Syllabus

I. Description

Almost everyone lives in society. But what is society? How should society be understood? How does living in society change the way people think and act? How does it change the way they ought to think and act? How should it be set up, organized, and governed? We will consider these and related questions through an introductory survey of influential works by writers such as Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill, Freud, and Huxley. 

II. Aims

This course’s aims include (1) introducing you to the field of social philosophy, (2) familiarizing you with some important works with implications for social philosophy and (3) developing your abilities to argue, both in conversation and in writing, about social-philosophical questions and attempts to answer them.

Because this course has been specially designated as a writing course, extra emphasis will be placed on developing your abilities to appreciate and to employ some of the the distinctive conventions and strategies of philosophical writing. It will be presupposed that you have mastered the basics of English composition.

To advance these aims, you will be required to read certain texts, to participate in class discussions, and to complete some written assignments.

III. Books

The following five books are sold by the Pitt Book Center. Although each of these books contains required reading, other suitable editions of the same texts, or other books containing suitable editions of the required reading, may be used instead. For a list of the required reading, see the schedule, below.

IV. Schedule

We will meet eleven times from May 11 to July 27, on Mondays in room 340 of the Cathedral of Learning. Due to a university holiday, we will not meet on May 25. Class will start at 5:45 p.m on May 11 and at 6 p.m. thereafter, finishing by 9 p.m. Following is a list of the reading assignments, each of which must be done before the class on the day on which it is listed.

V. Requirements

In addition to reading the assigned texts on time, you will be required to take quizzes and an exam, to write papers, and to attend class and to participate in class discussions.

1. Five quizzes will be given in class.
• The dates of the quizzes will not necessarily be announced in advance, but all of the possible quiz questions will be provided, as study questions designed to aid you in your reading, at least a week in advance of the dates when they may be asked on quizzes. In other words, the quizzes may be surprises, but the questions won’t be.
• On days when quizzes will be given, quizzes will be available starting at 6 p.m. and must be completed—without the aid of texts, notes, or other people—by 6:20 p.m. On these days, students who arrrive late or who want to study before looking at the quiz may do so without penalty, though of course they must still finish by 6:20.
• If you miss a class, then you should contact me (by e-mail or phone) within 5 days to find out whether you missed a quiz and (if necessary) to arrange to take a make-up quiz. The questions on the make-up quiz will be drawn not only from the list of possible quiz questions for the class that was missed, but also from the lists of possible quiz questions for the two previous classes. (Otherwise, students who take make-up quizzes would be advantaged relative to students who do not—since they would be studying a list of questions from which they know quiz questions will be drawn—which would tend to encourage students to be absent. Naturally, this effect must be avoided.)
2. You will be required to write six papers.
• Three of the papers will be reaction papers of about 2 pages each. The other three will be analysis papers of about 6 pages each, with one of the three analysis papers being a revision of an earlier analysis paper. You can choose your own schedule of writing, with the following restrictions.
• Each of your three reaction papers will be due at the beginning of the class in which we discuss the text to which the paper is reacting. So, reaction papers on the first Hobbes reading assignment will be due on May 18, reaction papers on the second Hobbes reading assignment will be due on June 1, reaction papers on the Rousseau reading assignment will be due on June 8, etc.
• Each of your analysis papers, except for the one that’s a revision, will be due at the beginning of the first class following the last class in which we discuss the author whose work the paper is analyzing. So, analysis papers on Hobbes will be due on June 8, analysis papers on Rousseau will be due on June 15, analysis papers on Huxley will be due on June 29, etc.
• Your analysis paper that’s a revision will be due at the beginning of the first class following the class in which the paper that’s being revised was returned to you with a grade. You will be required to turn in not only the revision itself, but also the graded copy of the paper that’s being revised. Because of time constraints near the end of the course, no analysis paper on Freud may be revised.
• Since one of the analysis papers will be a revision of an earlier analysis paper, your six papers will be on five different topics (three reaction-paper topics and two analysis-paper topics). Each of the five topics that you choose must pertain to a different author from the other four; this is to ensure that you write a paper (either a reaction paper or an analysis paper) on each of the five authors.
• Papers submitted later than their due dates but not later than July 31 will be accepted, but will be assessed a penalty of one quarter of a letter grade per business day late. For example, a B paper due on a Monday but turned in on the following Monday would receive a grade of C–. Exceptions to this penalty rule may be made when a paper is late because of factors which a student could not reasonably be expected to control, such as an illness or a family emergency. A paper submitted on a day when class does not meet should be marked with the date on which it is being submitted and placed in the mailbox marked EGGLESTON in room 1001 of the Cathedral of Learning between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
• If you anticipate that meeting any of these deadlines will be a problem, then you should contact me and request an extension at least a week before the deadline(s) in question; reasonable advance requests will be accommodated. Last-minute requests for extensions will not be granted, except in cases in which you would be exempt from the late-paper penalty anyway.
• Suggested topics for papers will be provided at least a week before their due dates.
3. A comprehensive final exam will be given in class on July 27. If you miss the final exam, then you should contact me as soon as possible, and not later than July 31, to arrange to take a make-up exam.
4. Attendance will be taken, and discussions will be held, in every class.

Final grades will be determined by these factors. The papers will be 50 percent more important than the quizzes (and class participation) and the final exam; and the quizzes (and class participation) will be 50 percent more important than the final exam. So, 60 percent of the final grades will be determined by papers, 24 percent by quizzes and class participation, and 16 percent by the final exam. The papers will be weighted as follows: 6 percent for each of the three reaction papers, 18 percent for the analysis paper that doesn’t get revised, 10 percent for the analysis paper that does get revised, and 14 percent for the revision.

It is possible that these requirements will change, as may other plans reported on this syllabus. Revisions will be stated on the World Wide Web site at the address given above. For more about the Web site, see “VI. Additional Resources,” below.

VI. Additional Resources

I’ll have office hours in area E of room 1428 in the Cathedral of Learning on Sundays and Mondays from 4:45 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. and will be available at other times by appointment.

Furthermore, the World Wide Web site at the address given above includes links to several useful documents, including

• this syllabus
• revisions to the requirements and other plans reported on this syllabus
• study notes for each author, including
• background information about the author and reading assignment(s)
• study questions from which the quiz questions will be drawn
• suggestions for further reading
• topics for reaction papers
• an outline of topics to be covered in class
• topics for analysis papers
• guidelines for writing a philosophy paper

It also includes links to independent sites related to the authors and texts of this course.