MIT 철학 온라인 과정 청취 개시

Coursera 나 edX 를 통해서 현재까지 꽤 많은 교육과정을 들었지만, 이번에는 좀 특별한 과정 수강을 시작해 보려고 한다.

edX 에서 제공하는 MIT 의 철학강의 이다.

담당 교수는 Caspar Hare 교수 인데, 프린스턴대 박사 출신이며 도덕적인 이기주의로 2010년도에 최우수 논문상을 받았던 전적이 있는 분이다.   이 과정에서 다루는 내용들이 초논리 (Ontologic) 한 질문들이 많아 이러한 질문들을 검토해 보면서 누릴 지적인 여정에 기대가 크다.

- 신이 존재하는가?
- 지식이란 무엇이며 우리는 그것을 어떻게 습득하는가?
- 물질적 세계상에서 우리의 의식은 어디에 위치하는가?
- 자유 의지란 무엇인가?
- 세월의 흐름 속에서 우리의 육체적 정신적 속성은 어떻게 변화하는가?

MITx: 24.00x Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness 

24.00x Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge, and Consciousness Fall 2016

• Professor: Caspar Hare (Philosophy)
• Email: 24.00xTA@gmail.com
• Lectures: Video Lectures will be made available each week.

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course has two goals.

The first is to introduce you to the things that philosophers think about. We will look at some perennial philosophical problems: Is there a God? What is knowledge, and how do we get it? What is the place of our consciousness in the physical world? Do we have free will? How do we persist over time, as our bodily and psychological traits change?

The second goal is to get you thinking philosophically yourself. This will help you develop your critical and argumentative skills more generally. Readings will be from late, great classical authors and influential contemporary figures.

 

REQUIREMENTS

• Readings
  We encourage you to read the assigned texts in advance of each class. Some of the texts are dense and difficult. You may need to work to understand them. The assigned readings, organized by lecture, can be found here on the Background Reading page (located on the toolbar).
• Video Lectures
  Each lecture consists of several short videos. You must watch all the videos. Most video lectures will be accompanied by some brief questions to help us assess whether you are absorbing essential material.
• Problems (and Survey Questions)
  Each lecture contains several brief (usually, multiple choice) problems to help us assess whether you are absorbing essential material. These problems will also aid in your understanding of the material covered in the lectures. You are required to answer every problem. Most of the problems are worth points. Some, however, are Survey Questions -- they don't have right or wrong answers. The problems have no due dates. You are free to answer them at your own pace. That being said, all the problems must be completed by the end of the course in order to count towards your final grade. All of the Written Assessment Questions (see below) must be completed by their due date in order to count towards your final grade. 
• Discussion Questions
  In addition to the Problems and Survey Questions, the lectures contain (sometimes several) Discussion Questions which are to be answered using the discussion forum. We encourage you to discuss your answers to these questions with your peers on the forum. The best -- and perhaps only -- way to learn philosophy is todo it. That is exactly what these discussion questions are invitations for you to do. You will also have much more fun this way.
• Written Assessment Questions
  There will be three Written Assessment Questions, spaced through the course. These questions will ask you to write a brief essay response to a prompt. You will receive guidance on how to write your essays. If you are taking the course as a 'Verified Student' for a certificate, you will then receive comments and feedback on your writing from a philosophy instructor. If you are an 'Auditor Student', then you will be asked to do a self-assessment of your paper. These Written Assessment Questions will be worth, in total, 60% of your overall grade. Each one must be completed by its due date.
• Plagiarism
  All your writing in Written Assessment Questions and on the discussion forums must be your own. This means that anything quoted verbatim must appear within quotation marks and be accompanied by an attribution of its source (author, publication, date, page/chapter number). And it means that you may not paraphrase a person's writing without making it explicit that you are doing so --- changing the words does not make it your writing. And it means that whenever the insights or ideas of another person (including friends of yours, including anonymous authors of material on the internet) appear in your writing, you must credit that person.

 

GRADING

You earn points by correctly completing the problems which accompany the video lectures (together worth 40% of your overall grade) and completing the three essays (together worth 60% of your overall grade). In order to reach the level of proficiency necessary to be eligible for a Certificate you must do the following two things: (1) you must attempt every Problem, answer every Survey Question, answer the Written Assessment Questions, and actively participate on the Discussion Forums; and (2) you must earn at least 66% of the possible points.

You may be able to cheat, and earn some of the points without really engaging with the material. But, we assume, that is not why you are here. You are here because you are interested in philosophy, you would like to know more about it, and you would like the opportunity to try your hand at it. Think of the points as like video game points: they are there to keep you motivated.

 

TEXTS

The majority of background readings are available under the Background Readings tab on the edX toolbar. The readings that we are unable to link to directly can be found, usually for free, by googling.

 

AN OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE SCHEDULE

1. Part 1: God

• Lecture 1 --- Introduction (For God: The Ontological Argument)
  released on August 29
• Lecture 2 --- Assessing Arguments
  released on August 29
• Lecture 3 --- For God: We See Design
  released on September 5
• Lecture 4 --- Against God: The Problem of Evil
  released on September 5
• Lecture 5 --- For God: Pascal's Wager
  released on September 12

2. Part 2: Knowledge and Justified Belief

• Lecture 6 --- What is Knowledge?
  released on September 19
• Lecture 7 --- Skepticism About Knowledge
  released on September 19
• Lecture 8 --- Skepticism About Justified Belief, Part 1: The Old Problem of Induction
  released on September 26
• Lecture 9 --- Skepticism About Justified Belief, Part 2: The New Problem of Induction
  released on September 26

3. Part 3: Mind and Consciousness

• Lecture 10 --- How Things Feel
  released on October 3
• Lecture 11 --- Science Strikes Back
  released on October 3
• Lecture 12 --- Thinking Machines
  released on October 10

4. Part 4: Free Will

• Lecture 13 --- Free Will and Determinism
  released on October 17
• Lecture 14 --- Freedom Without Alternatives
  released on October 17
• Lecture 15 --- A Compatibalist Theory of Free Will
  released on October 24

5. Part 5: Personal Identity

• Lecture 16 --- The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity Over Time I
  released on October 31
• Lecture 17 --- The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity Over Time II
  released on October 31
• Lecture 18 --- Animalism / Wrapping Up the Course
  released on November 7