Revised: December 11, 2018 (PHIL 2380 added)
Pursuant to Article 16 of the CUPE 4600 Unit 2 Collective Agreement, applications are invited from members of the CUPE 4600-2 bargaining unit and other interested persons to teach the following Philosophy courses during the 2019 Summer term:
PHIL 1301 [0.5 credit]: Mind, World and Knowledge
Scheduled early summer semester (May/June); Mondays and Wednesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
The aim of this course is to introduce students to philosophical inquiry and argumentation applied to a number of central problems of epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind/language/psychology. Thus, questions concerning the nature of knowledge, minds, persons, language, and the external world will be explored. Among the issues to be considered are the following: What conditions must be satisfied, for example, if a person is to know something? How can we respond to skeptics who insist that genuine knowledge is impossible? How does the mind relate to the body and the external world? Does the mind differ from the body? How can we know that others have minds and are not complex robots? Do we know ourselves in a privileged way? What make humans so different from primates and other “advanced” species? What does thinking consist in? Can we think without language? How do we acquire language? Do we have innate ideas/concepts or do we acquire all of them through experience? Do we need to posit a designer/creator (e.g. God) to deal with these questions? Can scientific discoveries (e.g. in neurosciences) help shape the answers to these questions? Historical and contemporary readings may be combined, but this course should prepare students to succeed in 2000-level courses in contemporary analytical philosophy of mind and contemporary analytical philosophy of language, while remaining interesting and accessible to students who will not take more philosophy.
PHIL 1550 [0.5 credit]: Introduction to Ethics and Social Issues
Scheduled late summer semester (July/August); Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:30 am – 2:30 pm
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the nature and practice of ethics and social philosophy by looking at some important ethical and social problems and issues that are prominent in the contemporary world. Typical questions might abortion, affirmative action, racism, human rights, children’s rights, world hunger, capital punishment, euthanasia, censorship, pornography, legal paternalism, animal rights and environmental protection. Students will learn some of the main positions that have been taken on these issues, along with prominent arguments that have been offered for and against these different positions. The goal of the course is to stimulate students’ thinking about the chosen questions and provoke them to form views about them. The objective is not merely for them to understand how philosophers and others have answered these questions, but to understand and evaluate their arguments, recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, possibly trying to improve upon them. Students should be encouraged to formulate their own arguments and defend them, as far as they are able. Students will also learn prominent moral theories that are relevant to those arguments and issues.
PHIL 2001 [0.5 credit]: Introduction to Logic
Scheduled early summer semester (May/June); Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
An introduction to the techniques and philosophical implications of propositional and predicate logic with emphasis on translation of expressions into symbolic form, testing for logical correctness, the formulation and application of rules of inference, and the relation between logic and language. While the course will be accessible to students with non-philosophical backgrounds, the textbook and assignments will provide students with basic knowledge of propositional and predicate logic that are assumed by higher-level courses in logic.
PHIL 2380 [0.5 credit]: Environmental Ethics
Scheduled for early summer semester (May/June): Mondays and Wednesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
This course addresses a series of questions relevant to the evaluation of environmental issues from a philosophical perspective. Why is the natural environment valuable? Does it possess value only insofar as it provides us with some instrumental good or does it have inherent worth independent of that which human beings derive from it? Should we preserve and protect the natural world for its own sake or simply for our own? How might the answers we give to these questions inform our environmental activism and our public policies? In an attempt to address these questions, the course will look at various arguments philosophers have offered regarding the natural world’s value, and assess various strategies that have been proposed and pursued in the name of respecting and/or preserving our natural environment. Material for this course may be drawn from both historical and contemporary philosophy, and from both the analytic and the continental tradition. While the course will be accessible to students with non-philosophical backgrounds, its methods of evaluation will prepare students to succeed in upper level courses in ethics and social and political philosophy.
PHIL 2501 [0.5 credit]: Philosophy of Mind
Scheduled late summer semester (July/August); Mondays and Wednesdays, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
An introduction to major philosophical issues in the philosophy of mind. Among other topics, this course will cover the main approaches to the mind-body problem (including, dualism, physicalism, and functionalism) as well as views about the nature of consciousness, personhood, and non-human intelligence. While the course will be accessible to students with non-philosophical backgrounds, its selection of assigned readings and methods of evaluation will prepare students to succeed in upper level courses in philosophy of mind.
PHIL 2601 {0.5 credit]: Philosophy of Religion
Scheduled early summer semester (May/June); Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6:00 – 9:00 pm.
A study of philosophical issues arising from religion. Topics may include: reconstructions of historical and contemporary arguments for and against the existence of God, the nature of religious experience, the status of miracles, how to reconcile God and evil, and how to understand the relationship between religion and science.
Application Procedures and Deadlines:
Required Professional Qualifications: MA Degree in the appropriate field.
Closing Date: Monday, January 7, 2019 at 1:00 pm
All applicants must apply to the Department Head in writing and in relation to each course for which they wish to be considered:
Professor David Matheson
Chair, Department of Philosophy
Carleton University
1125 Colonel by Drive, 3A35 Paterson Hall
Ottawa, ON. K1S 5B6
Send applications to: sandra.kirkpatrick@carleton.ca
As per Article 15.3 of the current CUPE 4600 Unit 2 Collective Agreement, applicants are required to submit an up to date CV, including a complete listing of all courses taught within the CUPE 4600 Unit 2 bargaining unit at Carleton University. Note that when applying to classes for which they have incumbency, applicants shall not be required to (re)submit documentation beyond their updated CV.
Pre-Posting Hiring Decisions:
The following courses have been assigned to graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, or visiting scholars. These courses are not open for applications but the department will contact the most senior incumbent to review their rights under Article 17.6 of the CUPE 4600-2 Collective Agreement:
- N/A
A note to all applicants: As per Articles 16.3 and 16.4 in the CUPE 4600-2 Collective Agreement, the posted vacancies listed above are first offered to applicants meeting the incumbency criterion. A link to the current CUPE 4600-2 Collective Agreement can be found at the Academic Staff Agreements webpage on the Carleton University Human Resources website https://carleton.ca/hr/labour-relations/academic-staff-agreements/ and the CUPE 4600-2 website https://www.cupe4600.ca/