Professor Jim Vernon
jvernon@yorku.ca

Virtual office hours: By appt, email me at jvernon@yorku.ca

What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of my life? Do pain, suffering and death rob life of its meaning, or render it absurd? Or, to the contrary, do suffering and death make life more meaningful? What is the best, or most authentic way, to live my life? This class treats a variety of philosophical approaches–both historical and contemporary–to the interconnection of life, death, and meaning. It also offers an introduction to Western philosophy through an investigation of questions concerning the nature and meaning of life. The first half of the course will deal with texts from the ancient world, while the latter half will treat philosophers from the 20th century. Thinkers we will cover include Socrates/Plato, Epicurus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Martin Luther King.

Note: Because this is a course that concerns some of the most profound and difficult problems of human existence, the readings we will consider as well as the lectures will touch upon topics that can be quite discomforting. All students choosing to take this course should be aware that themes such as death, suffering, anxiety, and despair will be discussed frequently in both the video lectures and in tutorial discussion; the sensitive nature of the material should constantly be kept in mind as we all work to ensure respectful dialogue about them throughout the term.

This is a ‘blended’ course, which means that lectures will be online and asynchronous (that is, they will be delivered as recorded videos). The lectures for each week will be uploaded to eClass by midnight of the Friday preceding that week at the very latest. Tutorials will be conducted in-class, on campus, as listed in the course calendar, and each tutorial will be dedicated to the readings/lectures listed in the syllabus.

The first test will be held in tutorials, and tutorial participation will be graded in three ways: 1) attendance (1 mark for each non-test week attended, max of 10%); 2) the submission of written questions for discussion (1 mark for each substantial question concerning each lecture/accompanying reading(s) for the appropriate lecture/text, submitted to your TA at least 12 hours before tutorial, max of 10%; due all weeks save week 6 and week 13); active participation in class discussion (graded by your TA, max of 10%).

Technical requirements for taking the course: You will need to be able to access video lectures through eclass, as well as submit weekly questions to your TA electronically. All txts also are online resources.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Moodle

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

Times and locations: Video lectures will be delivered asynchronously, uploaded every Friday to eclass; in-person tutorials will be held as listed in the course calendar.

Online resources, listed below.

Mid-Term Exam – 15%

Final Exam – 30%

Term Paper – 25%

Tutorial attendance/participation – 30%

Lecture/Reading Schedule:

Week 1

Intro. to Course; Lecture/Tutorial - “The Dispute Of a Man with his Ba”: https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/texts/corpus/pdf/Dispute.pdf

Week 2

Lecture/Tutorial - Plato, Apology: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil100/04.%20Apology.pdf

Week 3

Lecture/Tutorial Plato, Crito: http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/crito.html

Week 4

Lecture/Tutorial - Epictetus, The Handbook: https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

Week 5

Lecture/Tutorial - Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus”: http://classics.mit.edu/Epicurus/menoec.html & “The Principal Doctrines”: https://blogs.ubc.ca/phil102/files/2013/08/Epicurus-PrincipalDoctrines-epicurusinfo.pdf

Week 6

Mid-Term Exam (held in your tutorial; no video lecture this week)

Week 7

No Lecture/Tutorial (Reading Week)

Week 8

Lecture/Tutorial - Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd”: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Absurd%20-%20Thomas%20Nagel.pdf.

Week 9

Lecture/Tutorial - Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm

Week 10

Lecture/Tutorial - Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism (continued)

Week 11

Lecture/Tutorial - Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, (Chapter 1: Ambiguity and Freedom): https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/ambiguity/ch01.htm

Week 12

Lecture/Tutorial - Martin Luther King, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/three-dimensions-complete-life-sermon-delivered-unitarian-church-germantown; “The Drum Major Instinct”: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/drum-major-instinct

Week 13

Tutorial: exam review/concluding discussions (no video lecture)

Essays Due

Final Exam (scheduled by the university)

The primary objective of the course is to familiarize students with some of central ideas of in different Western philosophical traditions concerning life, death, and

meaning. Students will also learn how to scrutinize texts for arguments that support

a central thesis, as well as construct their own strong arguments for their position

concerning questions of deep philosophical import.

Course policies

Term Paper

Term paper topics will be posted on the webpage on October 10^th. All topics will combine exegesis of the texts with critical assessment. For this introductory course, emphasis should be on developing your own critical reading and writing skills; to ensure this focus, no secondary sources are allowed. This has the added benefit of helping to ensure that you do not rely on AI to assist you in the writing of the essay. You must engage only with the course texts, and focus on both grounding your exegesis of the philosophers in the primary source material, as well as building an argumentative case for a skeptical reader. I very strongly recommend that all students consult the departmental guide on writing philosophy essays: http://www.yorku.ca/hjackman/Teaching/handbook.pdf

Information on essays and late penalties

Term Papers are due November 28^th by 11:59 PM on eclass. Late papers will be accepted for 7 more days, with a penalty of 3% per day. After December 5^th, term papers will not be accepted. Exceptions will only be made for a) illness (with MD’s note) and b) death in the family. I must be given 24 hours notice on email for these exceptions to be made, and they are at my discretion, not automatic. Departmental requirements demand that all essays be uploaded to ‘turnitin.com’; a link to submit the paper will be available on the eClass page. Pursuant to the Guidelines of the Yorku Academic Advisory Group, students have the right to opt out of submitting assignments to Turnitin. However, if you elect not to use Turnitin, in order to ensure academic integrity and fairness, I will conduct my own academic integrity review which will require one or more of the following: the submission of multiple drafts, the submission of a detailed annotated bibliography, or the submission of photocopies of source documents. I may also require you to take an oral examination directed at issues of your assignment’s originality, ask you to respond in writing to questions about your assignment’s originality, or provide a written report concerning the process of completing the work. The easiest option, in short, is submitting to Turnitin. I will not assign a grade to any essay that has not been submitted to Turnitin or that has not met my requirements for an alternative academic integrity review.

Citations

Either MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual styles are fine, but they must be used consistently and clearly. In other words, use only one style, and make it an existent style. If you use secondary sources, they must be properly cited in full, lest you fall prey to the perils of…

Academic Dishonesty

It is YOUR responsibility to know what Academic Dishonesty is, what the penalties for it are, and how to avoid it. Know in advance that I will seek, at minimum, a zero on the offending work, and that the penalty can include your being debarred, not only from York, but from all Canadian universities. In short, don’t do it. If you are remotely unsure about what levels of citation, collaboration, etc. constitute A.D., go to the Academic Integrity web site at York University: http://www.yorku.ca/academicintegrity.