Philosophy 227 (Spring 2018)
Concepts of Nature in Modern European
Philosophy
Prof. Patrick Frierson
Class Meets: Olin East 192, Tuesday and
Thursday 10-11:20 AM
Office Hours (Olin 194): Tuesday 4-5 PM,
Wednesday 10-12 AM, and by appointment.
Required Books:
Francis Bacon, The
New Organon. Eds. Lisa Jardine, Michael
Silverthorne. Cambridge University Press. ISBN-10:
0521564832.
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method, Hackett, ISBN: 978-0872204225
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, trans.
Cress, Hackett ISBN: 9780872201507.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries of a Solitary Walker, trans. Goulbourne, Oxford World Classics, ISBN: 978-0-19-956327-2.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer
and E. Matthews. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN: 0521348927
Optional Book: Karl Marx, Selected Writings. Ed.
Laurence H. Simon. Hackett, 1994. ISBN: 0872202186.
Goals and Content:
After a brief introduction to the ancient and medieval context of modern European
philosophy, this course explores various concepts of nature in European
philosophy starting with Bacon and proceeding up to the 20th
century. All of these concepts play
roles in the way nature is conceived of today.
Some of them, even in their original articulations, will seem familiar;
others will seem quite alien. Most will
be challenging to work through and understand.
The course has five main goals.
First, by developing an understanding and appreciation of various
different concepts of nature, you will come to more clearly understand your own
presuppositions about nature – where they come from, and what’s at stake with
them. Second, you will develop a wider
range of concepts for thinking about pressing contemporary environmental
problems in new ways. Third, you will
develop skills of careful reading of difficult philosophical texts. Relatedly, you will learn to attend
patiently, carefully, and critically with views that are different from your
own. Fourth, you will develop the
ability to clearly express and defend your own perspective(s) on nature in
writing and orally. And finally, through
class discussion and small group work, you will learn skills of working
together in groups to develop insights that would not come through individual
study.
Class Time and Rules for
Discussion: This class meets less than three hours a
week, and most of the learning for the class occurs outside of our formal class
meetings, through your own careful reading and thinking about the material,
writing papers, working in groups (both formally and informally), and meetings
with me during office hours. My goal is to use our class periods to accomplish
goals that could not easily be accomplished outside of class.
Lectures. I will do some general lecturing,
but I generally do not lecture extensively, for two reasons. First, extensive empirical (psychological)
evidence and my own personal experience confirm that learning happens best
through active engagement rather than passive listening. Second, lectures from me are not the best way
to get expert commentary on the figures we are studying. Many figures that we study have entries in
the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and most also have Cambridge Companions or other secondary sources available in the
library. These reference sources provide
the highest quality commentary on the texts we are reading, and the Stanford Encyclopedia in particular is
designed to be used by undergraduates.
Most of these sources, however, will not focus specifically on concepts
of nature. So reading these texts with
an eye to their relevance for thinking about nature is something that we will do together. Moreover, relying
on these sources will prevent you from cultivating the skills of reading for yourself and forming your own
interpretations based on close and careful reading of the texts. Even I am not (yet?) an expert on how these
texts relate to thinking about nature, so I’ll be exploring with you.
Discussions.
The main use of our class time will be discussions amongst the entire
class. These discussions provide ways to
engage with the material in sustained ways, and they also provide a context to
practice the virtues of excellent participation in intellectual group discussion. These virtues include the following:
Preparation. You should come to class having
read and thought about the material, so that you have an informed perspective
on it.
Attentive listening.
You should pay close attention to what I, and your peers, are saying.
Whitman has excellent faculty, but we are the excellent college that we
are because of the quality of our students.
Your classmates have insightful things to contribute to our discussion;
classmates’ comments are often more insightful than my own and are usually more
directly relevant to your own readings of the texts.
Boldness and patience.
Boldness and patience are both virtues in conversation. You should participate, even when you are not
entirely sure that what you have to say is profound and well-formulated, but
you should also be patient, letting your own ideas mature and providing
opportunities for others to contribute to the conversation. Some of you will need to focus on boldness,
forcing yourselves to speak even before you are fully comfortable. (If you are one of these students, one good
practice is to prepare some comments and questions before class and to raise
these at the first opportunity. Another good
practice is to speak or raise your hand whenever there is more than 3 seconds
of “dead time,” even if you don’t think what you have to say is particularly
profound.) Some will need to focus on
patience, holding back to practice attentive listening and to give others the
opportunity to contribute. (If you are
one of these, one good practice is to count to five before speaking or raising
your hand. Another is to take the time
to find textual support for your views before you articulate them.)
