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Welcome to PHILOSOPHY 1! INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY SANDRA LA FAVE "Well, something much more
painful than a snake has bitten me in my most sensitive part — I mean my
heart, or my soul, or whatever you want to call it. It has been struck and
bitten by philosophy, whose grip on
young and eager souls is much more vicious than a viper's and makes them do
the most amazing things." COURSE OBJECTIVES When this class is finished, you should be able to:
GETTING HELP Disabled students: West Valley College makes reasonable accommodations for persons with documented disabilities. College materials will be available in alternate formats (Braille, audio, electronic format, or large print) upon request. Please contact the Disability and Educational Support Program at (408) 741-2010 (voice) or (408) 741-2658 (TTY) for assistance.
All Students: FREE TUTORING for this class is available on campus.
The works of Descartes, Hume, Mill, and Plato assigned for this class are classics and thus available in many editions and translations. For example, three of the four Hackett texts are included in Robert Paul Wolff, ed., Ten Great Works of Philosophy published by Penguin Mentor Books (ISBN 0-451-52830-1) for about $9; all four are included in Steven Cahn, ed., Classics of Western Philosophy, published by Hackett (ISBN 0-87220-105-8) for around $25 (but you get every other classic too; Cahn’s book is a real bargain). It generally does not matter for beginning students which translation you read; all the translations are similar enough for the issues we will address in this class. If you use a different edition or translation of the Hackett texts, you are responsible for finding the sections in your edition that correspond to the Hackett sections listed below. On reserve (optional):
GENERAL INFORMATION My e-mail address is sandy_lafave@yahoo.com I will NOT return calls or email for information that is available in this syllabus. EXPECTATIONS REGARDING STUDENT CONDUCT
On-campus Students
I make
important announcements and give handouts at the beginning of the class session. Announcements are not repeated —
either in or out of class — for the benefit of latecomers.
Persistent
lateness, talking in class, sleeping in class, leaving early, etc., show
disrespect for me and also for your classmates. Your grade is also likely to be
affected. For example, I am far less inclined to award the higher grade on a
“borderline” answer if the student has been frequently late, absent, or
disruptive, on grounds that such a student is simply less likely to have
produced the better answer.
You must log in to Angel at least twice a week. This class has frequent quizzes.
Information about quiz dates is available ONLY within Angel.
I will use our class homepage in Angel to post
general announcements and Angel's internal email system for personal
communication.
I will ordinarily NOT email you using the external email
address that you sent to notify me of your enrollment. Students often change
their external email names and addresses in the course of the semester. As
long as you are enrolled in the class, however, your Angel email address will
be stable and I will use that.
I will expect you to read all Discussion postings within
Angel, and use Discussions to ask me questions, unless there is some
compelling reason your question needs to be handled privately.
I will be grumpy if you do not read homepage announcements
or Discussions, and then ask me about issues already handled within a general
announcement or Angel Discussion.
Naturally, you are welcome to chat and exchange private emails with
one another.
Most students use computers to write their essay assignments.
For an online class, you are, of course, expected to access course materials
using the Internet. You need reliable computer access.
If your ISP suddenly goes out of business, or your disk crashes, or your puppy pees
on your modem, or you experience some other personal hardware
issue, you are responsible for having an emergency alternative computer access plan.
Know in advance where you can go (library, Internet cafe, friend's house, workplace) if your primary
system fails!
All Students
Students are often surprised to learn that what they consider standard practice
is actually plagiarism.
For example, many students believe it is all right to answer an objective "define"
question by simply copying the relevant definition from the textbook glossary or
from a dictionary or some other source, without citing the source. You can copy
a definition ONLY IF you put quotation marks around the copied material and state
who wrote those words and where you found them.
Many students believe it is all right to answer an essay question by copying
paragraphs or sentences directly from the textbook or from any online source.
When I inform students that such behavior constitutes plagiarism, they often seem astonished.
They say they have usually been allowed to copy essay answers directly out of texts.
