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Philosophy
Organizations and Resources
The American Philosophical Association professional organization for
philosophers
The Society for Phenomenology and Existential
Philosophy professional organization
for Continental Philosophy
Society for Women in Philosophy
a place to start to see the growing impact of women upon the western
philosophical tradition
Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory
philosophical organization bringing together feminist philosophers and social
theorists
Radical Philosophy Association philosophical and practical resources
devoted to social transformation
The American Philosophical Society
resources related to philosophical, humanistic, and scientific interests
The Greater
Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium Keep up with conferences and related
events in the region.
Online Papers in Philosophy
papers online by philosophy people, mainly in Analytic Philosophy
Notebook for Contemporary Continental Philosophy a comprehensive list of
links to Continental Philosophy related sites
African Philosophy Resources
comprehensive site by Bruce Janz of The University of Central Florida
A Taoism Site
some great resources and directions for further study of Taoism
Buddhism
great site to aid study of the varieties of Buddhist thought and culture
Comprehensive Sufi Links
wide-ranging look at the varieties of Sufism
The
Philosophers' Magazine extensive
philosophy related resources, including great philosophy related games and
challenges
Philosophy Minor at
Drexel Here is the official
poop.
Why Study Philosophy?
some reassuring news for those considering a Major in Philosophy (and their
parents)
Thoughts On Writing A
Philosophy Paper some things to think about as you set out to write
assigned papers for philosophy classes
More Guides and Resources for Writing Philosophy a
comprehensive list maintained at erraticimpact.com
PHIL105 Critical Reasoning
Syllabus for PHIL105 Section 004 Critical Reasoning,
Spring, 2008 At this link
you'll find the syllabus for the course. Please
read it carefully and bring it to class on the first day so we can
discuss it, clear up anything that needs further explanation and
start getting to know one another.
Syllabus for PHIL105 Section 006 Critical Reasoning,
Spring, 2008 At this link
you'll find the syllabus for the course. Please
read it carefully and bring it to class on the first day so we can
discuss it, clear up anything that needs further explanation and
start getting to know one another.
New-er! and Improved-er!: This is the Text for
PHIL105 Critical Reasoning, Spring, 2008 This link takes
you to text for the course. Please let me know if you have any questions or
find any typos.
You
can also purchase a copy of the text at the Drexel Copy Shop.
A copy of this text has been placed on reserve in the Hagerty
Library.
Exercise Set #3 At the links for
each section at the end of this paragraph you will find a copy of the
third and final Exercise Set. Please
let me know if you have any questions. Please note: you can find
transcripts of the two films at the links indicated below. You will also find sample
problems and solutions at the end of Chapter 6 that might be
helpful. Section 004
Section 006
Study Guide for Midterm Exam At the
links for each section at the end of this paragraph you will find a
copy of the Study Guide. Please let me know if you have any
questions. Section 004
Section 006
Exercise Set #2 At the links for
each section at the end of this paragraph you will find a copy of the
second Exercise Set. Please
let me know if you have any questions. You will also find sample
problems and solutions at the end of Chapter 4 that might be
helpful. Section 004
Section 006
Exercise Set #1 At the links for
each section at the end of this paragraph you will find a copy of the first Exercise Set. Please
let me know if you have any questions. You will also find sample
problems and solutions at the end of Chapter 2 that might be
helpful. Section 004
Section 006
The Persuaders This film, made for the PBS series
FRONTLINE, originally aired in 2004. It "explores how the cultures
of marketing and advertising have come to influence not only what
Americans buy, but also how they view themselves and the world
around them. The 90-minute documentary draws on a range of experts
and observers of the advertising/marketing world, to examine how, in
the words of one on-camera commentator, "the principle of democracy
yields to the practice of demography," as highly customized messages
are delivered to a smaller segment of the market." A complete
transcript of this film can be found
here. Further viewing instructions and Discussion Questions
for the film can be found
here
for section 006 and
here for section 004.
This film will not be shown in class, so you must watch it online or
borrow a copy from the library or from me. A DVD can be found at the Hagerty Library course reserve shelf.
