Dr. Hilary Davis
hdavis@yorku.ca

Virtual Office hours: by appointment on Zoom

• This introductory course explores a number of questions about the meaning of life, including: What is the meaning of (my) life? Is there any meaning at all?  Is life absurd?  If life is without meaning is that necessarily a bad thing?  What is happiness?  Is happiness identical to pleasure?  Is there a difference between living a happy life and a good life?  Should death be feared?  Should we want to live forever?
• In exploring these questions, we will read selections from the works of classical and contemporary philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Camus, Epictetus, Robert Nozick, Daniel Haybron, and Susan Wolf. 

Times and locations:

IN-PERSON COURSE

Lectures:

Mondays. 11:30am-12:30pm in Curtis Lecture Hall G

Wednesdays, 11:30-12:30pm in Curtis Lecture Hall L

See York Course Timetable for Tutorial times and locations

This course uses eClass to post lecture slides, course announcements, important links, and assignment instructions.  All written assignments must be submitted to Turnitin via eClass.  You must have a Passport York account and active York email which you check regularly.

The final exam will be in-person, location and time TBA.  There will be no online or remote option for the final exam. If you know you will not be able to take the final exam in person you should not take this course.

Virtual office hours:

Virtual office hours will be offered by appointment on Zoom.

• Coursepack available from York Bookstore
• Jennifer Wilson Mulnix & M.J. Mulnix, Happy Lives, Good Lives: A Philosophical Examination.  (Broadview Press, 2015).
• Lewis Vaughn and Jillian Scott McIntosh, Writing Philosophy: A Guide for Canadian Students, Second Canadian Edition.  (Oxford, 2012).
• Electronic readings as indicated on the course schedule

**Students are expected to attend weekly classes and tutorials regularly & to prepare all the reading assignments.**

• minor essay =20%

• major essay = 30%

• participation = 10%

• weekly quizzes (online) = 10%

• final exam (in-person) =30%

       TOTAL                                                                                                           100%

Please note that this schedule of deadlines and grading breakdown is non-negotiable.  The value of assignments will under no circumstances be reweighed or redistributed.

• Two 50-minute in person lectures per week
• One 50-minute in-person tutorial per week

• All deadlines and launch times are Eastern Standard Time.
• Each week there will be an online quiz on eClass that must be completed by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday.
• There are non-negotiable weekly deadlines for quizzes. Assignment deadlines are also non-negotiable.

In-person lectures and tutorials will not be recorded.

• To learn how to identify the main point (or thesis) and critically evaluate the arguments presented in short philosophical writing.
• To learn to write clear and engaging essays that present arguments supported with strong reasons.
• To learn about a variety of different philosophical approaches to life, death, happiness, and meaning.
• To reflect on your own conception of what constitutes a good or meaningful life.

Course policies

• The lecture slides, handouts, and all materials found on this site are for the personal use only of students who are registered in this course, PHIL 1100M. They are for educational purposes only and intended only to enhance accessibility. The instructor of this course holds the copyright to this material and does not give permission for any course material to be to duplicated, copied, and/or distributed outside of the class.  Nor do students have permission to upload course materials to commercial websites, file sharing websites or apps, or social media.  Anytime you download material from this eClass site you agree to these terms. Any person who uploads or shares course material without the instructor's permission violates copyright regulations and also FIPPA  and will face serious consequences.

• In this course, all work should be completed by you and you alone. As such, you are not allowed to use generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, to help you complete any of your work in this course (e.g., tests, papers, assignments, presentations, etc.). If you do not know whether an online resource or tool can be used in this course, please contact me for guidance. Any use of generative AI in this course will be considered a breach of the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty http://www.yorku.ca/policies/senate.
• Plagiarism and other misappropriation of the work of another will not be tolerated in this course.  Plagiarism is the representation of another person's ideas or writing as one's own. The most obvious form of this kind of dishonesty is the presentation of all or part of another person's published work as something one has written. However, paraphrasing another's writing without proper acknowledgement may also be considered plagiarism. It is also a violation of academic honesty to represent another's artistic or technical work or creation as one's own. Just as there are standards to which one must adhere in the preparation and publication of written works, there are standards to which one must adhere in the creation and presentation of music, drawings, designs, dance, photography and other artistic and technical works. In different forms, these constitute a theft of someone else's work. This is not to say that students should not use the work of others with the proper acknowledgement.  It is also a violation of academic honesty to forge another student’s signature on an attendance sheet.  Please see the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty at http://www.yorku.ca/policies/senate.
• Successful academic performance includes students not only completing assignments, but completing them on time. Late penalties are applied to assignments submitted after the due date. Exceptions to the late penalty can be presented to the course director by email for consideration. All essays must be uploaded to Turnitin via eClass.

• An assignment will be considered late one minute past the Turnitin deadline.

• You are strongly encouraged to avoid uploading assignments within the last hour of a deadline. If, for whatever reason, your document does not upload, it will be considered late.
• There will be no opportunity to make-up missed weekly Online Quizzes.  If you miss these weekly deadlines, you will receive a “0” for the assigned work. 

• The lowest 2 marks will be dropped for the weekly online quizzes. This is to say that of the 12 weekly quizzes only the highest 10 will count toward your final mark.
• The final exam will be in-person, location and time TBA. There will be no online or remote option for the final exam. If you know you will not be able to take the final exam in person you should not take this course.
• No make-up work or outstanding assignments will be accepted after Wednesday, April 3^rd