PHILOS 3
Historical Introduction to Philosophy
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Historical introduction to Western philosophy based on classical texts dealing with major problems, related thematically and studied in chronological order: properties of rational argument, existence of God, problem of knowledge, nature of causality, relation between mind and body, possibility of justice, and others. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2019 - I am selling the books required for this course Plato - Phaedo, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Hackett) Anselm - Proslogion with the Replies of Guanilo and Anselm, trans. T. Williams (Hackett) René Descartes - Discourse on the Method trans. D.A. Cress (3rd ed.; Hackett) All in good condition for $4 each Email me *************
Summer 2019 - I am selling the books required for this course Plato - Phaedo, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Hackett) Anselm - Proslogion with the Replies of Guanilo and Anselm, trans. T. Williams (Hackett) René Descartes - Discourse on the Method trans. D.A. Cress (3rd ed.; Hackett) All in good condition for $4 each Email me *************
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - The class is extremely straightforward. There are only two papers, a final exam that is about 40 questions MC, two short essays, and then your points from discussion section. Topics revolve around the different readings that Professor Dewitt puts on CCLE in PDFs (Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas, etc). You're suppose to do these readings and then Professor Dewitt goes over all of the important topics in lecture. Lectures are pretty interesting because she makes all of the ideas understandable given that they were made over a century ago. She also goes off topic fairly often to talk about her sister, mother, or some other experience she had. I remember one time she couldn't talk for the first 5 minutes of lecture because of a joke she wanted to tell us. She is a very sweet midwestern professor and I would definitely take the class again for the fair workload and interesting lectures. Professor Dewitt is definitely the type of person you would want to grab a cup of coffee and exchange stories with.
Fall 2019 - The class is extremely straightforward. There are only two papers, a final exam that is about 40 questions MC, two short essays, and then your points from discussion section. Topics revolve around the different readings that Professor Dewitt puts on CCLE in PDFs (Aristotle, Kant, Aquinas, etc). You're suppose to do these readings and then Professor Dewitt goes over all of the important topics in lecture. Lectures are pretty interesting because she makes all of the ideas understandable given that they were made over a century ago. She also goes off topic fairly often to talk about her sister, mother, or some other experience she had. I remember one time she couldn't talk for the first 5 minutes of lecture because of a joke she wanted to tell us. She is a very sweet midwestern professor and I would definitely take the class again for the fair workload and interesting lectures. Professor Dewitt is definitely the type of person you would want to grab a cup of coffee and exchange stories with.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2025 - Professor Dover is very passionate, kind, and does her best to help you succeed. The only book that you need for the class is The Republic by Plato in which she provides or you can buy a book on Amazon for $10. The basic structure of the class was 3 reading responses in which you relate the book to your life, experiences, movies, etc., and one final project which is a paper dialogue of your own script that relates to arguments in the book. Lecture really consisted of Dover going over concepts and arguments in The Republic and basically explaining it more. I think if you are interested in philosophy you'll enjoy this class, but for me I was super bored. Most students start skipping lecture by the end, but just for reference lectures aren't recorded. So overall I would say this is a pretty easy class for a GE since there's no midterm and the final is a paper, but you do have to make sure you know roughly what's going on in order to write the dialogue project and reading responses.
Spring 2025 - Professor Dover is very passionate, kind, and does her best to help you succeed. The only book that you need for the class is The Republic by Plato in which she provides or you can buy a book on Amazon for $10. The basic structure of the class was 3 reading responses in which you relate the book to your life, experiences, movies, etc., and one final project which is a paper dialogue of your own script that relates to arguments in the book. Lecture really consisted of Dover going over concepts and arguments in The Republic and basically explaining it more. I think if you are interested in philosophy you'll enjoy this class, but for me I was super bored. Most students start skipping lecture by the end, but just for reference lectures aren't recorded. So overall I would say this is a pretty easy class for a GE since there's no midterm and the final is a paper, but you do have to make sure you know roughly what's going on in order to write the dialogue project and reading responses.
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