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Welcome to Ethics 240 online. I want to introduce myself, let you know what to expect and how
the course is laid out. I will post an introduction
video and then post a camtasia video that allows you to see
how the course works. First the introduction; my name is Professor
Arias or Facilitator of Recollection. I use the second one as
a way to introduce you to the idea that your instructor for any class, according to Plato,
should and will always be a facilitator or a midwife for ideas.
Meaning that, you already know many things and with the
right prompting you will recollect what you already knew. While there are many people
and philosophers who reject the notion of innate
knowledge represented above, I think the important thing
to grasp is that there is a mutual responsibility on the part of instructor and student. I need
to provide information and teach you ways to get to those
ideas and you have to do the hard work of, what Plato
calls, "birthing" ideas. He uses this analogy because learning isn't easy. In
fact it is one of the most painful things that we as human beings do.
I reject the notion that learning is and must be fun. I think it is fun at the end when
you finally get it, but most of the work leading up to that is
just that, work! Plato thinks that gaining knowledge is hard
and in the Allegory of the Cave, he gives reasons why. 1. We have been encouraged by
family and society to think and believe a certain way.
2. We may not know why or even like the ideas, but we like
the familiar and 3. even if we are slaves to others ideas it is a lot easier than gaining
real knowledge. Real knowledge would require hard work, emotional
pain and people laughing at or mocking us. Plato
actually says, imagine that the person were drug out of the cave, (loose translation).
Not a picture of someone having fun while learning if he must
be drug to gain knowledge. However, there is a bright
side and that is when we are released from the cave of our old ideas we would have the
light of the sun to see things as they really are and they
would be like things we had never seen before. My hope is that
this class will release you from the cave and that you will invest some time to consider
and question old beliefs and that you will begin to see things
clearer! As your facilitator I have 12 years' experience
facilitating. If you have questions feel free to ask and I will
help you as much as possible. I am always disheartened when students tell me they did
not understand something when it is too late for me to help.
I give you my office hours in the syllabus, which are T/Th
from 11:00:12:00 and my google voice number, which is 919-285-1645. You may call me and
either, I will pick up, or you will go to voicemail.
I return calls within 24 hours. Please do not call me after
6:00pm as I have a family, instead send an email. If you call after 6:00 pm it will still
ring to my cell, which I use for an alarm. Therefore, people
calling me at 12:00am generally do not receive fan mail from
me. One more thing about the course entry quiz
and attendance, make sure you complete the quiz before
the 16th of January or you will be withdrawn and no money will be given back to you for
the course. Also attendance is a non-negotiable as well. If
you are gone, meaning you miss two assignments, I will be
withdrawing you from the course. I am now responsible for attendance, certainly not
my wish or even something I want to have but since I am I
have to follow the schools policy and withdraw you in a timely
fashion. If I have not heard from you regarding why you missed and you have been gone twice,
I will simply submit the form. This is your warning
and the policy will be maintained.