Course Objectives

Course Objectives

This introduction to philosophy aims to do two things: 1) to prepare you for advanced philosophy courses and 2) to give you an introduction to comparative philosophy. We will introduce the basic fields and discuss the nature of philosophical argument--and you will have many opportunities to practice giving such arguments. We will do this while sampling numerous schools of thought from both Chinese and Western Philosophy, focusing on one or two important thinkers each. We cannot cover any of them in depth, but the class should give you a "taste" of a range of different philosophies available for further study at HKU. We hope it helps you make an informed selection among future courses that best suit your interest. The department offers courses that explore each style in greater depth.

This introductory survey presupposes no previous knowledge of philosophy. Please let me know if you come across unexplained technical terms. After each section, you will find some further questions for thought and discussion.

The topics range over the world of philosophy in both time and space. We concentrate on the Chinese and Western philosophical traditions because they are distinctive, rich traditions (and have obvious importance in Hong Kong). We study both early and more modern thinkers from both traditions. The text focuses on representatives of the following schools: Greek Rationalism (Socrates and Plato), Confucianism (Confucius and Mencius), Daoism (Laozi and Zhuangzi), Modern Empiricism and Rationalism (Descartes, Hume, and Kant), Existentialism (Nietzsche and Sartre), Buddhism (Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhism), and, Pragmatism (John Dewey). Although it does not spotlight the Indian philosophical tradition, we do touches on it in our discussions of Nietzsche (where we notice its family resemblance to Western thought) and Chinese Buddhism (in which form Indo-European thought first spread to China).

Text and Course Style

The text for this course is in manuscript form composed by Professor Chad Hansen for a previous semester. You can buy it from the Philosophy office 305 MB for $30. You can buy and read some of the original texts which are excerpted in the manuscript and find some other readings by visiting Professor Hansen's homepage (http://www.hku.hk/philodep/ch). This site will also lead you to the previous semester’s course web pages (click on courses, then on the course title). The text includes most of the required reading (additional required readings will be reserved in the library). Large chunks of the authors' own words (in translation) are included in "quotation boxes". For Chinese texts, some of the quoted material is reproduced in Chinese in the footnotes. If you find yourself particularly interested in any thinkers, you may want to go to the bookstore or library and buy other books by them to get more of a flavor of their writing. You can often find electronic texts on the web for further reading.

Since you have the readings in advance and should have done the quizzes, we will attempt to leave some time in class for questions and free discussion. Each class will begin with a brief review of the material covered in the last class. The end of that review is a particularly good time to raise any questions about the material covered so far. The lecture presentations will mostly be PowerPoint but do not hesitate to ask questions you may have about the slide being viewed while it is on the screen. Feel free to ask about terms, or people you do not know or about examples that you do not understand. Usually if you do not understand, others will not either and you will be doing them a favor by asking.

Lecture Schedule

The course schedule is included here. All cancellations will be announced in class. The current approximate schedule of lecture dates, topics and readings are presented in the table below. Please note that it is subject to change, as the actual schedule will depend on our progress through the topics.

Date	Topic	Reading Assignment
15-Jan	Introduction and Mechanics	Pages 1-9
17-Jan	PreSocratics and Socrates	Pages 10-17
22-Jan	Logic and Socratic Method	Pages 18-28
24-Jan	Plato	Pages 29-42
29-Jan	Plato
31-Jan	Confucius	Pages 43-54
5-Feb	Mencius	Pages 55-64
14-Feb	Mencius
19-Feb	Laozi	Pages 65-76
21-Feb	Zhuangzi	Pages 77-88
26-Feb	Zhuangzi
28-Feb	Midterm exam
11-Mar	Descartes	Pages 89-92
13-Mar	Hume	Pages 92-93
18-Mar	Kant	Pages 93-95
20-Mar	Kant
25-Mar	Nietzsche	Pages 96-111
27-Mar	Nietzsche
1-Apr	Buddhism	Pages 112-117
3-Apr	Chan (Zen) Buddhism	Pages 117-135
8-Apr	Chan (Zen) Buddhism
10-Apr	Pragmatism	Pages 136-157
15-Apr	Pragmatism
17-Apr	Sartre	Reserved material in library
22-Apr	Sartre
24-Apr	Review

Mechanics and course requirements:

Philosophy grades are determined by 100% coursework. The coursework will be divided in four equal parts: 1. The score on the highest five of six quiz/short essays on the readings, 2. daily “one minute papers” at the end of each class, 3. a mid-term take-home test, and 3. a final paper on items covered after the mid-term. None of the components will be “surprises” – all quiz/short essay topics will be distributed the weekend before they are due.

The quiz/short essays will be due usually on a Tuesday. If they are due on Thursday, they will be announced on Tuesday. For short essays, you are to write only one page, arguing for or against the selected thesis drawn from the readings and hand it in at the beginning of class. The quiz/essays will be graded from 1-5. A good answer should get a 4. For answers that are especially clear, well argued, detailed, precise, thoughtful, creative or otherwise outstanding, you may bet a 4.5 or a 5. For essays that miss important components of the argument covered in the reading, you get a 3 or 3.5. For arguments that reflect having done the readings, you should get a 3. If the argument creates doubt that you have done the readings, you will get a 2 and papers with your name on it get a 1. Plagiarism will always result in a 0. The core definition of plagiarism is writing a sentence or long clause that is taken from another source and not quoted or acknowledged. Quotation marks are mandatory; notation may be minimal.

We will deduct 0.25 points for each day your quiz is late starting from the end of the class period on which it was due. We add the scores from your 5 best quizzes and translate to a letter grade.

The take-home mid-term test will consist of some term explanations and essay questions. Again a lateness penalty of 4% per day will be deducted from the resulting score.

The final paper will consist of thesis drawn from the topics covered after the mid-term. I will distribute a list of topics at least a week in advance. You are to write a longer (approximately 2 pages) argumentative essay on each of the 2 thesis of your choice. Those will be due one week from the end of class--again with a 4% penalty per day late.