Remaining assignments:

Professor Nobis will be in his office Thursday from 11:30 to 1. 
He will be at class regular time, for review and discussion, Friday as well.

1. Small group project on theodicy, due Wednesday after Thanksgiving, the last day of class. Assignment below.

2. Final exam on various arguments for and against God's existence and related issues. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, FROM 1PM-3PM
Since the last exam, we have read and discussed:
1. the cosmological argument(s),
2.  the teleological / design argument(s),
3.  arguments from religious experience(s), both as explicit attempts to reason from religious experience to justify religious beliefs, as well as the question of whether religious experiences justify religious beliefs without any explicit reasoning,
4. Pascal's wager,
5. argument(s) for the non-existence of God from the existence of certain kinds of evil.
This exam is an opportunity for you to show that you understand these arguments and the most common objections to them, i.e., that you are able to explain the argument and explain at least two objections to them.

For this in class exam, you need to be prepared to be able to carefully explain all these arguments and the objections. You will only be asked, however, to explain three of them, and you will be told which 3 at the time of the exam. 

 3. Final paper. I want you to find an argumentative essay on a topic in philosophy of religion and write a paper about it, to show that you are able to state an argument or explain an argumentative discussion, evaluate that argument and follow all the guidance about writing found in Vaughn and Pryor. I will provide many options for this, including:

•  God Is Not Dead Yet: How current philosophers argue for his existence. 

• God: Philosophers weigh in Alex Byrne, http://bostonreview.net/BR34.1/byrne.php 

  Good Minus God - http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/good-minus-god/ 

• Does It Matter Whether God Exists? http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/does-it-matter-whether-god-exists/   

• An Imperfect God, By YORAM HAZONY 

  Religion  and Respect, Simon Blackburn

   

If you do do a paper on another article, you must get that article approved by Dr. Nobis.

For any graduating seniors, this paper is due, in hardcopy (submitted in the philosophy and religion office) and via Turnitin, by Wednesday, December 5 at noon. 

For everyone else, this paper is due, in hardcopy (submitted in the philosophy and religion office) and via Turnitin, by Monday, December 10. Please feel free to send Dr. Nobis a draft for comments, and to submit early.

Next semester I am offering (in addition to Introduction to Philosophical Ethics) a course in Philosophy of Education. Some of the main concerns in philosophy of education are these:
- What *is* education?
- What is to be an educated person?
- How are education and (job) training different and similar?
- What is the value in education? What kinds of value are there in education?
- What is learning? What is teaching?
- Ethical and social issues in education: do people have a right to education? What are fair and just educational practices?
And many, many more. Check out the table of contents below!

Our main text is Randall Curren's anthology Philosophy of Education. It is currently available used on Amazon for $10.
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Education-Anthology-Blackwell-Anthologies/dp/1405130237

About the book:

Philosophy of Education: An Anthology brings together the essential historical and contemporary readings in the philosophy of education.

• The readings have been selected for their philosophical merit, their focus on important aspects of educational practice and their readability.
• Includes classic pieces by Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, and Dewey.
• Addresses topical issues such as teacher professionalism and accountability, the commercialization of schooling, multicultural education, and parental choice.

