PHIL 115 A/B Fundamental Questions
- None.
None
one-way Exclusions
- Lectures
- Tutorials
- Available electronically through the course website, mostly for free.
Instructor: Jacqueline Davies
Term: Fall/Winter 2025-26
Is philosophy more like war or dance? What is humility and why does it matter? Why does it matter especially in philosophy, law and politics? We’ll start the year with these questions as we read Anishinaabe and Socratic teachings. Next, we’ll discuss autonomy in moral philosophy, especially in Kantian theory. We’ll consider some surprising applications in contemporary discussions about sexuality asking whether mere consent is enough to treat each other as we should. In the second term we’ll explore questions and assumptions about human and more than human nature according to the moral and political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace, and Ubuntu. Finally, we’ll ask some very fundamental questions about personal identity, not what kind of person I am, but how do I know I am one person at all. The insights of an 18th century Scot, (David Hume) and a second century Indian Buddhist, Nagarjuna, will help us (or trouble us) with this project. We’ll close with final questions about our responsibilities to ask questions and what it means to inquire in a good way.
Learning Outcomes
Assessments
Assessments
Regular attendance and classroom engagement is expected as well as regular completion of online reading assignments, in-class quizzes and writing exercises. There is one mid-term exam each term and a final exam at the very end of the course. Skills focus includes active reading and listening, advanced reading comprehension, the ability to articulate, interrogate, and evaluate your own well-informed and well-reasoned responses to fundamental questions and appreciation of the value of humility, wisdom-oriented inquiry, and the pleasure of philosophy.