Subject Code/Name: Philosophy: God, Freedom and Evil Workload: 1 x 1 hour lecture, 1 x 1 hour tute. Seriously light workload compared to what im use to.
Assessment: (according to the handbook):
Expository exercise (1000 words): 20%
Essay: (2500 words): 40%
Exam (2 hours): 40%
According to what i actually did and what is in the unit guide:
1. Expository exercise (500 words) 10%
2. Expository exercise (1000 words) 20%
3. Essay: (1500 words) 30%
4. Exam (2 hours) 40%
Recorded Lectures: Recorded video lectures available.
Past exams available: Not needed. Exam questions are
given out at the start of the year in the unit guide.
Textbook Recommendation: The recommended textbook is written by the lecturer. Even though it intends to be a general purpose book on this area, it closely reflects how the course at monash is run or maybe the course reflects how he wrote the book. We'll never know.. It covers all the readings you need with analysis by him. I think it's a not an absolute necessary purchase, you can get it from the library if you need to use it on the odd occasion. It's not a bad book though.
Lecturer(s): Graeme Oppy.
Year & Semester of completion: Semester 2, 2011.
Rating: 5/5
Your Mark/Grade: Can't remember.. Credit or Distinction (pretty good considering my essay was like 15 days late)
Comments: Fairly well put together unit. It covers a lot of the main topics in philosophy of religion. It seems to me though, to more focus on the proofs that are most commonly used by believers and non-believers against each other, rather than more abstract philosophical notions. These might be found in the separate philosophy of religion unit but there seems to be a fair amount of overlap.
My tutor remarked she was a believer at the time and the course use to have a few crummy arguments
for God and more than a few really good arguments
against God. She said it was fairly better now.
Graeme Oppy (
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/graham_oppy/) is one of the relatively few atheist philosophers of religion, in Australia at least. He seems to be pretty well known in the field, i've personally come across several papers by him and he's been cited a fair few times. As far as im aware he's also head of the philosophy department, so, you're in good hands.
Even as in his other works he seems to focus more on applicable arguments rather than the more abstract.
Workload is very manageable.
I hadn't done any Tertiary level philosophy before but i was very familiar with most of the arguments from my own prior reading and things like that. That said it has no prerequisites and i think most people would be able to manage it, if they're so inclined.
Overall, a good enjoyable unit. Little bit more thin than what i'm use to and i wish it covered more of the arguments but it definitely a well executed summation of all the main issues.
Things covered by week:Concept of God (Is God all loving, all powerful, all knowing, are these things compatible or possible, ect)
Arguments (What makes a good argument? What makes a logically consistent argument? How to construct arguments, ect)
Ontological Argument: Anselm
Cosmological Argument: Aquinas
Teleological Argument: Paley
Critique of Teleological Argument: Hume
Argument from Scale: Everitt
Pascal’s Wager
Logical Argument from Evil: Mackie (1)
Logical Argument from Evil: Mackie (2)
Evidential Argument from Evil: Rowe (1)
Evidential Argument from Evil: Rowe (2)