Villanova University

PHL 1000: Knowledge, Reality, Self

MWF 10:30 am -11:20 pm
Falvey 415
 
Instructor: Dr. Eneida Jacobsen
eneida.jacobsen@villanova.edu
 
Office hours: MW 1-2 pm and by appointment
 
Course description
 
In this introductory course to philosophy our task is to investigate the nature
of knowledge, reality, and the human self by carefully reading and discussing
excerpts of influential Western thinkers, namely, Sappho, Heraclitus, Plato,
Augustine, Descartes, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, De Beauvoir, Freire, and hooks.
What can we know of reality if thoughts are produced according to our
minds? Is time an illusion? Who are we, and who will we become? Can we
change society? What must we know in order to change it? There is much for
us to ask about. We will practice critical thinking with respect and interest for
each other’s questions and ideas while searching for the best arguments.
 
Learning goals
 
 Become acquainted with key philosophical responses to the questions
of what we know, what is real, and who is the human self;
 
 Develop the skills of analyzing complex philosophical arguments and
evaluating the validity of their conclusions;
 
 Hone the ability to communicate philosophical ideas clearly and
respectfully in oral discussion and written work.
 
Required book
 
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1883-1885. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for
Everyone and Nobody. Translated by Graham Parkes. Oxford: Oxford
University, 2009. ISBN-10: 9780199537099.
Further books

(Chapters are available on Blackboard)

 
hooks, bell. 2010. Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom. London: Routledge. 

Sappho. 2002 (around 600 BC). If Not, Winter. Fragments of Sappho. Translated by Anne
Carson. New York: Random House. 

Heraclitus. 1959 (around 500 BC). Translated and commented by Philip Wheel Wright.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

Plato. 1997 (Works from 390-375 BC). Complete Works. Edited, with introduction and notes by
John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett.

Augustine. 1968 (389). The Teacher, The Free Choice of The Will, Grace and Free Will.
Translated by Robert P. Russel. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America.

Descartes, René. 1996 (1661). Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections From The
Objections and Replies. Translated and edited by John Cottingham. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 

Elisabeth, and Descartes. 2007 (1643). The Correspondence Between Princess Elisabeth of
Bohemia and René Descartes. Edited and translated by Lisa Shapiro. Chicago & London:
University of Chicago.

Wideru, Kwasi. 2004. A Companion to African Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Hume, David. 2007 (1748). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Peter
Millican. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kant, Immanuel. 2009 (1781). The Critique of Pure Reason. Edited by Paul Guyer. Translated
by Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Marx, Karl. 1992 (1867). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 1. Translated by
Ben Fowkes. Introduction by Ernest Mandel. London: Penguin.

Beauvoir, Simone de. 2011 (1949). The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila
Malovany-Chevallier. Vintage Books. New York: Random House.

Freire, Paulo. 1968. Pedagogy of The Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. 

Vaughn, Lewis. 2005. Writing Philosophy: A Student’s Guide to Writing Philosophy Essays.
Oxford, London: University Press.

Seech, Zachary. 2009 (2004). Writing Philosophy Papers. 5 ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. 

 
Course policies 
 
Office of Disabilities (ODS) and Learning Support Services (LSS): It is the policy of
Villanova to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified individuals with
disabilities. Go to the Learning Support Services website
(http://learningsupportservices.villanova.edu) for registration guidelines and instructions. For
physical access or temporarily disabling conditions, please contact the Office of Disability
Services at 610-519-4095 or email Stephen.mcwilliams@villanova.edu. Registration is needed in
order to receive accommodations. 

