Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Fall 2023

Course Description

This course aims to introduce the field of philosophy in a way that's explicitly attuned to voices that have been missing or marginalized in the Western canon. The course subtitle is taken from one of our texts, Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought - an anthology for college students, where 'girls' in the title is consciously employed in the "Get it, Girl!" sense. This class is for students of any race, gender, culture, etc. who are curious about philosophy. You must be willing to study challenging texts - including but not limited to works considered part of the Western canon - and to think hard, discuss collegially, and write extensively about the difficult questions they raise concerning knowledge, reality, ethics, and society. The relevance of social identities, structures, and power relations to such questions will be a consistent theme.

Student Outcomes

All Philosophy 101 sections at DePauw are designed to contribute to DePauw general education goals 8 and 9: ● Develop the capacity for clear, thorough, and independent thought that demonstrates the ability to analyze arguments on the basis of evidence and to understand the value and limitations of multiple types of evidence. ● Clearly express your ideas and the ideas of others to varied audiences, both in writing and orally. This section is also intended to contribute to DePauw general education goal 4: ● Understand and appreciate … groups different than their own and regularly reflect on domestic and global issues of power, privilege and diversity. Students will be able to: ● State some central philosophical questions and describe some of the main answers to those questions that have been proposed. ● Analyze philosophical arguments, identifying important strengths and weaknesses in those arguments. ● Develop their own views on important philosophical questions and defend those views in both speech and writing.

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