Overview

Philosophy seeks answers to questions about the fundamental nature of reality and our knowledge of it using distinctive methods. This course investigates answers to some of those questions and as well as various methods of philosophical reasoning. This course explores logic; skepticism and knowledge about the external world; perception and the nature of physical reality; the nature of the mind and its relation to the body; personal identity; freewill and determinism; moral relativism; the good life; the relation between morality and religion; cosmological arguments for the existence of God; and the problem that occurrence of evil events presents for traditional theism. The final three weeks will be a close reading of one of the most famous books in the Western philosophical tradition: Plato's Republic.

Required web readings

Most of the readings are in the course pack. The exceptions are Plato's Republic and a few readings available only on the web, which are linked to below:

1. Logic websites
• iLogic
• Informal Fallacies
• Fallacy Files (Informal Fallacies)
  
2. Paul Boghossian, "The Maze of Moral Relativism"
3. Ronald Dworkin, "What Is a Good Life?"