Academic Integrity: All students are expected to uphold Villanova’s Academic Integrity Policy
and Code. Any incident of academic dishonesty will be reported to the Dean of the College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences for disciplinary action.  For the College’s statement on Academic
Integrity, you should consult the Enchiridion. You may view the university’s Academic Integrity
Policy and Code, as well as other useful information related to writing papers, at the Academic
Integrity Gateway web site: http://library.villanova.edu/Help/AcademicIntegrity 

Absences for Religious Holidays: Villanova University makes every reasonable effort to allow
members of the community to observe their religious holidays, consistent with the University’s
obligations, responsibilities, and policies. Students who expect to miss a class or assignment due
to the observance of a religious holiday should discuss the matter with their professors as soon as
possible, normally at least two weeks in advance. Absence from classes or examinations for
religious reasons does not relieve students from responsibility for any part of the course work
required during the absence.
https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/provost/resources/student/policies/religiousholidays.html

Attendance policy: Six or more unexcused absences result in a grade of “Y” (failure). Late
assignments will not be accepted unless a request is submitted through the Office of Disabilities
(ODS) or the Learning Support Services (LSS).

Electronic Device Policy: The use of electronic devices is not permitted unless you are given
special permission. 

Course evaluation 
 
Writing (40%): The course requires that you write seven thesis-driven papers: five essays of
one page each (ca. 250 words), one longer midterm paper of two pages (500 words), and one
final paper of three pages (750-850 words). You must choose four Thursdays on which, by 1 pm,
you will send me your short essay via email on the reading scheduled for that week. Everybody
is required to submit their first short essay on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave by Jan. 30th.
Sometimes we will discuss what you wrote in class. For the honing of your writing skills, you
are expected to visit the Writing Center once before the midterm. You will also be asked to give
feedback on three of your classmates' papers. Each feedback is worth 1% of your grade. The
short papers are worth 4% each (total of 20%). The midterm paper is worth 7%. Your final paper
counts towards 10% of your final grade.
Reading (35%): The course requires that you do careful reading of the scheduled texts with the
help of a variety of reading assignments that will be announced in class: reading logs, argument
reconstructions, quotes markups, illustrations, reading questions formulated individually and in
groups, and quizzes taken in class or on blackboard. There will be five quizzes worth 15%, and
three argument reconstructions worth 12%. Reading assignments are worth 8% of your grade.

Presentation (15%): The course requires that you give a 10 min. presentation on a 25-35 pages
philosophical text. Be prepared for questions. You are welcome but not required to stop by
during my office hours to talk about your text and presentation.

Participation (10%): You must always bring your readings to class. Everybody is encouraged
to ask questions and participate in class discussion. 

Grading scale

A (4.00), A- (3.67): Outstanding

B+ (3.33), B (3.00), B- (2.67): Good
C+ (2.33), C (2.00), C- (1.67): Acceptable
D+, (1.33), D (1.00), D- (0.67): Limited
F (0.00): Failure
SP: Satisfactory Progress
Y: Failure for excessive absences
 

Course schedule 
Part I: Knowledge: What can we know? How do we learn?  

Week 1: Introduction

Mon., Jan. 13: Course syllabus

Wed., Jan. 15: Plato, Republic, The Cave, 514a-520a 
Fri., Jan. 17: hooks, Critical Thinking, p. 7-11

Assignment: Library research on Socrates

Week 2: Love and nature

Mon., Jan. 20: Martin Luther King Day (no class)  

Wed., Jan. 22: Sappho, Selections.
Fri., Jan. 24: Heraclitus, Selections.

Assignment: Paper on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave due on Jan. 30st.

Week 3: Knowledge

Mon., Jan. 27: Plato, Republic, 507b-509c 

Wed., Jan. 29: Plato, Republic, 509d-511e 
Fri., Jan. 31: Discussion of papers      

Assignment: Presentation of logical fallacies

Week 4: Learning

Mon., Feb. 3: Plato, Meno, 70a-79d

Wed., Feb. 5: Plato, Meno, 79e-86d
Fri., Feb. 7: Plato, Meno, 86e-96d

Assignment: Quiz

Week 5: Teaching

Mon., Feb. 10: Augustine, The Teacher, Chapters 1-7

Wed., Feb. 12: Augustine, The Teacher, Chapters 8-10
Fri., Feb. 14: Augustine, The Teacher, Chapters 12-14 

Assignment: Quiz

Part II: Reality: what if everything is in our minds?  

