Introduction to Philosophy: Main Problems (PHIL 101/001)

What is philosophy? What do philosophers do and how do they do it? By the end of this class you should have, if not full answers to these questions, at least some idea of how to answer these questions. In building up to these answers you will learn a skill useful beyond philosophy: how to recognize, reconstruct and evaluate an argument. In order to reach these goals we will look at several long-standing questions in philosophy. What is knowledge? What are the limits to human knowledge? What is reason and how much can reason tell us about the world? What is freedom and why is it important? Are human beings free? We will discuss these and other related questions by reading and discussing writings ranging from the ancient Greeks to contemporary philosophers.

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