7AAN4021 General Philosophy

Credit value: 40
Module tutor: Dr Clayton Littlejohn
Lecturers:
● Professor Bill Brewer (Metaphysics, first semester, first mini-term)
● Dr Sarah Fine (Political Philosophy, first semester, second mini-term)
● Dr Clayton Littlejohn (Ethics, second semester, first mini-term)
● Dr Clayton Littlejohn (Epistemology, second semester, second mini-term)
● Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol (Introductory Logic, both semesters)
Assessment
● Formative assessment: two x 2,000-word essays, normally one in each semester,
plus regular Logic exercises
● Summative assessment: one x three-hour end of year examination
Teaching pattern: one weekly ninety-minute lecture/seminar, followed by a one-hour
logic class
Syllabus and Readings
Readings will be made available through KEATS.

Logic
Course book

Tutorial on http://logic.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/.

Additional Literature:

The Logic Book; M. Bergmann, J. Moor, J. Nelson, fifth edition, McGraw-Hill, 2009.

Logic. W. Hodges, Penguin books, Middx, 1977.

The Language of First-order logic. J. Barwise, J. Etchemendy, CSLI, 1991.

Course Structure:

First two weeks Consistency and Validity

Second two weeks Propositional Calculus: logical connectives

Third two weeks Propositional Calculus: logical connectives

Fourth two weeks Propositional Tableaux

Fifth two weeks Propositional Tableaux

Sixth two weeks Predicate Calculus: predicates and designators

Seventh two weeks Predicate Calculus: quantifiers

Eighth two weeks Predicate Calculus: quantifiers

Ninth two weeks Predicate Logical Tableaux

Tenth two weeks Predicate Logical Tableaux

Metaphysics
Course Text: Kim. Korman, and Sosa (eds.), Metaphysics, Second Edition. You must
have access to a copy of this text.

Persistence
KKS: 37, 38.
Ayers, ‘Identity Without Sortals’.In Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 1974-5.

Parts
KKS: 36, 47, 50.

Persons
KKS: 41, 42, 46.

Pain
KKS: 10.
Hill, ‘Imaginability, Conceivability, Possibility and the Mind-Body Problem’, in Chalmers
(ed.), Philosophy of Mind: classical and contemporary readings.

Properties (primary and secondary)

Mackie, Problems from Locke, ch. 1.
Campbell, ‘The Simple View of Colour’
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jcampbel/documents/Colour.pdf
Political Philosophy
Week One: Thomas Hobbes
Suggested reading:
● Thomas Hobbes ([1651] 1996) Leviathan,
ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), parts 1 and 2.
● Richard Tuck (1989/2002) Hobbes: A Very
Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University
Press).

Week Two: John Locke

Suggested reading:
● John Locke ([1690] 1988) ‘Second
Treatise’ in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter
Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
● John Locke ([1689] 1985) A Letter
Concerning Toleration, ed. James Tully (Indianapolis:
Hackett)
● John Dunn (2003) Locke: A Very Short
Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Week Three: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Suggested reading:
● Jean-Jacques Rousseau ([1755] 1997), ‘Discourse on the Origin and
Foundations of Inequality’ in The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed.
Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
● Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1997) ‘Of the Social Contract’ in The Social
Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. Victor Gourevitch, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
● Christopher Bertram (2004) Rousseau and the Social Contract (London:
Routledge).

Week Four: John Stuart Mill

Suggested reading:
● John Stuart Mill ([1859, 1869] 1989) ‘On Liberty’ and ‘The Subjection of
Women’ in On Liberty and Other Writings, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
● John Skorupski (1989) John Stuart Mill (London: Routledge).

Week Five: Karl Marx

Suggested reading:
● Karl Marx ([1848] 2002) The Communist Manifesto, ed. Gareth Stedman Jones (London:
Penguin).
● Karl Marx ([1843, 1846] 1994) ‘On the Jewish Question’ and ‘From “The German
Ideology”’, in Marx: Early Political Writings, ed. Richard Davis and Joseph O’Malley
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
● Karl Marx ([1875] 1996) 'Critique of the Gotha Programme’, in Marx: Later Political
Writings, ed. Terrell Carver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
● Jonathan Wolff (2002) Why Read Marx Today? (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Ethics
These five weeks will focus on some of the major issues in moral philosophy. Questions
to be considered include: What are ethical claims about? Can any of them be true? How
should we work out which actions are morally right, and which morally wrong? In what
ways can moral theories help us with pressing practical questions? Can we be morally
responsible for what we do, and, if so, how?

Week 1: Moral Objectivity

J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Penguin Books, 1983), Chapter 1.

Week 2: Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism [many editions], Chapter 2.
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia [Short excerpt on the experience machine]
Peter Vallentyne, “Against Maximizing Act Consequentialism”

Week 3: Kant’s Ethics

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals [many editions], Chapter 1,
and Chapter 2 focusing on pp. 412-442 (pages of standard German edition, also
indicated in most translations).
W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good, Chapter 2 (What Makes Right Acts Right?)

Week 4: Applied Ethics

Don Marquis, ‘Why Abortion is Immoral’ The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 86, No. 4.
(1989), pp. 183-202
Judith Jarvis Thomson, ‘A Defence of Abortion’, in Peter Singer, ed., Applied Ethics
(Oxford, 1986) pp. 37-56.