Weeks 6-7: Mind and body 

Mon., Feb. 17: Descartes, Meditations 1

Wed., Feb. 19: Descartes, Meditation 2 
Fri., Feb. 21: Descartes, Meditation 6 

Assignment: Argument reconstruction 

Mon., Feb. 24: Elizabeth of Bohemia, The Correspondence, p. 61-73

Wed., Feb. 26: Amo on Descartes’ Dualism. Wideru, p. 200-206
Fri., Feb. 28: Quiz, discussion of papers, assignment check

Assignment: Quiz on Feb. 28th. Midterm paper due on Feb. 29th

March 2-9: Recess

Week 8: Cause and effect

Mon., Mar. 9: Hume, Enquiry concerning human understanding, Sections II-III

Wed., Mar. 11: Hume, Enquiry concerning human understanding, Section IV, Part 1 
Fri., March 13: Hume, Hume, Enquiry concerning human understanding, Section IV, Part 2

Assignment: Argument reconstruction

Week 9: Space and time 

Mon., Mar. 16: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B1-B6
Wed., Mar. 18: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B33-B42
Fri., Mar. 20: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B46-B49

Assignment: Argument reconstruction

Part III: Self: Who are we? Who will we become? 

Week 10: Being social 

Mon., Mar. 23: Marx, Capital, Chapter 1, Section 1

Wed., Mar. 25: Marx, Capital, Chapter 1, Section 2
Fri., Mar. 27: Marx, Capital, Chapter 1, Section 4

Assignment: Quiz

Weeks 11-12: Being human

Mon., Mar. 30: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Wed., Apr. 1: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Fri., Apr. 3: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Assignment: Group questions

Mon., Apr. 6: Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra

April 8-13: Recess  

Wed., Apr. 15: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Fri., Apr. 17: Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Assignment: Group questions

Week 13: Being gendered

Mon., Apr. 20: De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Volume 1, Introduction

Wed., Apr. 22: De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Volume 1, Introduction
Fri., Apr. 24: De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, Part 2, Chapter 1

Assignment: Short answers exam

Week 14: Being taught

Mon., Apr. 27: Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter 2, first half
Wed., Apr. 29: Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Chapter 2, second half
Fri., May 4: Close-up discussion

Assignment: Final quiz on May 4th. Final paper due on May 7th
Student presentations

Week 6: Philosophy of science

Wed., Feb. 19: Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 1-22.

Fri., Feb. 21: Haraway, Cyborg Manifesto, p. 149-181.

Week 7: Philosophy of science

Mon., Feb. 24: Bateson, Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia, p. 205-232.

Wed., Feb. 26: Maturana; Varela, The Tree of Knowledge, p. 11-30.
Fri., Feb. 28: Shiva, Staying Alive, p. 14-35.

Week 8: Environmental philosophy

Mon., Mar. 9: Naess, The Deep Ecology Movement, p. 1-16.

Wed., Mar. 11: Chakrabarty, The Climate of History, p. 197-222.
Fri., March 13: Klein, This Changes Everything, p. 1-25.

Week 9: Critical theory 

Mon., Mar. 16: Horkheimer, The Social Function of Philosophy, p. 253-272.

Wed., Mar. 18: Adorno, Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 1-34.
Fri., Mar. 20: Marcuse, The One-Dimensional Man, p. 3-20. 

Week 10: Political philosophy 

Mon., Mar. 23: Arendt, The Human Condition, p. 1-21.

Wed., Mar. 25: Weil, The Needs of the Soul, p. 1-38.
Fri., Mar. 27: Chomsky, Profit Over People, p. 43-62.

Week 11:  Power, Postcolonialism, Perspectivism 

Mon., Mar. 30: Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 195-228.

Wed., Apr. 1: Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak? p. 66-104.
Fri., Apr. 3: Viveiros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics, p. 49-75.

Week 12: Existentialism

Mon., Apr. 6: Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, p. 17-54.

Wed., Apr. 15: Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 1-24.
Fri., Apr. 17: West, Race Matters, 1-30.

Week 13: Gender theory

Mon., Apr. 20: Young, Throwing Like a Girl, p. 137-156.
Wed., Apr. 22: Butler, Gender Trouble, p. 1-34.
Fri., Apr. 24: Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, p. 54-80. 