Respectful engagement with
others’ views. I expect you to engage with one another’s comments
in class. Discussions should not be
public dialogues with me. This engagement will often involve answering or
refining another student’s question, taking another student’s point further,
providing additional textual support for a point that a classmate makes, and so
on. Engagement also can and often should
involve criticism of the views of others, but such criticism should always
remain respectful. Everyone in this room
(including myself) is in the process of learning to philosophize well. When we criticize one another, it should be
in the spirit of helping each other to develop as philosophers, not in an
attempt to show that one person is better than another.
Growth mindset.
Just as you engage respectfully with others, respect those who engage
with your own views. My assumption in
this course is that every comment that everyone makes (including myself) is
provisional. In class, we are trying to benefit from our conversation, not to
score points in it. And that means that
when others offer objections or criticisms of your comments in class, these are
not evidence of your inadequacy as a philosopher; they are opportunities for
you (and your interlocutor) to grow. You
should defend your view as effectively as you can, but you should also change
your view when you come to see that it is not defensible.
“Class participation.”
Participation can have a significant impact on your final grade. When evaluating participation, however, I am
not interested merely in the quantity of comments. A student who dominates class discussion but
fails to show the virtues listed above may have their overall grade lowered due
to poor participation. A student who
speaks occasionally but in well-informed, respectful, growing ways may have
their grade raised. (A student who never
speaks in class, however, cannot effectively demonstrate the above
virtues.) If you are concerned about
your participation, either because you fear participating too much or too
little, please ask me about it at any time.
Small Group Work.
Occasionally, we will divide the class into small groups for more
focused work. This provides those who
might be timid in a large group setting an opportunity to participate more
actively, and it provides a different dynamic for discussion. All of the virtues listed above apply to
work in small groups. In addition, it is
particularly important in these groups that students remain “on task.”
Accommodations: If you are a
student with a disability who will need accommodations in this course, please meet
with Antonia Keithahn, Assistant Director
of Academic Resources: Disability Support (Memorial 326, 509.527.5767, keithaam@whitman.edu)
for assistance in developing a plan to address your academic needs. All
information about disabilities is considered private; if I receive notification
from Ms. Keithahn that you are eligible to receive an
accommodation due to a verified disability, I will provide it in as discreet a
manner as possible.
Assignments:
Reading: The material we are reading this
semester is often very difficult. Budget
a lot of time to read it
carefully. For all of these texts, you will
need to read through the entire reading once to get an overview and a sense of
the whole. But then you will need to
return to key passages and read them very
closely. Philosophical writing takes
a sort of reading that is somewhere in between reading through the steps of a
complex mathematical proof and reading really dense poetry. For the passages that you identify as
particularly important, you need to go through them line by line, paying
attention to how the argument goes, but also paying attention to what is
implied about the author’s conception of nature from this passage, and why s/he
thinks that is justified.
Participation and Quizzes (10%
total): As noted above, participation is a
particularly important part of this class.
In addition, for most days of the semester, I will have short daily
quizzes based on the readings. For some
classes, I will require that you prepare something for class that may take the
place of the quiz.
Reflections (Short Writing
Assignments) (15% each; 60% total): The goal of this course is
to use a variety of concepts of nature to think about our relationship with the
“natural” world. Over the course of the
semester, there will be seven specific exercises that draw on our readings to
reflect on nature. Two of these
reflection exercises must be completed as
a group, and you will receive a group grade for your work. Two of them must be completed as an individual. At the start of the semester, I will assign
you to groups of three to four students.
At that time, you should choose (with your group) which assignments to
complete individually, and which to complete as a group. Every student (either individually or as part
of a group) must complete at least one of the first two exercises. If you complete more than four assignments
over the course of the semester, only the best four will count towards your
grade. (There are two one exceptions to
this. First, I will count at least one
individual assignment for every student.
Second, for all group projects, I will encourage group members to report
“bad group-mates,” and when I receive such reports before the final grade is
assigned, I may assign students identified as bad group-mates a lower grade
than the rest of the group. If your
groupmates report that you significantly negatively impacted a group exercise,
that exercise will count towards your grade, even if you have other, better
individual work.)