Fear and Favor in the Newsroom This link takes you to the Freespeech Video Library, where you can watch the film for free. "In
Fear and Favor in the Newsroom, journalists, including four
Pulitzer Prize winners from The New York Times, NBC, PBS and
other respected news organizations reveal how they have been
censored, squelched or fired for aggressively reporting on the
wealthy and the powerful. The one-hour program also presents senior
news executives, including the former Vice Chairman of The New
York Times and the President of NBC News, who defend the work of
their news organizations." A complete transcript of the film can be
found here. Further
viewing instructions and Discussion Questions for the film can be
found here
for section 004 and
here
for section 006. This film will be
shown in class. A copy of the film can also be found on reserve at the Hagerty Library course reserve shelf.
For streaming video from Hagerty Library, click
here.
Recommended texts at Hagerty Library course reserve shelf:
Michael Dawson, The Consumer
Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life
Kalle Lasn, Culture Jam
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty
Four
Sheldon Rampton, Trust Us,
We're Experts!: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with
Your Future
Norman Solomon, War Made Easy:
How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton,
Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public
Relations Industry
Deborah Tannen, You Just Don't
Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
Additional articles and other resources:
Mission: Critical, Critical Thinking-Informal
Logic Site and On-line Laboratory This
site is a great place to sharpen your logical skills, with readings, exercises,
logic games and activities. Click on the Home Page button to get started.
FactCheck.org The Annenberg Political
Fact Check is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University
of Pennsylvania. FactCheck is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for
voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S.
politics, monitoring the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S.
political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news
releases. Their goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and
scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding. The APPC
accepts no funding from business corporations, labor unions, political parties,
lobbying organizations or individuals. It is funded primarily by an endowment
from the Annenberg Foundation.
PolitiFact
“PolitiFact is a project of the St. Petersburg Times and
Congressional Quarterly to help you find the truth in the presidential
campaign. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times and CQ will
analyze the candidates' speeches, TV ads and interviews and determine
whether the claims are accurate. PolitiFact is bolder than previous
journalistic fact-checking efforts because we’ll make a call, declaring
whether a claim is True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True or False. We
even have a special category for the most ridiculous claims that we call
“Pants on Fire.” The St. Petersburg Times is Florida’s largest
newspaper and the winner of six Pulitzer Prizes. Washington-based
Congressional Quarterly is the authoritative news source for coverage of
Congress and politics. CQ and the Times are affiliates of the Times
Publishing Company, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, a center for
journalism education in St. Petersburg.”
MediaTank This is an organization
devoted to democratizing the media, with excellent programs designed to counter
the negative effects of corporate and political power on democratic public
discourse.
Independent Media Center- Philadelphia
It's Independent; It's Media; It's Philly. Read, participate, contribute.
Center for Media and Democracy
The Center for Media & Democracy is a nonprofit,
public interest organization funded by individuals and nonprofit foundations and
dedicated to investigative reporting about the public relations industry.
Still Not
The News For an update on video news releases, see
this recent report from the Center for Media and Democracy.
On The Media
Lively discussion, informative news, and insightful analysis of issues and
controversies regarding the media produced by WNYC, New York public radio. Airs
Sundays at 11:00 am on WHYY FM 91 in Philly.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Offers well-documented criticisms of the effects of corporate control on
reporting and defends journalists and the First Amendment when they are under
attack.
The Final Word
is Hooray some of the most notable media comments
from the early days of the Iraq War, gathered by Fairness and Accuracy in
Reporting
The Center for Science in the Public Interest
Confused about the multitude of competing claims made in the name of science?
Check CSPIN out. They've been working on these issues for years and they'll help
you put it in a reasonable perspective.
POGO Founded in 1981, the Project On
Government Oversight (POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and
exposes corruption in order to achieve a more accountable federal government.
The Project On Government
Oversight is committed to exposing waste, fraud and corruption in the following
areas: defense, energy & environment, contract oversight and open government.
The Center for Public Integrity The
Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization
that conducts investigative research and reporting on public policy issues in
the United States and around the world. The Center was founded in 1989 by
Charles Lewis following a successful 11-year career in network television news.
Through thorough, thoughtful and objective analyses, the Center hopes to serve
as an honest broker of information – and to inspire a better-informed citizenry
to demand a higher level of accountability from its government and elected
leaders.
Media Education Foundation
organization producing and making available video resources offering
intelligent, informed perspectives on events from the interpersonal to the
international
Project Implicit
Think you are already aware of all your assumptions and prejudices? Check this
out!