Week 5: Moral Responsibility

Peter van Inwagen, ‘The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism’ Philosophical
Studies 27 (1975):185-99.
Harry Frankfurt, ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’ Journal of Philosophy
66 (1969): 829-39. Reprinted in his The Importance of What We Care About
(Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Epistemology
In these five weeks we’ll explore some of the central problems in epistemology
concerning the nature of knowledge, what we know and how we know it. We’ll look at
the nature of knowledge and some of the related notions used in giving an account of it:
belief, justification, evidence and warrant. We’ll also consider some problems that arise
when one starts to think about knowledge, such as whether we can ever know anything
about the external world.

Week 1: Knowledge
Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”
Nozick, “Knowledge and Skepticism”
Sosa, “How to Defeat Opposition to Moore”

Week 2: The Regress of Justification

Sosa, “The Raft and the Pyramid”
BonJour, “Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?”
Week 3: Internalism/Externalism
Goldman, “What is Justified Belief?”
Cohen, “Justification and Truth”
Goldman, “Internalism Exposed”
Wedgwood, “Internalism Explained” (Optional)

Week 4: Skepticism
Pryor, “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist”
McDowell, “Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge”
Lewis, “Elusive Knowledge” (Optional)

Week 5: The Apriori

Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”
Paul Grice and P.F. Strawson, “In Defense of a Dogma”
This module is intended for students who are converting into Philosophy at Master's
level, and is designed to offer them a broad overview of the general state of play in four
key branches of the discipline: Ethics, Political Philosophy, Metaphysics, Epistemology.
In essence, it will teach people who might opt to specialise in one area of Philosophy the
kinds of basic things that they are likely to be expected to know about the others; as well
as providing an appreciation of the interconnected, systematic nature of Philosophy as a
whole. There will be a five-week block devoted to each of these four areas. In addition,
students will receive training in elementary Symbolic Logic through separate classes,
following the main lectures across all twenty weeks.
Additional information
● This module, although not strictly required, is normally expected of students who
are converting from another subject into Philosophy at Master’s level
● Philosophy graduates are not eligible to take this module
● Part-time students who take this module at all are required to take it in the first
of their two years
Module aims
To provide students with a general overview of the current state of Philosophy as a
discipline, and to familiarize them with the central theories, arguments, concepts,
techniques and key texts that define its main branches: Ethics, Political Philosophy,
Logic & Metaphysics, Epistemology & Methodology. The knowledge they acquire will
serve as a foundation for further, more specialized research in specific fields. Students
will also be introduced to the formalism and techniques of Symbolic Logic, which they
will then be able to apply to their work in other areas of Philosophy.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, the students will be able to demonstrate intellectual,
transferable and practicable skills appropriate to a level-7 module and in particular will be
able to demonstrate that they have:
● Awareness and understanding of the central concepts, theories and arguments of
the main areas of Philosophy: Ethics, Political Philosophy, Logic & Metaphysics,
Epistemology and Methodology
● The ability to apply valid critical and argumentative techniques in an original way,
to these and other areas of the subject
● A firm grasp on the formalism and techniques of elementary Symbolic Logic
which can, again, then be reapplied in the context of debates belonging to more
the discursive areas of Philosophy
● Familiarity with selected key texts, with the ability to summarize and analytically
criticize the arguments and positions of others
● The ability to develop original philosophical views of their own, which they are
prepared to defend or amend in the light of criticism from others

Suggested Essay Questions

Metaphysics
● Can there ever be two material objects in exactly the same place at the same
time?
● Are arbitrary undetached parts of material objects themselves material objects?
 ● Are persons essentially persons?
● Is there a compelling conceivability objection to the identification of pain with
any physical property?
● Are physical objects ever really the colours they appear to be?
Political Philosophy
Hobbes
● ‘Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to
keep them all in awe they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a
warre as is of every man against every man’ (Leviathan, chapter 13). Discuss.
● What, according to Hobbes, does it mean to be a ‘free-man’?
● What is the relationship between obedience and protection in Hobbes’s account
of sovereignty?
Locke
● What is the role of tacit consent in Locke’s political theory?
● What, according to Locke, is the difference between the state of nature and the
state of war?
● ‘”The Second Treatise” should be read primarily as a defence of property’.
Discuss.
Rousseau
● What is the relationship between the general will and individual liberty in
Rousseau’s political theory?
● Critically analyse Rousseau’s remark that those who refuse to obey the general
will shall be ‘forced to be free’ (The Social Contract, Book 1, Chapter 7).
● What is the role of the lawgiver in Rousseau’s The Social Contract?
Mill
● What is the significance, for Mill’s argument, of the distinction between self-
regarding actions and other-regarding actions?
● ‘Mill’s defence of liberty is not utilitarian’. Discuss.
● ‘The Subjection of Women is obviously right but of little importance’. Discuss.
Marx
● What is the role of alienation in Marx’s critique of capitalism?
● What is wrong with exploitation?
● Critically assess Marx’s account of ideology.
Ethics
● Why does Mackie think morality is queer?
● What is Mill’s proof of the principle of utility?
● Has Nozick shown us what’s wrong with hedonism?
● Is satisificing consequentialism a viable alternative to maximising act
consequentialism?
● What’s Kant’s argument against consequentialism?
● Has Thomson shown us what’s wrong with Marquis’ argument?
● Is responsibility compatible with determinism?

Epistemology
● What’s the relation between safe belief and sensitive belief?
● Does the safety or sensitivity account provide a suitable anti-luck condition?
● Can the foundationalist solve the regress problem?
● Is justification an internalist or externalist notion?
● Has the contextualist solved the sceptical problem?
● Has Quine shown that there’s no analytic-synthetic distinction?