Each of these exercises is worth 15% of your final grade, and
there are NO EXTENSIONS. Any exercises turned in more than 60 minutes
after their due date will suffer a full grade point drop. Any turned in more than 24 hours late will
receive an F. (I’ll still give comments
on them at your request.) For that
reason, I very strongly recommend that you save at least one of your “skips” to
use in case of emergency.
Final paper (30%), DUE AT THE
TIME AND DATE OF OUR SCHEDULED FINAL EXAM: You have two options for your
final paper. For each option, you will
be expected to draw from at least three of the philosophers we study over the
course of the semester. You should
articulate a clear, controversial, and interesting thesis and defend this
thesis using excellent textual support and rigorous argumentation.
(1)
Literary
analysis. Choose any example of
contemporary writing about nature (that is, something written within the past
20 years or so). Show how this author
draws (even if implicitly) from concepts developed by major European
philosophers, and then use at least one concept that does not feature in the
writing to open a new perspective on the topic of the writing, revealing an
insight that the author may have seen had s/he been more influenced by one (or
more) of the philosophers we read in this class.
(2)
Environmental
problems. Choose an important
contemporary environmental problem. This
could be a complex ethico-political problem or an
issue you are particularly concerned with for yourself as an individual. Draw from the philosophers you’ve studied in
this course to suggest at least two different ways of conceptualizing that
problem, and then defend what you think is the best way to proceed in
addressing it.
This paper will be due at the time and date of our scheduled
exam. Any paper turned in more than 60
minutes late will automatically suffer a full letter grade reduction (from an
A- to a B-, for example). Any paper more
than 24 hours late will receive an F. I very strongly recommend that you
complete and turn in these papers early.
Submitting Written Work:
Please submit all written work by email to frierspr@whitman.edu. Submit work in .doc or .docx
format, with your name (or, for group work, the last names of every member of
your group) in the filename of the document.
If the document is a draft, please include the word draft in the
filename. Thus, if I were submitting an
individual piece of work for the second assignment, I would save my draft as
“Patrick Frierson Descartes and Bacon Draft.docx” and email that to frierspr@whitman.edu.
Comments on Written Work.
I will write comments on all drafts of written work, as long as these
drafts are turned in before the deadlines below. All final drafts will get comments as well as
a “score.” The score on the paper gives
a sense for how well you are doing without the baggage of letter grades. For an interpretation of those scores, see my
grading
criteria. For some general guidance
on writing philosophy papers, see this brief
guide to writing a philosophy paper.
Timeline: Here’s a timeline for what we will read
together in class. Particularly since this
is my first time teaching this course, I reserve the right to modify this over
the course of the semester, as I see how our progress goes.
|
Readings |
Exercise Due Dates |
Jan 16 |
Opening Day: Ancient Greek
Philosophy 1 Parmenides, Poem Heraclitus, Fragments (read only the
English translations on the right) Plato (Allegory of the Cave,
pp. 1-5) |
|
Jan 18 |
Ancient Greek Philosophy 2: Reread material from previous class
and read…Aristotle, Physics,
Book II. Posterior
Analytics, §§1-2 (pp. 1-7) On
the Generation of Animals, Bk I, chapters 22-23 (pp. 31-34 of the etext) |
|
Jan 23 |
Hebrew and Christian Religion: (If you do not own a Christian
Bible, you can find all of these references, in many different translations, here.) Genesis 1-3 Psalm 8 Job 38-39 Romans 8:18-25 Revelation 21:1-22:5 Augustine Confessions 11.iv-v, xii, (pp.
157, 161 of this
.pdf); St. Francis, Canticle of the Sun,
The Little Flower
(read chapters xxi and xxii); Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II,
Q91A1-2, Q93A1, 2, 4; Hildegaard of Bingen, “O
Most Noble Greenness” and selection from Divine Works |
|
Jan 25 |
Francis Bacon, Novum Organon Preface and Book I, pp. 2-101 |
|
Jan 30 |
Francis Bacon, Novum Organon Book II, pp. 102-221 |
|
Feb 1 |
Francis Bacon, Novum Organon Book II and “Outline,” pp.
