Philosophy

Atheism

William Bristow, Assistant Professor

FULL

Course: PHILOS 192 SEM 001

Class Number: 33724

Credits: 3 HU

Time: MW 9:30-10:45 a.m.

Place: CRT 607

Course Description:

In the long history of philosophical questioning of the nature and existence of God, the presentation and defense of an emphatic case for atheism and against religious faith is a relatively recent phenomenon. Most recently, in particular since the events of 9/11, some best-selling works have appeared in English by prominent intellectuals which have made such an emphatic case in different ways. Though these intellectuals (specifically, the biologist Richard Dawkins, the philosophers Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris, the essayist and cultural critic Christopher Hitchens) have worked independently, they are often grouped together under the name of “the New Atheists”. In this course we will begin by examining critically and assessing the arguments of the New Atheists. Their works raise a number of issues. One set of questions concerns whether religious faith is compatible with the claims and discoveries of natural science over the last few centuries. Another set of questions concerns whether religious faith is compatible with commitment to the standards of reason more generally. Another set of questions concerns the source and purpose of religious faith in the lives of religious people. The trajectory of the course will take us from discussion of arguments by these contemporary thinkers back toward discussion of the arguments on similar topics by great philosophers in the Western Tradition since the Enlightenment who have struggled with similar issues, philosophers such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and William James.

Work Involved:

The course format will be some lecture and much guided discussion and debate. There will be regular short writing assignments (1 page) and a few oral presentations. There will be two shorter papers and one longer paper (6-7 pages) at the end. The final grade will be calculated according to the following breakdown: attendance and participation (10%); regular response writing and oral presentations (25%); two shorter papers (20% each) and a final longer paper (25%).

Sample Reading:

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Mariner, 2008) Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Penguin, 2006) Sam Harris, The End of Faith (Norton, 2005) David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) William James, Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) At the URL below you will find an excerpt from Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5372458.stm At the URL below you will find an excerpt from David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dialogues_Concerning_Natural_Religion/Part_10

About the Instructor:

I hold a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University. I became a philosophy major as a freshman partly out of a felt need to pursue in my academic studies questions about religion that were both intellectual (philosophical) and personal. Later I specialized my studies in the area of German philosophy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries partly because the relationship of religious faith to reason is central to German philosophy in this period. My study of philosophy has deepened my original questions, but it has not answered them yet. Perhaps this semester.