One student said, "It's my textbook, I bought it, so I should be
able to copy from it." Unfortunately, this view is incorrect. It IS okay
to use quotes in essay or "define" answers, but if you quote, for EVERY SINGLE QUOTE you use,
you must (1) enclose the quote in quotation marks; (2) state the author's name;
and (3) state exactly where you found the quote. Furthermore, essay answers
cannot be mostly quotes with merely a few transitional phrases in your own words
(teachers call such essays "quote-quilts" or "quote-mosaics"). Nor can essays
be quotes (same sentences in same order) with synonyms substituted for the original author's words.
ESSAY ANSWERS MUST CONSIST PRIMARILY OF YOUR OWN WORDS.
In addition to the usual kinds of
plagiarism cited above, it is also plagiarism to “answer” an essay or "define" question by cutting and pasting
sentences from the study guide for this class without proper attribution. Remember I wrote the study guide.
If you cut and paste from the
study guide, you are plagiarizing my own sentences back to me. I will notice.
Any student
who violates the academic code (e.g., by cheating or plagiarism) will, at
minimum, receive a final course grade of F. This
rule is rigidly enforced.
According to the catalog, instructors may drop students
“... when accumulated hours of absences exceed ten percent of the total
number of hours the class meets during the semester.” I may exercise this
option. But the main responsibility lies with you. If you want to drop the
class, it is YOUR responsibility to do so. The last day to drop with a W is usually about one month before
the end of the semester. Check the Schedule of Classes for the exact date. Please notify me immediately
if you have a documented learning disability and require extra time on quizzes or exams. I am happy to give you extra
time if (1) a DSPS counselor can verify your disability; AND (2) you notify me
IN ADVANCE.
Grades will be based on Quizzes
(80% of final grade) — approximately weekly, thirteen quizzes in all. Final Exam (20% of final grade) — comprehensive, combination objective and
essay.
Quizzes
Each quiz covers all
reading listed in the "Preparing for Quiz N" section of this Syllabus.
For example, the reading for Quiz 3
includes all ten items mentioned in the section "Readings for Quiz
3" in the file Quiz 3 Material. In addition to true/false, fill-in, and definition questions, quizzes also will
contain at least one short essay question.
Possible essay questions are included in each "Preparing for Quiz" file, under
the heading "Objectives for Quiz".
For this class, “short essay” means at least one clear, well-developed paragraph.
Quizzes are not all worth the same number of points.
Online students take quizzes interactively within Angel. You can take quizzes any time in the period of
23 hours and 55 minutes on the appointed days, from midnight to 11:25 PM.
Quizzes must be COMPLETED by 11:55 PM.
You get maximum thirty continuous minutes for each quiz.
Be sure you have thirty minutes available when you call up the quiz.
Angel cuts off quiz availability at 11:55 PM..
Online students: Be sure to SAVE your answers! You can change an answer as
much as you like before saving it, so you can correct typos or wrong answers.
But you must SAVE your final answer to each question, and you must, as a separate step,
SUBMIT the quiz for grading.
The Angel quiz interface is quite straightforward, and it generally works reliably.
I will make allowances for technical problems only if the problems are Angel's fault
and all students are affected. I cannot troubleshoot your individual hardware or software issues.
Since you will receive most of the possible essay
questions in advance, you are welcome to write your essay answers in
advance. On-campus students may hand them in with the quiz.
Online students may cut and paste them into your quiz.
IMPORTANT: Precise, careful writing is extremely important in
philosophy, where we discuss complex subjects and draw fine distinctions.
I expect you to write your essays in complete sentences using standard English.
Sloppy writing (careless spelling, grammar, punctuation)
detracts from content. If your essays contain more than three obvious errors in grammar, spelling, or
punctuation per essay, I will subtract points.
Remember the rules regarding
plagiarism, please!
You will have no more than thirty minutes total to spend on each quiz.
So if it's hard for you to write good essays "on the fly," you are welcome to compose
your essay answers in advance and cut and paste essays you have written into your quiz.