102-238; The
New Atlantis |
|
Feb 6 |
Bacon Review Selection (to be determined) from Margaret
Cavendish’s Blazing
World Sandra Harding, Whose
Science? Which Knowledge?, pp. 42-46, 64-67. |
Exercise #1 Rough draft due by 9
AM on Monday, Feb 5th. Exercise #1 final draft
due Saturday, Feb 10, by 5 PM. You should email both drafts as Word
documents to frierspr@whitman.edu
with your name (or the last names of every member of your group) at the start
of the filename. Your draft should
include the word “draft” somewhere in the filename |
Feb 8 |
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method, Parts 1-4 and The
World (read chapter six and skim chapters seven and eight) |
Exercise #1 Due. |
Feb 13 |
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method, Parts 5-6. |
|
Feb 15 |
Rene Descartes, handout with
selections from correspondence (on animals
and unity with nature);
Preface to Principles of Philosophy |
Exercise #2 Due at 9 AM on Saturday, Feb 17.
I will comment on drafts only if I receive them by 3 PM on Thursday,
Feb 15th. |
Feb 20 |
Baruch Spinoza, Ethics,
Book 1, Definitions; Axioms; Propositions 1, 7, 10, 14, 28, 29, 33 with their
proofs; Book 2, skim Definitions, Axioms, Propositions 1, 2, 7, and read P13
with its note; Book 5, proposition 42. Arne Naess, “The
Shallow and the Deep” Arne Naess,
“Spinoza
and Ecology” |
|
Feb 22 |
Power and Privilege Symposium |
Though
not directly related to the material in this class, I highly recommend this essay, which discusses environmental
privilege. (You should also get
started on the reading for next week, which is relevant to these issues.) |
Feb 27 |
John
Locke, Second
Treatise, Chapters 4 and 5 Adam Smith Wealth of
Nations, Introduction, Book I, Chapters 1, 2, and 11(paragraphs 1-9) Karl Marx, Selected
Writings, pp. 58-67, 132-3 (starting with “[Division of labor]”) |
|
March 1 |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, entire (focus
on Preface and Part One) |
Exercise
#3 Due Friday, March 2, by 3 PM. I will comment on drafts that I receive by
noon on Monday, Feb. 26th. |
March 6 |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, Part Two; Reveries, Fifth Walk (pp. 49-58) |
|
March 8 |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Reveries, Seventh through Ninth Walks
(pp. 69-106) |
|
|
Spring Break |
Spring Break |
March 27 |
Adam Smith, History of Astronomy, selections You should also get started on the reading for Kant. |
Exercise #4 Due by 9 AM on Monday, March 26th. I will comment on drafts only if I receive
them by 9 AM on Monday, March 19th. |
March 29 |
Immanuel Kant, Selections: B-Preface
to the Critique of Pure Reason Preface from The
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals Conclusion from The Critique of Practical Reason Critique of the Power of Judgment, pp. 59-63, 68-73. I would also recommend that you read
the secondary source available here. |
|
April 3 |
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, pp. 89-116, 121-124, 173-6 |
|
April 5 |
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, pp. 128-49, 182-188 Schiller, Aesthetic
Education of Man, Letters 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 25. |
|
April 10 |
Undergraduate Conference |
Undergraduate Conference |
April 12 |
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, pp. 68-73, 233-234, 242-52, 268-71, 286-7,
293-301 |
Exercise #5 due by 9 AM on Monday, April 16. I will comment on drafts only if I receive
them by noon on Friday, April 13. |
April 17 |
J. S. Mill, “On
Nature” |
|
April 19 |
Heidegger, “Question
Concerning Technology” |
|
April 24 |
Heidegger, “Question Concerning Technology” |
|
April 26 |
Heidegger, “Question Concerning Technology” and/or “Origin
of the Work of Art” (if we have time) |
Exercise #6 due
by 9 AM on Friday, April 27th.
I will comment on drafts only if I receive
them by 9 AM on Monday, April 23. |
May 1 |
Hannah Arendt, selections |
|
May 3 |
Hannah Arendt, selections |
Exercise #7 due by 10 AM on Friday, May 4th. I will comment on drafts that I get by 10
AM on Wednesday, May 2. |
May 15 |
The
absolute final deadline for final papers is 9 AM
on Tuesday, May 15th. |
I will comment
on drafts that I receive by
9 AM on Wednesday, May 9th. |
This would be a great reflection to do as a group.
