PY111-4-FY-CO:
Introduction to Philosophy

The details
2020/21
Philosophy
Colchester Campus
Full Year
Undergraduate: Level 4
Current
Thursday 08 October 2020
Friday 02 July 2021
30
18 August 2020

 

Requisites for this module
(none)
(none)
(none)
(none)

 

(none)

Key module for

BA V500 Philosophy,
BA V501 Philosophy (Including Year Abroad),
BA V502 Philosophy (Including Foundation Year),
BA V503 Philosophy (including Placement Year),
BA V508 Philosophy (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
MPHIV599 Philosophy,
MPHIVA98 Philosophy (Including Placement Year),
MPHIVA99 Philosophy (Including Year Abroad),
BA VV53 Philosophy and Art History,
BA VV54 Philosophy and Art History (Including Foundation Year),
BA VV55 Philosophy and Art History (Including Placement Year),
BA VV5H Philosophy and Art History (Including Year Abroad),
BA VVHP Philosophy and Art History (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA VV15 Philosophy and History,
BA VV16 Philosophy and History (Including Placement Year),
BA VV51 Philosophy and History (Including Foundation Year),
BA VV5C Philosophy and History (Including Year Abroad),
BA VV5X Philosophy and History (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA MVC5 Philosophy and Law,
BA MVC6 Philosophy and Law (Including Placement Year),
BA MVC8 Philosophy and Law (Including Foundation Year),
BA VM51 Philosophy and Law (Including Year Abroad),
BA VM58 Philosophy and Law (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA QV25 Philosophy and Literature,
BA QV26 Philosophy and Literature (Including Placement Year),
BA VQ52 Philosophy and Literature (Including Foundation Year),
BA VQ58 Philosophy and Literature (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA VQ5F Philosophy and Literature (Including Year Abroad),
BA LV25 Philosophy and Politics,
BA LV26 Philosophy and Politics (Including Placement Year),
BA LV2H Philosophy and Politics (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA LV2M Philosophy and Politics (Including Year Abroad),
BA LV8M Philosophy and Politics (Including Foundation Year),
BA LV35 Philosophy and Sociology,
BA LV36 Philosophy and Sociology (Including Placement Year),
BA LV83 Philosophy and Sociology (Including Foundation Year),
BA VL53 Philosophy and Sociology (Including Year Abroad),
BA VL58 Philosophy and Sociology (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA V5M8 Philosophy with Human Rights (Including Foundation Year),
BA V5M9 Philosophy with Human Rights,
BA V5MX Philosophy with Human Rights (Including Year Abroad),
BA V6M9 Philosophy with Human Rights (Including Placement Year),
BA VLM8 Philosophy with Human Rights (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA L0V0 Philosophy, Politics and Economics,
BA L0V1 Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Including Placement Year),
BA L0V2 Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Including Foundation Year),
BA L0VA Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Including Year Abroad),
BA VV56 Philosophy, Religion and Ethics,
BA VV57 Philosophy, Religion and Ethics (Including Placement Year),
BA VV58 Philosophy, Religion and Ethics (Including Foundation Year),
BA VV59 Philosophy, Religion and Ethics (Including Foundation Year and Year Abroad),
BA VV5P Philosophy, Religion and Ethics (Including Year Abroad),
LLB MV16 Law with Philosophy,
LLB MV18 Law with Philosophy (Including Year Abroad),
LLB MV19 Law with Philosophy (Including Placement Year),
BA VV20 Philosophy with Business Management,
BA VV21 Philosophy with Business Management (Including Foundation Year),
BA VV22 Philosophy with Business Management (Including Placement Year),
BA VV23 Philosophy with Business Management (Including Year Abroad)

Module description

Students taking this module will follow the topics described below. Each lecture will be followed by a one-hour discussion class, at which issues covered in the lecture will be discussed in smaller class groups. There will be two revision sessions in the summer term, one for each term.

Autumn Term (Lecturer: Matt Burch)

This part of the module encourages students to reflect on what kind of knowers they want to be and what kind of knowledge community they want to belong to. We will begin by reading recent work in virtue epistemology, which studies the so-called virtues and vices of the mind. We will discuss important epistemic virtues that can help us flourish as knowers, e.g., self-reflection, intellectual humility, and intellectual perseverance; and we will also read about epistemic vices that undermine our capacity to acquire knowledge, e.g., closed-mindedness, dogmatism, and intellectual laziness. We will then turn to social epistemology, with a particular focus on the importance of trust in our knowledge practices. Put simply, if we cannot trust the testimony of others and their claims to know things, it's difficult to see how we can know anything. With this insight in mind, we will pay special attention to the question of what makes the claims of science trustworthy.

Spring Term (Lecturer: Irene McMullin)

In this part of the module, students will explore the nature of selfhood. What kind of creatures must we be in order to be capable of thinking, taking responsibility, experiencing meaning, or having a personal identity that continues through time? What does it mean to say that we know ourselves? Is there even a self at all? Is that self socially constituted? Students will read both classical and contemporary texts to think through these core philosophical questions.