DO NOT copy in anything except materials you have written yourself; i.e., do not
cut and paste from the study guide or other course materials (which I wrote),
or from any other source.
It is OK to include direct quotes in your essay or "define" answers, as long as every quote is
properly cited, and your answer consists primarily of your own words.
Ignorance about plagiarism is not an excuse.
If you are at all uncertain about what plagiarism is, I advise you to educate yourself immediately.
Each student must write his or her own essay answers; philosophy is not done in
groups, so the "group work" model is not allowed.
You may, of course, work with
other students in the composition of your essay answers, and online students are welcome
to post possible essay answers in the Discussions area for other students
to critique. On fill-in answers, misspellings of philosophers' names or
vocabulary words count as errors.
You can use whatever accessory materials you like while
doing the quizzes; i.e., quizzes for this class are open-book,
open-note. However, you get no more than thirty minutes. Because of the flexibility built in to the quiz system (see below),
quizzes must be taken on the appointed day; in other words, there are no
make-ups. Furthermore, I give no extra-credit assignments.
Final Exam The final exam is
comprehensive, 50% objective and 50% essay.
Note the heavy weighting of essay questions in the Final Exam!
Online students take the final exam entirely within Angel. You access
the Final Exam exactly the same way you
access
quizzes. All students get maximum continuous two hours for the final exam.
You may take the Final Exam during any continuous two-hour period in
Finals week.
The deadline for COMPLETION of the Final Exam is NOON on Friday of the last day of finals week.
The essay portion will consist
of three questions. If you are taking the class online, Angel
randomly selects your three essay question choices
from the list of final exam questions.
If you are taking the class on-campus, I will select three questions from that list.
You must answer TWO of the three questions.
You cannot answer more than two questions. If you
answer more than two essay questions on the final exam, your third answer will be ignored.
It's a good idea to read the final exam questions early in the semester, and
even to write outlines of answers in advance, while you are working on the
relevant questions.
Since the essay portion
will comprise 50% of the total points on the final, you should plan to write much longer essays than you have been
writing for the quizzes. Your essay answers should be as complete as possible. Adequate final exam essay
answers can easily run five or more small
blue-book pages (single spaced).
Calculation of Final Grade
There are 150 quiz points total. The quizzes constitute
80% of the final grade. The final constitutes 20% of the final grade, and is
thus worth the equivalent of 38 quiz points. The maximum number of possible
points for the class is thus 188.
Although the
maximum "raw" grade on the final exam is 100, the maximum number of points you can
receive is 38 (20% of the total number of points). That is, if you get 100 on the
final exam, you get 38 points; if you get 90, you get 32 points, etc.
You can figure out your points once you get your raw final
score by the following formula:
[(your raw score)*38]/100
I use the following formula to compute your final grade: A 80% or more of possible quiz points + 90% or above on
final exam (or any equivalent combination of points) B 70-80% of possible quiz points + 80-89% on final exam
(or any equivalent combination of points) C 60-70% of possible quiz points + 70-79% on final exam
(or any equivalent combination of points) D 50-60% of possible quiz points + 60-69% on final exam
(or any equivalent combination of points) F less than 50% of possible quiz points + less than 60% on
final exam (or any equivalent combination of points)
Therefore, in terms of points: A 154 or more total points B 135 - 153 total points C 117 - 134 total points D 98 - 116 total points F less than 98 total points Note that in the calculation of your final grade, you have
about 30 points of “play”: that is, you need only 80% (not 90%) of quiz
points to receive an A, 70% (not 80%) for a B, etc. In other words, the
grading formula in effect allows you to drop at least two of your lowest
quizzes. It is to your advantage, however, to take ALL quizzes, because the
more quizzes you take, the more points you accumulate. No quizzes are dropped
automatically.
Credit/No Credit Option This class can be taken for credit/no credit. This means
that if you get an A, B, or C, you get a final grade of CR and 3 units;
otherwise, you get NCR and no units. You must declare your intention to take
the class with the CR/NCR option during the first two weeks of class. Please
let me know in writing (email is OK).
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