Do a Baconian natural history of some
object or quality, complete with three tables and a hypothesis. The goal here is to have something like a
Baconian lab report about some topic.
The report should briefly lay out a justification for your topic, an
explanation and defense of your methodology, your lists, analysis of those
lists, and preliminary hypothesis about the nature of ___. You might also add some explanation of the
benefits/fruits of this natural history.
This will make up the first part of the paper.
For the second part, you should write
a brief (no more than 1000 word) analysis of
your Baconian history. For this, you
should discuss what you learned about your chosen topic by doing this sort of
natural history that you would not have noticed without the “Organon” provided by Bacon, and/or what this Organon prevented you from being able to discuss/learn,
and/or more broadly what the chief strengths and weaknesses are of this
approach to nature.
This would be a great reflection to do
as an individual.
Write a short essay (1200-2000 words)
comparing Bacon and Descartes in terms of how they would conceptualize some
specific natural object. Whose “concepts
of nature” provide for greater insight into the object? How?
Why? How would you improve on
both? For this paper, you should write
clearly, concisely, with adequate textual support, with specific illustrations
in terms of your object, and with persuasive arguments for a well-defined and
controversial thesis.
Arne Naess took Spinoza, whose philosophy might seem to say nothing about contemporary environmentalism, and used him as a springboard to develop a concise manifesto for one of the most influential environmental philosophies today. Draw on any of the philosophers we’ve read this semester (including Parmenides, Hildegaard, Marx, etc.) to develop an environmental manifesto for the present day. As in the case of Naess’s Spinoza article, you should use specific interpretations of specific passages to defend your claim that your manifesto is rooted in the historical philosopher, but you should also use general philosophical arguments to defend your approach as a good one for the present day. This manifesto should be approximately 1200-2000 words.
Using Rousseau as a model of both form
and content, go for a walk and reflect on yourself and your surroundings. Your reverie should be written as though in
your own voice, but you should sprinkle footnotes throughout with specific
textual references to Rousseau, showing how your reverie addresses the issues
that arose in the Discourse or
illuminates (or improves on) the insights in Rousseau’s own Reveries. (I put “solitary” in quotes because,
realistically, these reveries could also be done by a group. In that case, you should add at least one
footnote talking about the extent to which your group reverie remains faithful
to, falls short of, or improves on, Rousseau’s deliberately solitary
ones.) Including footnotes, this
“reverie” should be at least 1200 words.
For this exercise, you should choose one
key idea from Kant’s philosophy and apply that key idea either to better
understanding some particular natural object or to addressing some
environmental problem. You can present
the results in an essay, a poster, a skit, or whatever other form you choose
(if you get my sign-off on your genre).
Whatever you choose, however, you should include (either as part of the
presentation or in a separate short essay) sufficient textual support. You should show how Kant helps us think about
nature, but you might also include clearly delineated critique of Kant or
extension of his ideas in a further (and/or different) direction (as, e.g.,
Schiller did).
J.S. Mill discusses several different
senses of “nature,” and Heidegger the complex nature of modern technology. Choose something that you encounter in your
daily life (a tree, an art-work, a feeling, a coffee-pot, a friend, or the
like). Think about whether that thing is
“natural,” and in what senses of natural, and whether it is “technology,” and
in what senses of technology. Then use
these reflections on your object, Mill, and Heidegger, to answer the question,
“Is there an essential difference between technology
and nature?” In your answer, be sure to discuss specific
passages from both Mill and Heidegger.
Your essay should be between 1200 and 2000 words.
This paper is a chance to think back on the different concepts of nature we’ve explored this semester from the standpoint of Heidegger and/or Arendt. The main purpose of the essay is to show that Heidegger and/or Arendt provides a stance for thinking about nature that allows for insights not made available by any of the other thinkers we’ve studied this semester. In defending this overall thesis, you should be specific, both about the relevant insights and in your argument that Heidegger/Arendt’s concepts of nature facilitate those insights. In addition, you should discuss the philosopher whose concepts most blind us to these important insights as well as the philosopher who comes the closest to helping us see what Heidegger/Arendt provoke us to see, in the first case using Heidegger/Arendt to show how that philosopher blinds us, and in the second showing how they go beyond their predecessor. The result should be an essay of 1500-2200 words.