(Somewhat) Independent Projects

I’ve concluded that project work should give each of you an opportunity to extend and deepen some piece of what we’ll be doing together.  That is, I want to downplay (not eliminate) the “independent” and “individual” facets of your projects.  Keep in mind that we’ll be done with this curriculum in ten short weeks, so project work needs to begin immediately.  Of course it should be spread out over the first eight weeks, not jammed into the last three.

Content:

I would like most of you, particularly those who are new to this material or to the style of philosophy we will be practicing, to concentrate your project on Descartes, Hume or Kant, and pursue further something we only begin in seminar or something we more or less bypass.  This would extend and deepen your understanding of our seminar curriculum, and our shared work would become a support for your own project. [Examples: Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God, his physics or optics, his replies to the objections of his contemporaries to the Meditations…;  Hume’s view of language and meaning, his notion of causality, his views of necessary vs. contingent truths…; Kant’s critique of Hume, his view of judgment and meaning, how “synthetic” and “analytic” judgments differ…  One could also focus on the meta-philosophy of any of these thinkers, i.e. how they think philosophy should be done.]

Those with more experience and who know their way around at least bits of the philosophic landscape might work on a concept or a question addressed by more than one of the philosophers we will read together and by others.  This also would expand and deepen our shared work and allow you to sharpen the differences that make a big difference between the views of one philosopher and another. [Examples: “idea,” “necessity,” “I,” “consciousness,” “cause,” “intentionality,” “space and time”…]

What about idiosyncratic projects?  While I won’t rule these out, and I can imagine such projects that would make sense, I will ask you to convince me that you can make what you have in mind work out.  [I have been asked, for example, if a project somehow could be about “philosophical art,” and I wouldn’t rule this out.  Artists and musicians and others have worked in ways that “speak” to philosophical issues, and some have written philosophically (Kandinsky, for example).  Robert Irwin’s work invites being looked at in relation to some of our own readings (he read Wittgenstein assiduously at one point).]

Process

I am requiring students to meet regularly (at least weekly) in small groups of 3 or 4 to share their work with one another and provide critiques and support.  Each student will be separately responsible for completion of a 10-12 page project essay.

Reading and writing for your project must be ongoing, not put off and done when you no longer can avoid it.  Consistent, substantial work that you share regularly is as important as the essay itself.