Week 14: Philosophy of race

Mon., Apr. 27: Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, p. 17-40.

Wed., Apr. 29: Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? p. 9-39.
 

Bibliography
 
Arendt, Hannah. 1998 (1958). Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: Chicago
University Press. (Prologue and Chapter 1: The Human Condition. p. 1-21).

Bateson, Gregory. 1987 (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology,
Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. Northvale NJ, London: Jason Aronson Inc. Northvale.
(Part III, Chapter 3: Towards a Theory of Schizophrenia. p. 199-232). 

Bourdieu, Pierre. 2001 (1998). Masculine Domination. Translated by Richard Nice, 2001.
(Chapter 2: Anamnesis of the Hidden Constants. p. 54-80).

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge. (Chapter 1: Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire. p. 1-34). 

Camus, Albert (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Translated by Justin O’Brien. New
York: Vintage Books, 1991. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 1-24.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2009 (2008). “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35.
p.197-222.

Chomsky, Noam. 1999. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order. New York,
Toronto, London: Seven Stories. (Chapter 2: Consent Without Consent. Regimenting the Public
Mind. p. 43-62).

Davis, Angela Y. 2003. Are Prisons Obsolete? New York, Toronto, London: Seven Stories.
(Chapter 2: Slavery, Civil Rights, and Abolitionist Perspectives Toward Prison, p. 9-39).

Fanon, Franz. 1986 (1952). Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann.
(London: Pluto. Chapter 1: The Negro and Language, p. 17-40).

Foucault, Michel. 1995 (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by
Alan Sherida. New York: Random House. (Chapter 3: Panopticism, p. 195-228). 

Hawaray, Donna J. 2010 (1981). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.
New York: Routledge. (Chapter 8: Cyborg Manifesto, p. 149-181).
Horkheimer, Max; Adorno, Theodor W. 2002 (1944). Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical
Fragments. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. (Chapter 1: The
Concept of Enlightenment, p. 1-34).

Horkheimer, Max. 1972 (1939). Critical Theory: Selected Essays. New York: Seabury. (The
Social Function of Philosophy, p. 253-272).

Klein, Naomi (2014) This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Toronto: Knopf
Canada. (Introduction, p. 1-25).

Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996 (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of
Chicago. (Chapter 1: A Role for History; Chapter 2: The Route to Normal Science, p. 1-22).

Marcuse, Herbert 2007 (1964). The One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the ideology of advanced
industrial society. New York: Routledge. (Chapter 1: The New Forms of Control, p. 3-20). 

Maturana, Humberto R.; Varela, Francisco J. 1992 (1987). The Tree of Knowledge: The
Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Translated by Robert Paolucci. Boston, Shambhala.
(Chapter 1: Knowing What We Know, p. 11-30).

Naess, Arne. “The Deep Ecology Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects.” In: Drengson, Alan;
Glasser, Harold (Eds.). Selected Works of Arne Naess. p. 33–55.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. 2007 (1946). Existentialism is a Humanism. Translated by Carol Macomber.

Edited by John Kulka. New Haven: Yale University. p. 17-54.

Shiva, Vandana. 1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India. New Delhi: kali
for women; London: Zed Books. (Chapter 2: Science, Nature and Gender, p. 14-35).

Spivak, Gayatri. 1995.  “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In: Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; and
Tiffin, Helen (Eds.). The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge. p. 66-104. 

Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. 2014 (2009). Cannibal Metaphysics: For a Post-Structural

Anthropology. Translated and edited by Peter Skajish. Minneapolis: Univocal. (Chapter 2:
Perspectivism, p. 49-75). 

Weil, Simone. 2002 (1949). The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards
Mankind. Translated by Arthur Wills. London and New York: Routledge. (Chapter 1: The Needs
of the Soul, p. 1-38).

West, Cornel. 1994. Race Matters. New York: Random House. (Chapter 1: Nihilism in Black
America, p. 1-30).

Young, Iris Marion. 1980. “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body
Comportment Motility and Spatiality,” Human Studies 3, p. 137-156.