The main course meetings will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 2:00-2:50pm, in Bio-Med 081. So far as possible, the course will be conducted as a discussion, not a lecture. Students should arrive appropriately prepared: not just having read the material for that class, but with questions about it, comments on it, and criticisms of it.
Auditors will not be permitted in this course.
We will generally discuss one article each meeting. Reading notes will be posted to the course website to help guide students through the reading, together with some questions worth considering as you read. These are, essentially, a more detailed version of the notes I'd use if I were going to lecture.
At the beginning, every enrolled student will be required to post a 'reading response' to Canvas for each meeting. Once we settle down, students will generally be required to post only every other class. Details will be provided on Canvas. Reading responses are due no later than midnight the night before class. This is to give everyone (especially me) time to read and digest the responses.
Students are (not specifically required to but are) encouraged to read each other's postings and to comment upon them.
Students do not need to answer any (let alone all) of the questions raised in the reading notes in their 'responses'. That said, the questions do indicate the sort of thing I'd like you to think about, and write about in your response. But if there is something in the paper that you did not understand, or are not sure you understood, it is perfectly fine (indeed, very good) to post about that: Say what you didn't understand and maybe explore a couple things it might mean. What I am really interested to know is which parts of the articles students thought they understood, which they did not, and what questions they have about the readings, so I can structure our discussion in class appropriately.
Grades for the course will be determined as follows.
If they wish to do so, graduate students are welcome to write a single 'seminar paper' instead of writing the shorter ones. This should be discussed with the instructor.
Grades will be recorded on the course's Canvas site. Pay no attention to Canvas's report of your cumulative grade. It is useless, because Canvas does not know about the various assignments are weighted.
Warning: Late papers will be penalized half a grade per day. (So, e.g., a B+ would be become a B-/B after one day, a C+ after two days.) That said, I am extremely flexible about due dates. If someone should need an extra day or two, they need only ask; no reason need even be given. If someone should need more time than that, then some reason does need to be given, but the request will usually be granted. Since I am so flexible, there can be no excuse for one's not asking for an extension. Extensions should, however, be requested no later than 5pm the day before something is due. Plan ahead!
Students may use laptops and the like to take notes in class or to access material we are discussing in class, but all other use of computers, tablets, and mobile devices is strictly prohibited during class. This includes but is not limited to checking email, texting, and searching the web, even if the search is related to the course (unless special permission has been given). I establish this rule not for my benefit, not even for yours, but rather for that of your peers.
In a study entitled "Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers" (PDF here), Faria Sana, Tina Weston, and Nichola Cepeda showed eactly that. It is not just that students who "multi-task" during class—check e-mail, text, or whatever—received significantly lower grades in the study than students who did not. This is not surprising, since the human brain simply cannot focus on very many things at one time. (If you're skeptical about this, then watch this video or perhaps some of these ones.) Rather, the surprising conclusion was that students who were sitting near other students who were multi-tasking also received significantly lower grades than students were who not. In fact, they were almost as distracted as the students who were actually doing the multi-tasking!
There is thus evidence that multi-tasking does not only hurt the person doing it. It also harms the people around them. And that is the basis of my request that students not engage in such activities during class. If someone near you is doing so, you should feel free to ask them to stop. If need be, please feel free to talk to me.
Brown's Academic Code details standards we are all meant to follow, and have agreed to follow, to ensure that the work we present as our own really is our own. Specifically:
A student’s name on any exercise (e.g., a theme, report, notebook, performance, computer program, course paper, quiz, or examination) is regarded as assurance that the exercise is the result of the student’s own thoughts and study, stated in his or her own words, and produced without assistance, except as quotation marks, references, and footnotes acknowledge the use of printed sources or other outside help. (Emphasis added)
Ideas, someone once said, are the currency of intellectual work, and stealing ideas is theft. Plagarism is stealing ideas: claiming as your own what was the fruit of someone else's work. It is not the worst thing one can do, but it is pretty bad.
(In light of recent events in the news, let me note that stealing ideas is quite different from stealing words. One should acknowledge both, but the former is much worse than the latter.)
Nowadays, however, there are other temptations, in the form of AI-based tools like ChatGPT that can write papers all by themselves. The Academic Code clearly prohibits the use of such tools actually to write papers. Indeed, the Academic Code requires acknowledgement of any "outside help" one may have received in writing a paper. Since it is not entirely clear what that means in this case, let me be clear what my standards are.
You are welcome to use AI the way you would a search engine, or to help you brainstorm, or to help you improve your writing, or what have you. Those sorts of uses do not need to be 'reported'. But you should never 'quote' anything generated by AI, or even rephrase it and cite it. (It goes without saying that you absolutely cannot use such material without attribution). ChatGPT is not an authoritive source and cannot be cited as such, so it cannot be cited period, so you cannot use material directly from it. If you should uncover something interesting using such a tool, then what you should do is go find the original source yourself, read it yourself, and then cite that. Indeed, since AI-based tools are known just to make things up (including citations), that would be a good idea anyway.
Violations of this policy will be taken extremely seriously and will be reported to the Dean of the College. The penalty for such violations can be severe, up to and including expulsion.
Philosophy is about thinking for yourself. If you don't want to think for yourself, then don't take philosophy courses.
Jim Pryor, a former colleague who is now at UNC, has written two pieces that address the questions how to read philosophy papers and how to write philosophy papers. You may find them here:
If you are new (or newish) to philosophy, then these are very highly recommended. And, even if you are an old hand, you are sure to find something of value in what Jim has to say.Here is another set of pages, written by Joe Cruz, who is at Williams College, about how to write a philosophy paper. It presents an example of a short philosophy paper and shows how it develops, from initial sketches through a series of drafts.
You should thus expect your total time commitment for this class to be about 187 hours.
Brown University is committed to full inclusion of all students. Please inform the instructor early in the term if you have a disability or other condition that might require accommodations or modification of any of the course procedures. For more information, please contact the Office of Student and Employee Accessibility Services. Students in need of short-term academic advice or support can contact one of the deans in the Dean of the College's office.