Part I: The Nature and Aims of Education.
Introduction..
What is Education?.
1. Turning the Psyche (Plato).
2. Knowing How to Rule and be Ruled as Justice Demands (Plato).
3. An Educated Person Can Speak Well and Persuade (Isocrates).
4. The Exercise of Reason (John Locke).
5. The Education of Nature (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
6. The Democratic Conception of Education (John Dewey).
7. Education as Initiation (R. S. Peters).
8. Banking v. Problem-solving Models of Education (Paulo Freire).
Liberal Education and the Relationship between Education and Work.
9. Liberal v. "Mechanical" Education (Aristotle).
10. Learning the Value of Work (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
11. Education for Labor and Leisure (John Dewey).
12. Education and Standards of Living (Amartya Sen).
13. The Liberal Studies in a Global World (Otfried Höffe).
Autonomy and Exit Rights.
14. The Child’s Right to an Open Future (Joel Feinberg).
15. Justice, Autonomy, and the Good (Eamonn Callan).
16. "Mistresses of their Own Destiny": Group Rights, Gender, and Realistic Rights of Exit (Susan Moller Okin).
Part II: Educational Authority.
Introduction..
The Boundaries of Educational Authority.
17. Education and the Limits of Stata Authority (John Stuart Mill).
18. Democracy and Democratic Education (Amy Gutmann).
19. Justice, Inequality, and Home Schooling (Charles L. Howell).
20. Is Teaching a Profession: How Would We Know? (Kenneth A. Strike).
21. The Crisis in Education (Hannah Arendt).
The Commercialization of Schooling.
22. The Role of Government in Education (Milton Friedman).
23. Commercialization or Citizenship: The Case of Education (Colin Crouch).
24. Channel One, the Anti-Commercial Principle, and the Discontinuous Ethos (Harry Brighouse).
Part III: Educational Responsibilities.
Introduction..
Educational Adequacy and Equality.
25. The Law of Zero-correlation (Thomas Green).
26. Interpreting Equal Educational Opportunity (Amy Gutmann).
27. Whom Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to be Equal?: (Christopher Jencks).
Diversity and Nondiscrimination.
28. Culture, Subculture, Multiculturalism: Educational Options (K. Anthony Appiah).
29. The Promise of Racial Integration in a Multicultural Age (Lawrence Blum).
30. "Getting Religion": Religion, Diversity, and Community in Public and Private Schools (Meira Levinson and Sanford Levinson).
Impairment, Disability, and Excellence.
31. The Myths of Learning Disabilities (G. E. Zuriff).
32. A Capability Perspective on Impairment, Disability, and Special Needs (Lorella Terzi).
33. Educating Gifted Children (Laura Purdy).
34. Perfectionism and Educational Policy (Joel Kupperman).
Part IV: Teaching and Learning.
Teaching.
35. Real Teaching (Philip W. Jackson).
36. The Teacher’s Grasp of Subject-Matter (Israel Scheffler).
37. Understanding Students (David T. Hansen).
38. Beyond the Reflective Teacher (Terence H. McLaughlin).
Discipline and Care.
39. Social Control (John Dewey).
40. The One-Caring as Teacher (Nel Noddings).
41. School Sexual Harassment Policies: The Need for Both Justice and Care (Elizabeth Chamberlain and Barbara Houston).
Inquiry, Understanding, and Constructivism.
42. Learning by Discovery (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
43. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism (D.C. Phillips).
44. Constructivisms and Objectivity (Richard E. Grandy).
45. Education and the Advancement of Understanding (Catherine Z. Elgin).
Critical Thinking and Reasoning.
46. Reasoning with Children (John Locke).
47. Against Reasoning with Children (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
48. Education for Critical Thinking (Matthew Lipman).
49. The Reasons Conception of Critical Thinking (Harvey Siegel).
50. The Value of Reason (Emily Robertson).
Grading and Testing.
51. A Discourse on Grading (Robert Paul Wolff).
52. Coercion and the Ethics of Grading and Testing (Randall Curren).
53. What is at Stake in Knowing the Content and Capabilities of Children’s Minds? A Case for Basing High Stakes Tests on Cognitive Models (Stephen P. Norris, Jacqueline P. Leighton, and Linda M. Phillips).
Part V: Curriculum and the Content of Schooling.
Introduction..
Moral Education.
54. Moral Conventions and Moral Lessons (Robert K. Fullinwider).
55. Cultivating the Moral and Intellectual Virtues (Randall Curren).
56. Motivation by Ideal (J. David Velleman).
Curricular Controversies.
57. Should We Teach Patriotic History? (Harry Brighouse).
58. Should Creationism be taught in the Public Schools? (Robert T. Pennock).
59. Conflicting Philosophies of School Sex Education (Michael J. Reiss).
60. The Artistic–Aesthetic Curriculum (Maxine Greene).
Index.

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405130229.html

Remaining assignments:

1. Small group project on theodicy, due Wednesday after Thanksgiving, the last day of class. Assignment below.

2. Final exam on various arguments for and against God's existence and related issues. Can you explain the basics of the cosmological argument(s), teleological / design argument(s), arguments from religious experience, argument from evil and so forth, and the main objections to these arguments? More details forthcoming. Day and time TBA: schedule hasn't been provided yet.

3. Final paper. I want you to find an argumentative essay on a topic in philosophy of religion and write a paper about it, to show that you are able to state an argument or explain an argumentative discussion, evaluate that argument and follow all the guidance about writing found in Vaughn and Pryor. I will provide many options for this, including:

•  God Is Not Dead Yet: How current philosophers argue for his existence. 