How Doctors Think An intriguing
discussion of the recent book by Dr. Jerome Groopman, in which excellent
examples of phenomena associated with critical reasoning and its failures--
including confirmation bias and other confounding effects, are illustrated
What Makes Us Think?
This is a thought-provoking review by Howard Gardner of the book in which a humanistic
philosopher and neuroscientist consider the nature and scope of mind and
brain and the relationships between science, philosophy, and the humanities in
understanding experience.
Drug Rep
Radio Times conversation and article by Dr. Dan Carlat,
an expert formerly employed by the pharmaceutical industry to promote
sales, discusses these kinds of promotional practices
Toxic Sludge
is Good for You This link takes you to the listing at Hagerty Library course reserves, at which you can find a DVD to
watch in the library or borrow overnight. "Toxic
Sludge is Good for You tracks the development of the PR industry
from early efforts to win popular American support for World War I
to the role of crisis management in controlling the damage to
corporate image. The video analyzes the tools public relations
professionals use to shift our perceptions including a look at the
coordinated PR campaign to slip genetically engineered produce past
public scrutiny." I also have person copies of this film to
lend. A complete transcript of the film can be found
here.
Thank You for Smoking This link takes you to the listing at
Hagerty Library course reserves, at which you can find a DVD of this
film to watch in the library or borrow overnight. The film offers a
candid but humorous satire of public relations, its misleading
effects on consumers and its distorting effects on the lives (and
arguments) of practitioners.
Killing Us Softly
Feminist author Jean Kilbourne's site dealing with the impact of media and
advertising on our lives in various ways
War Spin:
The Truth About Jessica - A BBC documentary on the U.S. propaganda
machine. "Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war,
and the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US Special
Forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict. But her
story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived.
BBC reporter John Kampfner exposes inconsistencies in the official version
of the rescue in Iraq of Private Lynch. War Spin: The Truth About Jessica
challenges the Pentagon's version of a story that boosted American morale
during a sticky point in the Iraq War as part of its investigation into
allied propaganda."
Buying the War
is a 90-minute documentary that
explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq. It
"includes interviews with Dan Rather, formerly of CBS; Tim Russert of Meet the
Press; Bob Simon of 60 Minutes; Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN; and
John Walcott, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder newspapers,
which was acquired by The McClatchy Company in 2006...The program analyzes the
stream of unchecked information from administration sources and Iraqi defectors
to the mainstream print and broadcast press, which was then seized upon and
amplified by an army of pundits. While almost all the claims would eventually
prove to be false, the drumbeat of misinformation about WMDs went virtually
unchallenged by the media." For complete information, resources, and a complete
transcript, go to:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html. Watch online at these
links: Buying the War;
Chapter 1;
Chapter 2;
Chapter 3;
Chapter 4;
Chapter 5.
PHIL330 Criminal
Justice Ethics
Syllabus for PHIL330 Section 001
Criminal Justice Ethics, Spring, 2008 At this link
you'll find the syllabus for the course. Please
read it carefully and bring it to class on the first day so we can
discuss it, clear up anything that needs further explanation and
start getting to know one another.
Second Midterm Study Guide please
look this over and let me know if you have any questions. The Second
Midterm is Thursday, May 15
Second Essay Assignment Please look this over and let me know if you
have any questions about the assignment. It is due Thursday, May 29
The Human Behavior Experiments at this link you can watch an
edited version of this provocative and controversial film, which
will be shown in class on May 8. The questions for the film can be
found here: THBEQ's. A
complete transcript for the complete film can be found here:
http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/HBE-transcript.pdf
First Midterm Study Guide please
look this over and let me know if you have any questions. The First
Midterm is Tuesday, April 22
First
Essay Assignment Please look this over and let me know if you
have any questions about the assignment. It is due Tuesday, April 29
What Is This About?: Philosophy's Aims and
Methods A very
brief introduction to the basics.
PDF version
What is Ethics About?
article concerning the goals of ethical thought and teaching by Gordon
Marino, the first reading for the class
The Quest for
a Code of Professional Ethics This article by the philosopher John Ladd provides a short,
pointed critique of the idea and the effectiveness of professional codes.
