Summer, 2004

Instructor: Jack Temkin
Office: Smith House (1007 20th St.)
Telephone: 351-1568
Office Hours: 8:55-9:25 a.m. MTWTh and by appointment
E-mail: jack.temkin@unco.edu

Text

• A Modern Introduction to Philosophy, ed. Edwards and Pap.

Course Requirements

Class participation, a midterm examination, and a final examination. Each will count for one third of the final grade.

Course Objectives

In this course we will consider a sampling of classic philosophical writings in three of the central areas of philosophy: epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. The two-fold aim is to acquaint the student with the issues that philosophers take up and to develop skills in critical thinking and argumentation.

Readings

1. Epistemology
   1. Rene Descartes, “The Sphere of the Doubtful”
   2. David Hume, “Skeptical Doubts Concerning the Human Understanding”
2. The Existence of God
   1. St. Thomas Aquinas, “The Five Ways”
   2. St. Anselm, “There Exists Something Than Which No Greater Can Be Thought”
3. Ethics
   1. Bertrand Russell, “Science and Ethics”
   2. A.C. Ewing, “The Objectivity of Moral Judgments”