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Introduction to Philosophy homepage

Business details homepage

• Your teachers this quarter
• Course requirements
• Class Schedule
• Research project assignment
• Late project consequences
• On grading
• self evaluations
  • midterm self evaluations
  • final self evaluations
  • research project self evaluations
• Class policies
  • Plagiarism policy
  • Classroom etiquette policy
    • tips on good netiquette
    • Safe classroom policy
• Midterm exam sample questions
• Midterm exam

Mini-lectures homepage

• Plato's cave and degrees of separation from the Real
• Who is Socrates?
• The Socratic method
• Socrates as midwife
• Indirect communication à la Soren Kierkegaard
• Dad and George
• A bit of Athenian history
• Outline of The Phaedrus
• The Phaedrus and The Eternal
• Introduction to the Hebrew wisdom literature
• Introduction to the Book of Proverbs
• Introduction to the Book of Job
• Introduction to the Book of Ecclesiastes
• The wisdom teachings of The Book of Proverbs
• What God likes about Job
• Stages on life's way
• Historical periods in western philosophy
• A few dates in the modern period
• Introduction to epistemology
• On Stuff
• Quantum physics
• My Dream
• Tulpas and Hinduism
• A Philosophical map
• The empiricist and rationalist philosophers
• Introduction to John Locke
• Introduction to George Berkeley
• Introduction to David Hume
• Introduction to Immanuel Kant
• A too-short outline of Immanuel Kant's epistemology
• A Philosophical map
• Introduction to Schopenhauer
  • Buddhism and Schopenhauer
  • Life is suffering because life is willing
  • The world as representation
  • The world as Will
  • Aesthetic contemplation
  • Askesis
  • Assessments of Schopenhauer
• Introduction to Emmanuel Swedenborg
  • The Ruling Love and Correspondences
• Introduction to Martin Buber
  • Buber's dream

Discussion questions

• Definition of "to discuss"
• The moral demands of good dialog
• Dad and George (indirect communication)
• Person A injures person B
• Civil disobedience
• The problem of evil
• Tolstoy's dream
• My Dream, or How Not to Tell What's Really Real
• Epistemology discussion questions
• Swedenborg & Schopenhauer: A discussion question
• To laugh or not to laugh

Philosophers

• Plato
  • stephanus numbers
  • hosion
  • How to pronounce Greek names
  • A few books about eros
  • A few important dates in Greek history
  • Timeline of Greek philosophy
  • Plato's three parts of the soul
• Hebrew wisdom literature
  • Greek and Hebrew worldviews compared
  • Proverbs homepage
    • examples from the Torah
  • Job homepage
  • Ecclesiastes homepage
  • Who is hasatan?
  • A few books about Job
• John Locke homepage
• Introduction to John Locke
• George Berkeley homepage
• Introduction to George Berkeley
• David Hume homepage
• Introduction to David Hume
• Immanuel Kant homepage
• Introduction to Immanuel Kant
• A too-short outline of Immanuel Kant's metaphysical question
• Arthur Schopenhauer homepage
  • Assigned readings for Schopenhauer
• Emmanuel Swedenborg homepage
  • Assigned readings for Swedenborg
• Leo Tolstoy homepage
• Martin Buber homepage

Study questions

• Plato's cave
• Euthyphro
• Apology
• Crito
• Phaedo
• Phaedrus
• Proverbs
• Job
• Ecclesiastes
• Plutarch
• Schopenhauer (first week)
• Schopenhauer (second week)
• Swedenborg
• Tolstoy
• Way of Man
  • (Optional Way of Man reflection questions)

Tom Kerns homepage

Curriculum Vita

Books authored

• Ethical Issues in HIV Vaccine Trials (the book)
  • A review in Lancet
  • Full text of chapters available online
• Jenner On Trial: The Ethics of Vaccine Research in the Age of Smallpox and the Age of AIDS
  • Table of contents
  • Full text of chapters available online
• Environmentally Induced Illnesses: Ethics, Risk Assessment, and Human Rights
  

Public lectures

• Ethical Quandaries in HIV Vaccine Trials (the lecture)
• Jenner On Trial
• Emerging Environmental Epidemics
• Perfumes & Pesticides