Restricted access: This article is available through Hagerty Library electronic
reserve.
Are
Prisons Driving Prisoners Mad? Short article by Jeffrey Kluger
of Time Magazine.
The
American Prison Nightmare Jason DeParle reviews recent books on
the state of American prisons.
Stars
and Bars: The American Prison Crisis Daniel Lazare discusses
the realities of the American prison system.
Industrialized Social Control This piece
by Paul Leighton is an informative critique of some foundational
aspects of criminal justice policy in the United States. It is also
available at his Criminal Justice Website, (http://paulsjusticepage.com/).
Wrong
Door
by Radley Balko and Joel Berger
- "The Supreme
Court ruled this June that evidence seized in an illegally performed "no-knock"
police raid can still be used against a defendant. Though disturbing in its own
right, Hudson v. Michigan touched on only a small part of a larger problem --
the trend toward paramilitary tactics in domestic policing..."
The Stanford Prison
Experiment Links "The purpose was to understand the development
of norms and the effects of roles, labels, and social expectations
in a simulated prison environment...."
Institute for
Criminal Justice Ethics Resource Links "The
Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics, the only nonprofit, university-based
center of its kind in the United States, was established to foster greater
concern for ethical issues among practitioners and scholars in the criminal
justice field."
Penal Reform International
"Penal Reform International is an international non-governmental organisation
working on penal and criminal justice reform worldwide."
Restorative Justice Online
"Introduction Document Actions Restorative justice is a theory of justice that
emphasizes repairing the harm caused or revealed by criminal behaviour. It is
best accomplished through cooperative processes that include all
stakeholders..."
Other Sites of
Interest
Senior Privilege,
Senior Exemption enduring mysteries of the universe explained
Drexel University
official university information and resources
Drexel University Television
a resource with eye-opening, thought-provoking programming
WKDU Drexel Radio
"Because we are a free format radio station, the content of our shows is not
pre-programmed. Nobody is told what to play. The music played is at the
discretion of the on air DJ. We encourage our DJs to play at least 1/3 new
music, but beyond that, it is up to them. If it is not being heard on another
radio station in the area, then there is a chance we will play it." Cool.
Drexel Community Social Awareness & Political Action Page
resources, announcements, and activism information
Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Race
"Most variation is within, not between, “races.” Of the small amount of total
human variation, 85% exists within any local population. About 94% can be found
within any continent. That means, for example, that two random Koreans may be as
genetically different as a Korean and an Italian....."
Dark Legacy
"While researching the Italian-American experience, filmmaker Heather Hartley
stumbled onto one of the uglier episodes in American history: the lynching of 11
Italians in New Orleans in March of 1891...."
Essential Information extremely
informative resources geared toward activism promoting informed and intelligent
social choices
Commondreams.org At this highly
recommended site you will find wide-ranging resources to help you keep up with
world events.
WPEB,
88.1 FM, "Radio Volta, the audio working group of the Philadelphia IMC, is an
outgrowth of the webcast team that broadcasted over the Internet waves during
the 2000 Republican National Convention...."
Democracy Now!
a national, listener-sponsored public radio and TV show
Working
for Change
great information and resources website associated with Working Assets
The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
Philadelphia's Kensington Welfare Rights Union
Co-op America socially-responsible opportunities for investors
Wooden
Shoe Books the intellectual and
activist traditions of anarchism, alive and well and living in Philly
Adbusters
challenges to consumerism
John Perkins
Interview author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, from WNYC
Radio, New York, November 8, 2004.
Keith Olberman on the threat of fascism facing the United States
today;
...on habeas corpus
and the Military Commissions Act....
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change Stephen
Kinzer has reported from more than 50 countries and served as
The New York Times bureau chief in Turkey, Germany and
Nicaragua. He employs that far-flung perspective to examine
America's history of regime change in his recent book,
Overthrow.
David Barrett
on the Bay of Pigs invasion Recently discovered CIA documents suggest
some intelligence analysts had strong doubts about the Bay of Pigs invasion
plan. David Barrett is a professor of Political Science at Villanova
University. He is the first historian to bring to light a CIA report on how
the planning for Cuban invasion evolved.
Real Audio;
mp3.
Colonialism and History A short article with insight into
the brutal reality of colonialism, and our tendency to minimize and
forget it.
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