Assignments

PHIL 380:01/PHRE 386:02
Seminar in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
Drs. McWhorter and Gruber
Fall, 1997

Team Presentations: Students will work in teams of two or three (depending upon the number of students in the two classes combined) to prepare and give four presentations on the reading assignments for class days, as indicated in the Calendar of Readings. Each student's four presentations, taken together, will count for 25% of his or her course grade. The presentation should be nearly exactly ten minutes: going longer will count against the graded quality of the presentation, unless you "earn" the extra time by the brilliance of your presentation. The purpose of the presentation is to initiate lively, directed, and relevant discussion; the presenters are
responsible for the quality of the ensuing discussion. The presentation should be succinct and crisp: it should not simply summarize or rehash the main points of the readings. It should rather set the tone and context of the discussion. It should emphasize the issues and questions that struck the presenters as meriting or needing discussion--the points or claims or presuppositions in the readings that struck the presenters as particularly interesting, or as strikingly right or strikingly wrong. It should raise questions that will initiate and sustain discussion. In short, the presenters should function as faculty members in the presentation and in ensuing discussion.

Ethics Paper: Each student will write a five-to-seven-page paper applying Kant's ethical theory to a contemporary ethical issue that Kant himself did not treat. This paper is worth 20% of the course grade. The purpose of this paper is to stretch Kant and the imagination of the student: to extend Kantian principles, reasoning, and positions to either contemporary moral issues that he did not face or moral issues that he did not address. The paper should, that is, apply Kant's ethical thought to develop a reasoned and well argued position that is thetic. Papers that are ambitious, exploratory, and risky are more impressive than papers that are cautious in scope or thesis. The paper should be at the level of a initial complete and final version worthy of being turned in for a grade, not a "first draft." The instructors reserve the right to take the quality of the "first version" into account in the final grade for this paper. Another student will be assigned as primary critic for each paper. Due dates will be staggered, as indicated in the Calendar of Readings. The paper must be turned in on disk in either Word, html, or text format or must be uploaded to the student's own webpage and linked to the class site. (Linking can be accomplished easily; just email Dr. McWhorter and/or Dr. Gruber with the URL of the site where the paper is uploaded.) After the class has finished its online critique, students will have a week to revise the paper and resubmit it in final form (as indicated in the Calendar of Readings). "Final form" means two things: (1) thoroughly revised and (2) as a hard copy under the professor's office door. (Someday soon software will enable us to mark papers on screen, but we aren't there yet.)

Critiques: Each student will write a two-to-three-page critique of another student's ethics paper. The critique will be due two days after the paper was due and must be submitted on disk in either Word, html, or text format or must be uploaded onto the student's webpage and linked to the class site. (In order to have the paper linked, email Dr. McWhorter and/or Dr. Gruber and give the URL of the upload site.) This critique is worth 10% of the course grade.

Class Participation: Every student is expected to comment on all other students' papers and critiques through the online discussion group. Typically students will have a week to make comments after the paper and critique are uploaded. Both the regularity and quality of comments will weigh heavily in a student's class participation grade. Students are also expected to read and prepare themselves for class each day and to contribute to class discussion on a regular basis.

Term Paper: It just wouldn't be a seminar without a term paper, now would it? The term paper is due during the regularly scheduled final examination period for the class and is worth 30% of the course grade. Term papers can vary in length, but anything less than twelve pages probably indicates that a student has not entered into the spirit of the work of Immanuel Kant. (Anything more than twenty-five pages risks making the professors crazy. Fifteen to twenty pages, plus notes and bibliography, will be looked upon favorably.) This paper should present an original argument in relation to some aspect of Kant's philosophy. Students should address relevant material from both primary and secondary sources and should document all use of such sources appropriately.