66-104 DC First-Year Seminar: Philosophy and Argument
9 units, Carnegie Mellon University
What makes me me What is real Is there a God What is the mind, and how does it interact with the body Can computers think Are humans ultimately free What makes our lives valuable Should we try to make ourselves immortal What should we do about climate change These are some of the toughest, most pressing questions in philosophy today. Philosophers have addressed these questions by producing subtle, intricate, and often beautiful arguments. In this seminar, you will assess those arguments and produce your own. You will learn to think like a philosopher to strip an argument presented in prose to its bare essentials and produce a visual representation that displays its structure plainly. Learning to visualize arguments in this way will improve the clarity and rigor of your own thinking and writing. It will put you in a position to make progress on hard questions such as those above. And it will improve your ability to crisply convey your ideas an ability that will serve you well not just in your Carnegie Mellon classes, but also in the political, professional, and civic reasoning you employ for the rest of your life.
Prerequisites: none listed
Courseweave needs JavaScript to show sections, workloads and planning tools.