Fall 2012
Philosophy 267: Sections 01 & 02
Philosophical Approaches to God
Structured Conversation Format
Schedule
Part of our class (and your grade) will involve structured conversations about topics related to the course. The class will divide into 8 teams with 3 or 4 members on each team. Two teams at a time will lead a particular round of conversation. There will be four conversations in all.
Here's the schedule:
- Monday 24 September:First Conversation - Do Evil and Suffering Disprove God?
- Monday 22 October:Second Conversation–What Are Miracles & Might They Occur?
- Monday 5 November:Third Conversation–Are There Good Arguments for God?
- Monday 19 Nobember:Fourth Conversation–Does Morality Need God?
Topics
Each structured conversation will have an assigned thesis as listed above. The teams will have to word these theses as positive affirmations. One team will take an affirmative position about the thesis and the other teams will take the negative position. Which team will take which will be determined several classes prior by consensus or, if necessary, a coin toss. Members of the teams will then have to decide upon their individual roles and prepare their presentations for the conversation.
For instance, one conversation could involve the following:
- Thesis: Cosmological arguments for God successfully provide significant evidence of divine existence.
- Affirmative: Yes, cosmological arguments doprovide significant evidence for God’s existence.
- Negative: No, cosmological arguments fail to provide significant evidence for God’s existence.
Conversations should draw upon texts and arguments that we have encountered in class through the various readings. Also, no team should feel obligated to bring ineverytext available for a particular viewpoint (e.g., the text contains 11 separate selections on the problems of evil and suffering, but a conversation could choose to focus in on only a couple of these).
Format
The conversation format will resemble the format used in many high school debate teams, though not following those rules precisely and is not designed to be combative in the way a debate might be.
A conversation will run, therefore, in the following way (where "1A" means "first person from team A," etc.):
- Affirmative opening (1A) 6 minutes
- Negative opening (1B) 6 minutes
- Affirmative development (2A) 5 minutes
- Negative development (2B) 5 minutes
- Negative response (3B) 5 minutes
- Affirmative response (3A) 5 minutes
- Negative closing (4B) 4 minutes
- Affirmative closing (4A) 4 minutes
Grades will be based upon the clarity and effectiveness of arguments, as well as organization and succinctness of thought. Though rhetorical effectiveness as a speaker will not be ignored, your grade is less focused upon your rhetorical abilities.