INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

What You’ll Need

Apart from various skills and personality characteristics mentioned on the page “Before you Enroll...,” you will need the following to complete this course:

Technology

• Reliable and frequent access to a computer with internet-access (and on which you are able to install software).

• This computer needs to be able to run Second Life, including the voice-chat feature (go here to check hardware, software, and internet-connection requirements).

• A printer (for printing out texts to read). Don’t plan on reading these texts on your computer screen! They are too long, and many are too complicated for this (studies are quite clear on this point).

Texts

• The textbooks are available for purchase through the Campus Store at Manchester College, and the main textbook (Naragon, “A Book is a Machine to Help One Think”: An Introduction to Philosophy) is also available online on your ANGEL account). I strongly urge you either to purchase these texts, or to print them out.

If you are located near the Manchester College campus, you may want to purchase the main textbook — Naragon, “A Book is a Machine to Help One Think”: An Introduction to Philosophy (Spring 2010) — as well as two small and inexpensive texts: Plato, Five Dialogues (Hackett Publishing) and Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Hackett Publishing).

The Book is a Machine textbook is printed on campus and sold at cost, and will be more convenient for you to use (printed double-sided and bound) than if you print out the individual selections yourself. Roughly the first half of this textbook consists of my discussions of the various philosophical topics covered in this course, while the second half consists of reading selections from ancient, modern, and contemporary sources.

The other two books are quite inexpensive, and they offer very good translations from the original Greek (Plato) and Latin (Descartes). There are also public domain translations of Plato and Descartes that you can locate on the internet.

Second Life (SL)

• Open a free account with Second Life (go to: http://secondlife.com/). To participate here, you need to download a free program (about 139 MB) to install on your computer. This is a web-based virtual world; you will choose an “avatar” who will be your visual representation in that world. You can change the appearance of the avatar at any time, but the name that you choose when you register is permanent, so choose it well. Because we will need to converse with each other in Second Life, I strongly urge you to choose normal first names (for instance, “John” or “Betty”) rather than a “handle” (for instance, “87dxSmith” or “BigSexyGuy”); in fact, the more I work in Second Life the more I feel that it is best for you to use your real first name (or whatever name it is you like to go by, in the real world), along with one of the family names that the program offers you to choose from. Doing that will also help me keep track of you. If you really want to call yourself “BigSexyGuy,” then I suggest you open a second account under that name and to be used on your own time.

Once you set up your account with SL, do this: Open up the program and work through the tutorials on “Orientation Island” (that’s where your Avatar will first materialize, or “rez”). You should take a look at the on-line Quick Start Guide, and perhaps also examine tutorials available on the Second Life support web page.

Second Life is developed and operated by a group called Linden Labs, and anyone in Second Life with the last name of “Linden” is an employee of Linden Labs. Just this past year, a new Second Life viewer was made available (v.2), and I will assume that this is the viewer you will download and use.

When you open the Second Life program, you'll notice a “Search” field at the top right corner of the window. Type in “Eddy Grunstein” (that’s me, your instructor) and press 'Enter'. A window should open with two search results: "Eddy Grunstein" (that's my profile) and "Philosophy at Manchester" (that's the group that you will want to join). First, click on my name: that will open a window with my picture, and several buttons ("Offer Teleport", "IM", and "Details"). Click on "IM" (= Instant Message) and send me a brief message, including your real name (so that I can develop a list of who is who). This message will let me know that you’ve managed to get into SL, and it will allow me to easily find you. (If I’m not currently in SL — and I’m usually not in SL — then you’ll receive a note saying that your message has been saved for me — and, in fact, it will actually be sent to my email address.) Do all this right now.

NB: Your privacy in Second Life is yours to keep, and I would discourage you from giving out any contact information that could allow people you don’t know to locate you in the real world. You certainly can let the other students in the class know who the real person is behind your avatar, but whether you do so is up to you. For the purposes of the class, however, I need to know who is behind each avatar, since the real person is the one enrolled in the class, not the avatar as such.

Other

• Enroll in the course through Manchester College, after which you will have access to the materials available on a course software program called ANGEL (this includes the textbooks and various other resources, quizzes, etc.). After successful completion of the course, you will receive three hours of college credit.

Manchester College // Registrar // Department of Religion and Philosophy // Last updated: 10 May 2010