I. Instructor
Professor: Richard Feldman
Office: Lattimore 518
Office Hours: Thursday, 10:00 - 12:00, and by appointment
Phone: x58106
E-Mail: feldman@philosophy.rochester.edu

 

II. Text
Moral Relativism, Paul K. Moser and Thomas L. Carson (eds.). (Available at the bookstore.)

Many readings for the course will be photocopies of articles that will be put on reserve. (Possibly copies will be available to be purchased in the department office.)

 

III. Web Page
Reading assignments, paper assignments, and some notes and other class material will be available at the course web site: www.ling.rochester.edu/~feldman/philosophy300/index.html.

 

III. Description
This course is intended to prepare students to do upper level work in philosophy. It also serves as the main writing course for philosophy majors. The course will focus on two problems in contemporary philosophy. The first topic will be moral relativism. The second topic will be in the theory of knowledge. The specific topic will be determined early in the semester. For each topic, there will be some introductory lectures to prepare students to read recent influential writings on the topic. The remaining class periods will be devoted to discussion of those articles and to discussion of students’ papers on those articles.

 

IV. Requirements

1. Homework Assignments: There will be a short written assignment on the readings almost every week. Some of these assignments will require clear exposition of the central point of one of the readings. Others will be critical analyses of the readings. Some but not all will be collected and graded.

2. Main Papers: A paper of about 5-10 pages will be due at the end of each of the two main units of the course. These papers may be expanded and revised versions of the one of shorter homework assignments.

3. Final Paper: A final paper will be due at the end of the semester. This will be a revised version of one of the earlier papers.

4. Class Participation: Regular participation in seminar discussions. Since seminar meetings will mainly be devoted to discussion of the short papers just described, participation (and therefore attendance) is required.

Items (1) - (4) above will be weighed equally in determining final grades.