voice mail message or a note with your phone number so that I can call you. Please do not send email messages informing me that you will not be attending class or asking me what we did in class. Please use e-mail sparingly, primarily in unusual or emergency circumstances: <achten@unr.edu>. I want to get to know you, and the best way for that to happen in the short time we have together is for us to meet in person.
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