ATS1835: Time, Self, and Mind (Introduction to Philosophy B)

- Assessment Tasks 1, 2, 3 - Short-answer questions (Worth 10% each)
- Assessment Task 4 – Essay (Worth 30%)
- Assessment Task 5 – Optional weekly quizzes (Worth .5%)
- Exam (Worth 40%)

The Content
This unit is broken up into four parts:
1.Time (With a Logic interlude)
2.Mind
3.Self
4.Knowledge

Time is concerned with the idea of time travel, and free will. The Mind section focuses on Descartes, and the mind-body problem, as well as Alan Turing, and computationalism. If you like AI, or even science-fiction, you will probably enjoy these two sections. I do like Descartes, so I did enjoy the Mind section, but I enjoyed Self and Knowledge much, much more. Knowledge speaks for itself, you’ll consider the question, ‘What is knowledge?’ and you’ll be reintroduced to Descartes again. In Self, you study John Locke, and the concept of personal identity.

Assessments
The assessments are similar to those in ATS1371, although you won’t struggle if you haven’t done it.

The first three assessments are short-answer questions, usually two, or three questions of 300 words each. If I remember correctly, they’re on each of the first three sections; Time, Mind, and Self.

The essay is worth 30%, and is 1250 words. So, relatively short. You’re given quite a few different prompts to choose from, and they’re from each of the four sections of the unit. I wrote mine on Descartes, Alan Turing, and John Searle’s Chinese Room thought-experiment, which I found by far the most interesting.

Like ATS1371, there are also optional weekly quizzes based on the readings. There are six questions, and if you answer at least 5 correctly, you receive a bonus mark of .5%. These run from weeks 1-11.

The exam is worth 40%, and consists of two sections:
1. Multiple-choice – 20 questions, and worth 40 marks.
2. Short essays – 4 questions, of which you must answer two. Each response should be approximately 300 words, and is worth a total of 60 marks, or 30 marks for each essay.

Before the exam, you receive a sample exam. The practise exam is designed so that if you study it well, you should do well on the exam. The practise exam consists of 14 multiple-choice questions, which are either identical to, or similar to those that you receive on the actual exam. There are also 12 essay prompts, 4 of which you will receive on the exam.

The exam was easy, and I think a lot of people would agree since a lot of people were leaving after the first hour. As long as you study the practise exam, and go over the content from each week, there shouldn’t be anything too unexpected pop up.

Dr. Oisin Deery

No, but you’re given a sample exam.

3/5

Yes, with screen capture.

The Unit Reader, which you need for readings.

2x1 hour lectures, 1x1 hour tutorial

Semester 2, 2017

TBA

5% Assessment Task (2 or 3 questions).
10% Assessment Task (2 or 3 questions).
15% Assessment Task (2 or 3 questions).
30% Essay task.
40% Exam.

So, the exam is pretty generous. It's 20 multiple choice questions, and 2 short answer questions. The multi choice section is worth 40%, and each short answer question is worth 30%.

There's a sample exam where they give you 15 multi-choice questions (something like 12 of which appeared on the actual exam), and they give you like 12 short-answer questions, 3 of which are guaranteed to appear on the exam, and 2 of which you're supposed to answer.

So essentially, if you're taking this unit as a first year and you keep up with your readings, the exam should be really easy. If you're taking this as a third year philosophy student, you'll be able to cram it over a weekend because a lot of the concepts have already cropped up in other units.

The unit is split into five sections: time travel, logic, the 'mind', the 'self', and 'knowledge. So basically, the unit is made up of logic, metaphysics and epistemology. I already took a unit on logic, but if you haven't done that unit, that section might take a bit to grasp and would recommend reading twice and taking notes on it, just because it's hard to feel how 'definitive' it is when you just read through it. Otherwise, all the other sections raised pretty cool conceptual questions.

As far as being a summer unit - the support was pretty good. The staff are pretty good with email responses and normally have a really quick turnaround, and your assessments get marked insanely fast, too. Also, when taking the unit by distance, you get a chance to nominate what mark you'd like up to a distinction, and if you achieve lower than that mark you get a 'reattempt' after reading feedback, which means that you can essentially guarantee yourself at least a distinction if you focus on the unit.

It kind of went by in a bit of a blur over summer and so my mind is really scattered - if you have any questions about the unit feel free to message me so I can make additions to this section and give a more comprehensive review.

I think Paul Silva or Sam Butchart take the lectures. I'm not sure - I listened to two lectures and Paul/Sam took one each out of the ones I listened to. They probably share it each semester. I know Paul has been doing it the last few semesters from talking to him in Ethics class.

There's a sample exam, more on that in the 'comments' section.

4 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture.

ATS1835 Reader. Absolutely necessary.

2 x Weekly lectures (accessed via MULO if you're taking the subject via distance)
1 x Weekly tutes (there are no tutes for summer units, but you'll have one tute a week if you do it during the regular semester).

2014-2015 Summer semester.

Dunno yet.