Module aims

By the end of the module students should be able to;

• explain some of the major approaches to theories of practical knowledge, subjectivity, personal identity, virtue epistemology, the vices and virtues of the mind, and social epistemology;

• analyse critically the debates surrounding them.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module students should be able to:

- articulate certain philosophical problems in the areas studied;

- expound and critically evaluate some responses to these problems;

- employ their powers of philosophical argument and analysis in written work.

Module information

There will be two revision sessions in the summer term.

Weeks 8 and 21 are Reading Weeks.

Learning and teaching methods

There will be a one hour lecture and one-hour class/seminar each week. All teaching events will be accessible to students on and off campus either face-to-face or remotely through online teaching.

Bibliography

  • Dotson, Kristie. (2014) 'Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression', in Social Epistemology. vol. 28 (2) , pp.115-138
  • (no date) S2, Episode 10: Chamber of Facts: Hi-Phi Nation.
  • Kuperus, Gerard. (no date) Ecopolitical Homelessness: Defining Place in an Unsettled World.
  • (2019) Why Trust Science?: Princeton University Press.
  • Nagel, Thomas. (1979) Mortal questions, New York: Cambridge University Press., pp.213-
  • Evan Thompson. (Jan 28, 2020) Why I Am Not a Buddhist: Yale University Press., pp.86-117
  • Episode 92: Kristie Dotson discusses epistemic oppression, https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/elucidations/2017/01/14/episode-92-kristie-dotson-discusses-epistemic-oppression/
  • Battaly, Heather. (2020) 'Quitting, Procrastinating & Slacking Off', in Vice Epistemology, London: Routledge.
  • Carroll, Sean. (August 26, 2019) 61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to Do About Them.
  • (no date) Conspiracy Theories and the Problem of Disappearing Knowledge | Quassim Cassam | TEDxWarwick - YouTube.
  • Confucius; Muller, A. Charles. (1990) Analects of Confucius ??.
  • Lewis Gordon. (October 23, 1996) Existence in Black: Routledge.
  • Levy, Neil. (May 19, 2020) 'Partisan worlds: Left and right don't occupy different realities', in IAI News: An Online Magazine of Big Ideas. (88)
  • Plato; Grube, G. M. A. (c2002) Five dialogues, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett., pp.156-
  • Alcoff, Linda. (c2006) Visible identities: race, gender, and the self, New York: Oxford University Press., pp.352-
  • hooks, bell. (c1990) Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics, Boston, MA: South End Press.
  • Arendt, Hannah. (1971) 'Thinking and Moral Considerations : A Lecture', in Social Research. vol. 38 (3) , pp.417-446
  • Locke, John; Spencer, Mark G. (©2014) An essay concerning human understanding: with the second treatise of government, Ware: Wordsworth Editions., pp.850-
  • Nguyen, C. Thi. (no date) 'Why it’s as hard to escape an echo chamber as it is to flee a cult', in Aeon.
  • Thompson, Evan. (c1993) 'The 'I' of the Storm', in The embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press., pp.59-72
  • Carroll, Sean. (February 4, 2019) Episode 32: Naomi Oreskes on Climate Change and the Distortion of Scientific Facts.
  • Epistemic Vices and Conspiracy Theories, https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/02/28/epistemic-vices-and-conspiracy-theories/
  • Cassam, Quassim. (2019) 'Stealthy Vices', in Vices of the mind: from the intellectual to the political, Oxford: Oxford University Press., pp.144-166

The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course. The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students. Further reading can be obtained from this module's reading list.

Assessment items, weightings and deadlines

Coursework / exam Description Deadline Coursework weighting
Coursework   Autumn Term Essay (1500 Words)    50% 
Coursework   Spring Term Essay (1500 Words)    50% 
Exam  Main exam: 24hr during Summer (Main Period) 
Exam  Reassessment Main exam: 180 minutes during January 

Additional coursework information

Coursework tests the ability to research a topic using, for example, library and internet resources, expound specified texts and enter into detailed argumentation with them. Final exams test the ability to rehearse and assess arguments in relation to specific questions posed within a limited time frame.

Exam format definitions

  • Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
  • In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
  • In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
  • In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary, for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.

Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.

Overall assessment

Coursework Exam
50% 50%

Reassessment

Coursework Exam
50% 50%
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Dr Matthew Burch, email: mburch@essex.ac.uk.
Prof Irene McMullin, email: i.mcmullin@essex.ac.uk.
Autumn Term: Matt Burch, Spring Term: Irene McMullin.
spahinfo@essex.ac.uk

 

Availability
Yes
Yes
No

External examiner

Dr Thomas Joseph Stern
University College London
Senior Lecturer
Resources
Available via Moodle
Of 5018 hours, 0 (0%) hours available to students:
5018 hours not recorded due to service coverage or fault;
0 hours not recorded due to opt-out by lecturer(s).

 

Further information
Philosophy

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