PHIL 110.001 – Introduction to Philosophy: Great Works

Instructor: John Lawless. This course meets MTWRF 1:15 – 2:45 p.m. in CW 103.

Philosophy is an ongoing conversation about what exists and about what matters, one that has lasted thousands of years. In this course, we will dive into several texts that are important parts of that conversation, but that also tell us a great deal about what it means to have a conversation in the first place – about what it means to communicate, to listen, and to progress. We will start by thinking about how we reach agreement (or fail to do so) about what the world is like, drawing on resources from before and during the scientific revolution. We will then look at the ways in we reach agreement (or fail to do so) about what we ought to care about, and finally, about who we are. We will then reflect back on what this can tells us about conversation itself, and how we can integrate one another into our conversations – both those, like philosophy, that happen on a grand scale, and those that take place in our everyday lives with our friends and family.