My office hours

Thursday 9:30am - 12:30pm
Social Sciences, Room 130.

If I am not in the office, I will put up a post-it next to the door saying where I am (I am often next door). Also, if you can't make it to any of my office hours because you have another class, email me for an appointment. You are also welcome to attend Prof. Christiano's office hours.

Handouts (author: will braynen)

[Jan 27] Plato on Justice
[Feb 10] Reading quiz on Plato, Hobbes, and Kant
[Feb 24] Plato and Kant
[Mar 03] Hobbes (Bees and Ants) and proofreading
[Mar 03] Post-Midterm Review
[Mar 10] Locke and a review of everything since the midterm (and more proofreading)
[Mar 31] Review of arguments for and against democracy (except Plato)
[Apr 07] Religious Toleration
[Apr 14] More on Religioius Toleration, Mill on Personal Liberty vs. Public Power
[Apr 28] Paper Guidelines and Hints*latest*

Reading schedule (from the syllabus):

THE NATURE OF MORALITY

(Have read already) Plato, The Republic, pp. 357-367e
(Have read already) Plato, The Republic, pp. 434e-445e, 588b-592b
(Have read already) Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 393-400, 402-411.
(Have read already) Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Preface and Section I
(Have read already) Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Section II.
(Have read already) John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Chapter 4


MORALITY AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF POLITICAL ORDER

(Have read already) Plato, The Republic, pp. 368a-376c, 412b-421c, 427d-434d
(Have read already) Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chapters XIII, XVII and XVIII.
(Have read already) John Locke, The Second Treatise on Civil Government, chapters VII and IX.

DEMOCRACY

(Have read already) Plato, Republic, pp. 488a-497a, 514a-518e, 557a-562a.
(Have read already) Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter XIX.
(Have read already) John Locke, The Second Treatise on Civil Government, chapter VIII, chap. XI.

(Have read already) Locke continued
(Have read already) John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, Chap. 3


RELIGIOUS TOLERATION

(Have read already) John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration
(Have read already) Rousseau, Of The Social Contract, Book IV, section VIII Of Civil Religion
(Have read already) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty chaps. 1 and 3.
(Have read already) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty chap. 4.


MORALITY, WAR AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

(Have read already) Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (selections on electronic reserve). Also review Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. XIII (That's chapter 13).
(Have read already) Thucydides and Hobbes continued.
(Have read already) Hugo Grotius, The Law of War and Peace (selections on electronic reserve)
(Have read already) Grotious continued.
Read before Apr 26: Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace (selections on electronic reserve)
Read before May 01: Kant continued.
Read before May 03: Kant continued.

The remaning paraphrase assignments

Due April 14th, 2006 (pick one of these two):

1.   Paraphrase the argument in the following passage: Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, page 89 on selection page 54.

2.   Paraphrase the argument in the following passage: Grotius, The Law of War and Peace Preface, sections 6-9 on pages 4 and 5.


Due April 21st, 2006 (pick one of these two):

1.   Paraphrase the argument in the following passage: Grotius, The Law of War and Peace, Book One Chapter II page 26 last paragraph (starting with "Nor do right reason and the nature of society") to page 27 first full paragraph (ending with "...is not unlawful...").

2.   Paraphrase the argument in the following passage:
Kant's Perpetual Peace, page 382, right hand column last paragraph (starting with "the republican constitution is") to page 383 left column first paragraph (ending with "...war for the sake of property.")


You have to do four shorties in the course of the semester. The shorties should not exceed a page, should be double-spaced, TimesNewRoman 12-point-size font, and should have one-inch margins all around (so there is room for me to write comments, which is the same reason it should be double-spaced, and not single or 1.5 spaced). And also, make sure to put your section number at the top of the page, as well as indicate in the heading what passage you are paraphrasing (e.g. "Hobbes's Leviathan, pp. 416-417").

Grading key and suggestions

GRADING KEY:
SP - spelling
GR - grammar
IRR - irrelevant to the paper; should not have been included.
AWK - awkward wording; unclear or poorly worded.
UD - underdeveloped; need to explain.
? - I am not sure what you mean.
X - wrong or false.
stet - nevermind; ignore my correction here.
run-on - It's a run-on sentence (i.e. two sentences without any punctuation seperating them).

SUGGESTIONS:
1. In the paraphrase papers your goal is to summarize an argument. From your paper, it should be obvious what it is that is being argued, and how the argument proceeds. Basically, you are retelling an argument (albeit somewhat concisely). If you didn't understand the argument, then you won't get it right in your paraphrase either. You can't summarize something you don't understand. So if this is the case, come see me in office hours.
2. Don't quote in the paraphrase papers. (After all, they are called *paraphrase* papers.)
3. Proofread and spell-check your paper. Make sure it is clear and easy to follow.
4. Also watch out for the following common mistakes:
     - "cannot" is one word, not two.
     - "otherwise" is one word, not two.
     - "oneself" is one word, not two; so is "herself," "himself," "themselves," and "itself."
     - "their" vs. "there"
     - "then" vs. "than"
     - "its" vs. "it's"
     - Watch out for run-on sentences.
     - "to lie," but "lying." And other 'ing' forms of verbs.

Other online resources

The syllabus and the e-reserves are available on POLIS.

Jonathan Bennett's "translation" of some of Hobbes's, Locke's, and Mill's works into English.

How to write a philosophy paper. (This will be relevant for the one paper you will have to write, but not for the paraphrase assignments.)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Contains great, albeit not-always-easy-to-read overview articles.)