Download Philosophy in Calvin and Hobbes Syllabus

Philosophy in Calvin and Hobbes – Philosophy 98/198
University of California, Berkeley – Spring 2016
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Taylor Madigan
[email protected]
Course Description
This course is intended to introduce topics in philosophy using Bill Watterson’s comic strip
Calvin and Hobbes. The objective of this course is to discuss interesting and important
philosophical questions in a fun and engaging manner that will spark further interest in the
subject. There will be weekly lectures with a strong emphasis on discussion and participation.
The course assumes that students have no background experience in or knowledge of philosophy.
Topics discussed include free will, the mind-body problem, philosophy of language, personal
identity, death, time, the existence of God, existentialism, ethical theories, animal rights, decision
and game theory, and political philosophy. Notable individuals in the history of philosophy
whose ideas will be touched on include Plato, Lucretius, Aquinas, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke,
Hume, Kant, Bentham, and Nietzsche. Notable 20th and 21st century philosophers whose ideas
will be discussed include Frankfurt, Grice, Lewis, McMahan, McTaggart, Nagel, Nozick, Olson,
Parfit, Rawls, Searle, Singer, and Williams.
Course Content
The course will draw on strips from the following works of Bill Watterson:
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The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, 1988
The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes, 1990
The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes, 1992
Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons, 1992
The Days Are Just Packed, 1993
Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, 1994
There's Treasure Everywhere, 1996
It's a Magical World, 1996
It is unnecessary to purchase any of the above volumes.
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Reading List
There may be suggested readings given each week that provide additional information about the
topics discussed in class.
Course Requirements
The course requirements are attendance, participation, and weekly responses. Students are
required to submit 10 responses in order to pass the course. Responses will relate to material
covered in class that week, and are due by the start of class the following week on bCourses.
Responses should be one or two paragraphs in length, and answer the question posted to the
discussion forum on bCourses.
Schedule
Week 1 – Overview and Course Methodology
What are the aims of this course?
What is philosophy?
How do you do philosophy?
Why do philosophy?
What does it mean for an argument to be valid? Sound?
What is the Principle of Charity?
Why use Calvin and Hobbes?
Reading: Harry Frankfurt (“On Bullshit”)
Week 2 –Free Will
What is the problem of free will?
Is free will compatible with an omniscient God?
Is free will compatible with determinism?
What is compatabilism? Incompatabilism?
Reading: Harry Frankfurt (“Alternate Possibilities”)
Week 3 – The Mind-Body Problem
What is the relationship between mind and the body?
What is substance dualism?
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What is materialism? Behaviorism? Identity-theory? Functionalism?
What is the Turing Test?
Could a computer have a mind?
Are there unresolvable problems for materialism?
Reading: Thomas Nagel (“What is it like to be a bat?”)
Recommended: John Searle (“Mind, Brains, and Programs”)
Week 4 – Theory of Meaning
How do our expressions have a given meaning?
What is a foundational theory of meaning?
Can we analyze linguistic representation in terms of mental representation?
What is the Gricean program?
What are reasons for and against mentalist theories of meaning?
Reading: Paul Grice (“Meaning”)
Week 5 – Personal Identity
What are the conditions to persist over time?
What kind of thing are we numerically identical to?
What is psychological continuity? Animalism?
What is constitutive reductionism?
Does personal identity matter?
Reading: Eric Olson (“An Argument for Animalism”)
Recommended: Derek Parfit (“Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons”)
Week 6 – Death
What does it mean to die?
Is death bad for the person who has died?
Can things harm us if they are not positively unpleasant?
Is it rational to have asymmetrical attitudes towards the past and the future?
Is it rational to fear death?
Reading: Thomas Nagel (“Death”)
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Week 7 – Time
What is McTaggart’s argument that there is no such thing as time?
What is the A series view of time? The B series?
What is presentism? Eternalism? The growing block theory?
Is time travel possible?
Reading: David Lewis (“The paradoxes of time travel”)
Week 8 – The Existence of God
What is the ontological argument?
What is the cosmological argument?
What is the teleological argument?
Is fine-tuning evidence for God’s existence?
Is the existence of evil evidence that God does not exist?
Is it ever justifiable to believe that a miracle has occurred?
Reading: Bertrand Russell (“Why I Am Not A Christian”)
Recommended: Thomas Aquinas (“The Five Ways”), David Hume (“Of Miracles”)
Week 9 – Existentialism
What does “existence precedes essence” mean?
Is the world devoid of meaning and purpose?
Are we free to create meaning?
Reading: Friedrich Nietzsche (“The Madman” from The Gay Science)
Recommended: Friedrich Nietzsche (“Zarathustra’s Prologue” from Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
Week 10 – Introduction to Ethics and Moral Relativism
What is ethics?
What is meta-ethics?
Why be moral?
Do moral claims have normative force relative to a group?
Reading: Plato (Book II, from The Republic)
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Week 11 – Utilitarianism and Deontology
What is the trolley problem?
Are actions right or wrong in virtue of their consequences?
Are actions right or wrong in virtue of adherence to a rule?
What is the categorical imperative?
Can we reconcile the moral worth of intentions and consequences?
Reading: Peter Singer (“Famine, Affluence, and Morality”)
Recommended: Bernard Williams (“Persons, Character, and Morality”)
Week 12 – Animal Rights
What is speciesism?
Do animals have rights?
Should we be vegetarians?
Is predation morally wrong?
Reading: Jeff McMahan (“The Meat Eaters”)
Week 13 – Decision and Game Theory
How are Calvin and Hobbes related to John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes?
How does a rational agent make decisions?
What is Newcomb’s Problem?
What is Pascal’s Wager?
What is the prisoner’s dilemma?
Why do we cooperate with one another?
Reading: Thomas Hobbes (Section XIII, from Leviathan)
Week 14 – Political Philosophy
What is the original position?
Would theoretical representatives agree to maximin in the original position?
What is liberalism? Libertarianism?
Reading: John Rawls (excerpt from A Theory of Justice)
Recommended: Robert Nozick (excerpt from Anarchy, State, and Utopia)
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