Introduction to Philosophy

Philosophy 20

Professor William Blattner

Web Slides
(and supplementary material)
for Intro to Philosophy

First Week:

1. Monday:
   • Logic Lesson
   • Summary points for Aristotle lecture
   • How to read Aquinas
2. Tuesday:
   • Varieties of Ignorance
3. Wednesday:
   • Supplementary Aquinas Passages
4. Thursday:
   • An argument we'll consider
5. Friday:
   • Sample Argument for Class
   • Analysis of the Argument

Second Week:

1. Tuesday:
   • Handout on Hume's terminology
   • Rationalism & Empiricism
2. Wednesday:
   • Positions in the freedom/determinism discussion
   • An Argument for Hume's Conception of Liberty
3. Thursday:
   • Hume's Intuition About Responsibility
   • Hume's Conception of Liberty
   • Premeditation
   • Hasty Choice
   • Acting "in the Heat of Passion"
   • Weakness of the Will

Third Week:

1. Monday:
   • Kant's Argument Against Hume
   • Lexicon of Kant-speak
   • Hume's First Argument
   • Hume's Second Argument
2. Tuesday:
   • James's Argument Against Soft Determinism
   • Determinism, Fatalism, & Predestination
3. Thursday:
   • James's Argument

Fourth Week:

1. Tuesday:
   • Three Passages from Freud
2. Wednesday:
   • Memory of the Will
3. Thursday:
   • Gay Science, section 290
   • A few additional passages from The Gay Science