Before you enter this course, read carefully this overview, course evaluation, course assignments, course mechanics, and self-check activities.

Course Title: Introduction to Philosophy

Instructor: Professor Ronald C. Pine, Ph.D.

Web Page (Office Hours, Phone #, etc.)

Course Credits: 3

Course Description:  Great philosophical issues, theories, and controversies. (3 credits)

General Education area: Diversification in Humanities and Writing Intensive

Note: This online course is being offered as a Writing-Intensive course.  Hence, this course will satisfy a UH system and HCC Diversification requirement and a UH system and HCC WI requirement. In this Writing-Intensive course 78% of the grade is based on the writing.  See the Evaluation section of the syllabus.

Course Purpose:  Philosophy 100 is an introductory course addressing the relevance of philosophical perspectives and issues for living in the modern world. Traditional philosophers and philosophical fields will be covered with a constant emphasis on the application of concepts and controversies for making decisions in one's life.  Traditional fields in philosophy will be covered: value clarification, ethics and theories of the good life, political philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of religion and metaphysics. Both Western and Eastern philosophical perspectives will be covered.  Each student will be asked to participate critically in evaluating various philosophical perspectives through short essay writing assignments and a major paper.

Course Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes:  Students will demonstrate in college level writing:

• articulation of some of the ideas and reasoning of some of the major figures in the Western philosophical tradition as well as some of the ideas and insights of other cultures and traditions;
  
  
• define, describe and utilize some of the basic concepts of major areas of philosophical inquiry: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Theology and Ethics;
  
  
• utilize the methods of philosophical inquiry: Critical Thinking, Critical Reading, Critical Writing and various epistemological criteria to test belief;
  
  
• employ the above concepts and methods to analyze and evaluate philosophical ideas and arguments, to evaluate their own beliefs and to formulate their own arguments in answer to fundamental philosophical questions.

Discovering Philosophy (Portfolio or 2nd Edition), by Thomas I. White
Supplement Lectures for the textbook.

Course Content:

1. Introduction -- applied philosophy.
 
2. Meaning in life, theories of happiness, and the Good Life.
 
3. What should we do? Ethics and political philosophy.
 
4. What can we know? Epistemology and theories of evidence.
   
   
5. What is the nature of reality? Metaphysics and philosophy of religion.
 

Disability Accommodations, Student Conduct, Sex Discrimination and Gender-based Violence Resources (Title IX), etc.

Schedule:

Week	Topic (s)
1-2	Chapters 1, Appendix (Writing About Philosophy): Applied Philosophy and the relevance of philosophical thinking.  Assignment 1
2-3	Chapters 2: Philosophical Thinking and Logic.  Assignment 2
3-4	Chapters 11: Happiness and Meaning in Life.  Assignment 3
4-6	Chapter 5:  Ethics and tools for ethical deliberation.  Assignment 4
5-6	Chapter 6: Ethics and Happiness.  Assignment 5
7-8	Chapter 7: Political Philosophy.  Assignment 6
9-10	Chapter 9: Theories of Knowledge (Epistemology).  Assignment 7
11-12	Chapters 8: The Nature of Reality (Metaphysics).  Assignment 8 and Draft of Major Paper due
13-14	Chapter 10: Arguments for the Existence of God.  Assignment 9; Chapter 12: The world view of modern science.  Assignment 10
15-16	Major Paper and Final Exam