• God: Philosophers weigh in Alex Byrne, http://bostonreview.net/BR34.1/byrne.php 

  Good Minus God - http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/good-minus-god/ 

• Does It Matter Whether God Exists? http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/does-it-matter-whether-god-exists/  

 Many more options will be posted soon!!:) 

A group project

A group project assignment, due Wednesday after Thanksgiving (November 28):

Your assignment is to create an educational tool that will help people evaluating responses to the argument or problem of evil, i.e., an educational tool to help people evaluate theodicies.

Create your own group of 3 or 4 students. If you cannot find a group, you will be assigned to one.

Create a webpage or blog (on Blogger, Wordpress, Google Sites, wherever) where you do the following:

1. Explain the problem of evil or an argument for the non-existence of God from the existence of certain kinds of evils (do not consider an argument from the existence of evil in general: you need to focus on especially bad evils). That is, fully explain how someone might reason from the existence of certain kinds of evils - give examples -  to the conclusion that God probably does not exist. You want to present the strongest version of this argument that you can, not a "straw man" version of the argument.

2. Identify least five critical responses to this argument, that is five theodicies. Please pick theodicies that you think are most important, most common and/or the strongest.

3. Critically evaluate these theodicies, in light of the following concerns:
- what outweighing good does the theodicy propose? (You will likely need to distinguish intrinsic goods and evils/bads versus instrumental goods and evils/bads: e.g. something can be intrinsically bad but instrumentally good)
- how good is that good, compared to the bad of the evil(s) in question? Is the good great enough to "outweigh" the evil in question?
- could that good have been achieved in some other way, without that evil, or as much of the evil, in question? That is, is that evil necessary for that good, or could that good have been achieved without that evil (especially by an an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good being?)?
- so does this theodicy succeed in showing what would morally justify an all-knowing, all-powerful, all good being in allowing that evil to occur? Does this theodicy succeed or fail?

4. Your page should have an introduction and a conclusion. Your conclusion should state and explain what you think someone should think about the argument from evil (and its implications for God's existence), in light of your evaluation of the theodicies that you discuss. 

It should be developed in a way that someone interested in these important issues would be able to learn how to better attempt to rationally evaluate theodicies and think more philosophically -- i.e., critically, creatively and with an open mind -- about philosophy of religion.

5. Your page should be creative and look good!! :) The writing should be clear and straightforward and people should be able to learn from it.

Please email your link to Dr. Nobis, print it out and bring to class and post your link as a comment on this blog.

Relevant readings:
- Stairs chapter on the argument from evil
- Vuletic, A Tale of 12 Officers http://www.vuletic.com/hume/at/12.html
Daniel Howard Snyder, "Theodicy," in ed. Kelly James Clark, Readings in the Philosophy of Religion (Broadview 2008, 2nd edition)

Extra Credit

"sex, Sin & Scripture" will be comprised of three parts:
1) Thursday, November 8th 5:00-6:30 pm - Intolerance Museum: Kilgore South Loung will be turned into a museum full of exhibits which depict the effects of a theology which operates from a sex negative paradigm.
2) Sunday, November 11th 7:30 pm - For The Bible Tells Me So: In Nabrit Mapp Mcbay Lecture Room 2, a documentary will be shown which will help to enrich the discussion regarding the intersection between homosexuality and religion.
3) Tuesday, November 13th 7:00 pm - The Needed Conversation: In Sale Hall Chapel, a panel of seven clergymen from different Christian denominations will discuss the intersection between religion and sexuality from a sex neutral paradigm.
Attached is a Jpeg of the flyer for the program. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think may be interested.

S

We are going to revert to the policy on the syllabus: ATTENDANCE WILL BE TAKEN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CLASS FROM HERE ON OUT. ANY LATE STUDENTS WILL LOSE POINTS FROM THEIR FINAL GRADE. We are having some guest speakers and so it is especially important that students be on time.

For Wednesday, please read and re-read the chapters on religious experiences and miracles.

For Friday, please read the chapter on the argument from evil or problem of evil. We will also read this parable, "The Tale of the 12 Officers":
http://www.vuletic.com/hume/at/12.html

For Monday, your paper revision/rewrite on Harris is due.

Monday, we have a guest speaker, Mandisa Lateefah Thomas, from the Black Nonbelievers of Atlanta: http://blacknonbelievers.wordpress.com/ 
To prepare for that, please listen to this BBC (British Broadcasting Service) story on "Atheists in Black America":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00xvb70
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20120915-1205a.mp3

Next Friday, the librarian will come to class to talk about research in philosophy and philosophy of religion. Be thinking about a final paper topic!