Philosophy 101 Unit 1

Below the jump you will find the rubric for the Midterm. If you plan on doing a rewrite, or want me to regrade your exam, or have any question about the grading, let me know. If you want to know your current standing in the class, send me an email and I’ll send you what I have so far. 

Read Dreyfus through chapter 2 for Tuesday, and prepare to finish the book by next Thursday. 

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Forgot to mention: Screening this Thursday at 9pm. We will be watching “Helvetica”.

Also, be sure to check out the Question Concerning Technology website, and prepare to hold a debate between Heidegger and Gehlen on Thursday. 

Update: I have caught up on grading up through comment # 522, in other words right before R&L thread 6. You should have received an email from me by now detailing your grade. If you want a more concise version, just ask and I’ll give you some more specific numbers. 

Hopefully I will have the midterms graded by next week. Remember post 3 is due this Thursday at Midnight.

Reminder: Screening Tonight at 9pm in the South Rec Room.
Read Marx and Aristotle for Thursday.

Two things I talked about today are below the fold

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Chatter away.

Reminder: Next week we will spend most of Tuesday talking about the Kline article “What is Technology?”, and most of Thursday talking about the Marx selection from Das Kapital. Both articles can be found in the course packet. 

Also, if you haven’t ordered “On The Internet“, do so now!

A few notes:

Remember, 20 comments are due next Thursday at midnight. Get to commenting!

The Zombies vs Robots class is filling up fast, so sign up now!

If you haven’t already, be sure to order a copy of “On the Internet“, since we will be using it in just a few weeks. You can get it for $4 on Amazon, so order it soon.

I’ll try to get posts graded as soon as possible.

Next week, on Tuesday we are going to have a wrap up discussion, and talk more about how everything we have covered so far ties together. On Thursday, I will pass out the midterm, and do a review to make sure you understand exactly what I am looking for on the exam.

Below the fold, I have linked the films I showed in the screening last night, and a few extras I didn’t have time to show. If you leave a comment on these videos, I’ll likely count it for commenting credit.
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Reminders:

Post 2 due Thursday night @ midnight

Screening this Thursday at 9pm in the main lounge. Film TBA.

Use this thread to talk about the movie today, The Great Robot Race. Also, here’s the website for the 2007 Urban Grand Challenge. Any substantive comments you make in this thread about the robot race will count towards your comments.

Also,

If you are interested, make sure you register in the Zombies vs Robots course!

Also, make sure you read Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” in the course packet for Thursday.

I am very close to being finished with the grading. I’ll update the thread when I am finished.

UPDATE: Info on the Zombie vs Robot course below!

UPDATE 2: Info below for checking your comments!

UPDATE 3: I have finished grading up through comment #182. I wont grade again until Tuesday’s R&L thread, so check your email and make sure I am up to date.

Some announcements:

1) Just to be clear: No R&L Thread for last week. Normally, if you have a post due online, there will not be an R&L thread for that week. This may change, so check the website frequently. 

2) There will be a screening this week of Waking Life, on Thursday at 6 pm in the Main Lobby again.

3) Again, read Meditations 3-6. I will go over them rather briefly. Concentrate on his proofs that God exists in Med. 3 and 5, the stuff about clear and distinct ideas and causation in Med. 3, and the way Descartes recovers the external world.

Here’s this week’s open thread. Some quick announcements:

1) I set up the avatar system, so you should be able to upload images so we can recognize who you are. For some brief instructions, go here. I left out a rating system, but I trust you guys to stay reasonably appropriate. 

2) We will be discussing Meditation 2 on Thursday, but you probably also want to read Meditation 3 to stay on top of the literature. My current schedule has us discussing Med. 2 on Thursday, and Med. 3-6 on Tuesday of next week, with hopefully enough room left over to have a small informal debate next Thursday. We won’t be going over the rest of the Meditations in as much detail, but I’ll be drawing from the rest of the text, so it might be a good idea to read ahead as much as possible. It is heavy reading, but it goes quickly. Pay particular attention to the proofs of God’s existence given in Med. 3 and 5. 

3) Again, post 1 is due this Thursday at 11:59pm. Also, to clear up any confusion, you have a weekly R&L thread due every Tuesday morning before class on the material from the previous week. 

4) Finally, I am about to start updating WordPress, so things might be a bit funky for a bit. Hang in there, the system will be back up shortly. When I am done I’ll start in on the grading. I’ll update the thread when I am done.

UPDATE: see comments below

Use this thread to talk about whatever you’d like. Hopefully this open thread will keep other threads (especially the R&L threads) more or less on topic.

A few other issues:

1) I apologize for lecturing all day today. I had planned on doing some group work with the Aristotle reading, and I just got overzealous talking about the Plato stuff. We will start with Aristotle on Thursday, so make sure you are prepared to talk about Aristotle.

2) We are also starting Descartes on Thursday, so read Meditation One.

3) We will be screening David Attenborough’s documentary on the Bowerbirds on Thursday evening from 6:30-8:30. It shouldn’t take the full two hours. I will be bringing drinks and snacks. The screening will take place in the main lobby on the first floor of Allen Hall.

4) Your first full post is due a week from this Thursday, so you should be thinking about what you might want to talk about. Believe it or not, we have covered a LOT of material already. Once we get knee deep in Descartes, I’m sure something will strike your fancy.

5) I’m grading your online work starting… now.

UPDATE: I am now finished grading up through comment#48, which covers everything in the R&L thread. If you didn’t get a grade for something and think you deserve one, send me an email and we’ll talk about it.