Phil 383 Course Progress
(what we did each day)
Date |
Topics
Covered |
Reading Assigned |
Important Announcements Made |
| W 9/3 | - Stuttering |
Feldman, "What is Philosophy?" (first reading in packet) | This is not an easy course. |
| F 9/5 | -
What philosophy is |
Feldman, "The Fundamentals of Philosophical Theology" (second reading in packet), only from page 10 on
|
Rowe reading will be available on electronic reserves on Monday or Tuesday. |
M 9/8
|
- Our
Conception of God |
Rowe, "The Idea of God" (from ERes) | |
| W 9/10 | - The Divine Command Theory and The Euthyphro Problem | Aquinas on omnipotence (third reading in packet) | Use this link for the readings on Electronic Reserves: http://ereserves.library.umass.edu/ |
| F 9/12 | - Three Problems with Horn 1 | - Clarke,
"Can God Do Evil?" (fourth reading in packet) - Feldman, "Some Problems with Omnipotence," (fifth chapter in packet) |
|
| M 9/15 | - Definition of 'God' stated | (no additional readings assigned) | |
| W 9/17 | - Four Puzzles about Omnipotence - First Attempt to Define 'Omnipotence' (D1) |
(no additional readings assigned) | |
| F 9/19 | - Second
Attempt to Define 'Omnipotence' (D2) - Two Interpretations of D2 - The Thomistic Account of Omnipotence (TAO) - Feldman's Solution to Some of the Puzzles |
-
St. Augustine, "Divine foreknowledge and Human Free Will," pp.
233-235. (on ERes) |
Will probably hand out first midterm exam in one week |
| M 9/22 | - Basic Idea Behind
Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge |
(no additional readings assigned) | |
| W 9/24 | - Three of
the Principles for the Main Argument: (1) Truth Entails Knowledge (TEK); (2) God's Foreknowledge of Action (GFA); (3) The Fixity of the Past (FP) |
read the rest of Rowe, "Predestination, Divine foreknowledge and Human Freedom" (on ERes) | First midterm will be up as soon as possible. I'll send out an email once it's up. |
| F 9/26 | - Two More Principles: (1) Transfer of Powerlessness (TP); (2) Freedom Requires the Power to Do Otherwise (FRP) |
First midterm will be put up on website tonight. It's due one week from today. | |
| M 9/29 | - Aristotelian Reply to Foreknowledge Argument (no facts about future human action). | ||
| W 10/1 | - Exam Q&A; further discussion of Foreknowledge Argument | ||
| F 10/3 | - Ockham's Way Out; power over the past; hard facts vs. soft facts | - Feldman,
"Some Popular Arguments," (in packet) - Aquinas, "The Five Ways," especially the Second Way (on course website) - Leibniz, "On the Ultimate Origination of the Universe," (in packet) |
|
| M 10/6 | - Introduction to Arguments
for the Existence of God - Introduction to Cosmological Arguments - Aquinas's Second Way |
||
| W 10/8 | - Aquinas's Second Way (continued) | - Leibniz,
excerpts from ... (on course website) - Hume, "Some Objections to the Cosmological Argument" (in packet) |
|
| F 10/10 | - Aquinas's
Second Way (continued) |
- Pascal, "Pascal's Wager" | Class meets only one day next week: Wednesday |
| M 10/13 | N O C L A S S - C O L U M B U S D A Y | ||
| W 10/15 | - Pascal's Wager (presented by Guest Lecturer Kris McDaniel) | ||
| F 10/17 | N O C L A S S - C L A S S C A N C E L E D | ||
| M 10/20 | - Leibniz's Argument from Sufficient Reason | - Rowe, "The Cosmological Argument" (on ERes). | |
| W 10/22 | - Leibniz's Argument from Sufficient Reason (continued) | ||
| F 10/24 | - Objections to Leibniz's Argument from Sufficient Reason | - Paley, excerpt from Natural Theology (course website) | |
| M 10/27 | - Paley's Teleological Argument | - Dawkins, “The Blind Watchmaker” (in packet) | Second Midterm will be put up by this Sunday or Monday. It will be due in class on Monday, November 10. |
| W 10/29 | - Paley's Teleological Argument | - van Inwagen, “The Wider Teleological Argument” (in packet) | |
| F 10/31 | - The Fine-Tuning Argument | ||
| M 11/3 | - The Fine-Tuning Argument | - St. Anselm, "The Ontological Argument" (in packet) | |
| W 11/5 | - Anselm's Ontological Argument | - Guanilo, "The Perfect Island Objection" (in packet) | |
| F 11/7 | - Anselm's Ontological Argument | - Kant, "On the
Impossibility of an Ontological Proof" (in packet) |
|
| M 11/10 | -
Anselm's Ontological Argument - Guanilo's Lost Isle Objection |
- Plantinga, "A Modal Version of the Ontological Argument" (in packet) | SECOND MIDTERM DUE |
| W 11/12 | - Kant's Objection | NO CLASS THE WEDNESDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING | |
| F 11/14 | - The Validity of Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument | - Mackie, "Evil and Omnipotence" (on ERes and on course website) | |
| M 11/17 | - Is Plantinga's
Modal Ontological Argument Sound? |
- Plantinga, "The Problem of Evil," through section 2 (up to p. 24), (on ERes). | |
| W 11/19 | - The Logical Problem of Evil |
||
| F 11/21 | - The Logical Problem of Evil (continued) | - Plantinga, "The Problem of Evil," through section 8 (on ERes). | |
| M 11/24 | - The Logical Problem of Evil (continued) |
- rest of Plantinga, "The Problem of Evil" (on ERes). | |
| W 11/26 | N O C L A S S -- T H A N K S G I V I N G B R E A K | ||
| F 11/28 | N O C L A S S -- T H A N K S G I V I N G B R E A K | ||
| M 12/1 | - Plantinga's Free Will Theodicy | - Feldman, "The Problem of Evil," pp. 70-75 in course packet. | |
| W 12/3 | - Plantinga's Free Will Theodicy and Objection from Compatibilism | - Lewis, "Evil for Freedom's Sake?" (on ERes). | |
| F 12/5 | - The Objection from The Possibility of Free Saints to Plantinga's Free Will Theodicy | - van Inwagen, "The Magnitude, Distribution, and Duration of Evil: A Theodicy," in course packet | |
| M 12/8 | - The Objection from Victimless Evil-Doing to Plantinga's Free Will Theodicy | ||
| W 12/10 | - The Objection from Selective Freedom to Plantinga's Free Will Theodicy | ||
| F 12/12 | |||
| THE FINAL EXAM WILL BE DUE SOME TIME DURING FINAL'S WEEK | |||