PHILOS 6
Introduction to Political Philosophy
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Study of some classical or contemporary works in political philosophy. Questions that may be discussed include What is justice? Why obey the law? Which form of government is best? How much personal freedom should be allowed in society? P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - ****SELLING PLATO'S "THE REPUBLIC" in great condition for $10! TEXT ME @ ************** This is a philosophy class, so there's never any order at all (and this is coming from a North Campus major). You will ALWAYS be confused about what you're supposed to be doing for this class and whether or not you're doing it right because there's no rubric or handouts or anything. Do NOT take this class with Michael Skiles as your TA. He's extremely unorganized and would always just ramble on and on in section about one aspect of the readings. I went to his office hours for feedback on my final project and when I asked him for his expectations (because no one was given a rubric despite the class syllabus promising one), he instead told me that the nature of philosophy is open-ended. That was totally wrong because when I got my final project back, he marked me down heavily for things that I failed to include that he wanted to see. Overall, the class workload isn't too bad. You read Plato's The Republic and a few other PDFs; there's an in-class midterm and take-home final in which you create your own utopia.
Fall 2018 - ****SELLING PLATO'S "THE REPUBLIC" in great condition for $10! TEXT ME @ ************** This is a philosophy class, so there's never any order at all (and this is coming from a North Campus major). You will ALWAYS be confused about what you're supposed to be doing for this class and whether or not you're doing it right because there's no rubric or handouts or anything. Do NOT take this class with Michael Skiles as your TA. He's extremely unorganized and would always just ramble on and on in section about one aspect of the readings. I went to his office hours for feedback on my final project and when I asked him for his expectations (because no one was given a rubric despite the class syllabus promising one), he instead told me that the nature of philosophy is open-ended. That was totally wrong because when I got my final project back, he marked me down heavily for things that I failed to include that he wanted to see. Overall, the class workload isn't too bad. You read Plato's The Republic and a few other PDFs; there's an in-class midterm and take-home final in which you create your own utopia.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Pretty clear, straightforward class. Your grade consists of three papers and participation. The papers aren't too hard, especially if you go to your TA for help (I had Kyle Scott and he always gave me great advice for my essays). Participation does matter, so you do have to talk sometimes during discussions, not just show up. Again, I had Kyle as a TA, so he considered anything from asking questions during section to giving your own take on a philosopher to going to office hours as participation. There are also pass/no pass quizzes that go into participation that were pretty easy. Dr. Gallagher posts all the possible questions on the slides and pretty much all the answers were on the slides too. As long as you pass three out of the four, you should be fine. Dr. Gallagher posts readings that you're technically supposed to read before every lecture. However, she explains everything really clearly during lecture so I personally don't think doing every single reading is necessary, just make sure you do the reading for the prompt you're going to write for your papers. She posts slides that have quotes and page numbers on them and I found that super helpful as a guide for writing my papers and citing stuff. I honestly found discussion more interesting than lecture, just because we were able to discuss and debate the content. Basically, lecture's to help you understand the content in a concise, straightforward way, discussion's then a place for you to give your own interpretation. Overall, I really did like this class, would definitely recommend taking it.
Fall 2019 - Pretty clear, straightforward class. Your grade consists of three papers and participation. The papers aren't too hard, especially if you go to your TA for help (I had Kyle Scott and he always gave me great advice for my essays). Participation does matter, so you do have to talk sometimes during discussions, not just show up. Again, I had Kyle as a TA, so he considered anything from asking questions during section to giving your own take on a philosopher to going to office hours as participation. There are also pass/no pass quizzes that go into participation that were pretty easy. Dr. Gallagher posts all the possible questions on the slides and pretty much all the answers were on the slides too. As long as you pass three out of the four, you should be fine. Dr. Gallagher posts readings that you're technically supposed to read before every lecture. However, she explains everything really clearly during lecture so I personally don't think doing every single reading is necessary, just make sure you do the reading for the prompt you're going to write for your papers. She posts slides that have quotes and page numbers on them and I found that super helpful as a guide for writing my papers and citing stuff. I honestly found discussion more interesting than lecture, just because we were able to discuss and debate the content. Basically, lecture's to help you understand the content in a concise, straightforward way, discussion's then a place for you to give your own interpretation. Overall, I really did like this class, would definitely recommend taking it.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - take this class if you can tolerate philosophy and only want to think about the class once a week. ok here's the thing. I went to the first lecture all ready to learn about philosophy and I left with the intention of never going to lecture again. The only thing I actually did for this class was go to discussion-- I didn't do the readings or go to lecture. My TA, Moises, was awesome and he basically summarized everything in 50 minutes that the prof couldn't do in 2.5 hours. There are only three assignments total which were all super doable and my TA let us turn in our rough drafts for editing, basically ensuring an A on each paper. Even if you wanted to go to lecture, he records it and I found it more helpful to listen to him in 2x speed when I was trying to find info for the papers anyways. So I guess I would recommend it lol
Spring 2023 - take this class if you can tolerate philosophy and only want to think about the class once a week. ok here's the thing. I went to the first lecture all ready to learn about philosophy and I left with the intention of never going to lecture again. The only thing I actually did for this class was go to discussion-- I didn't do the readings or go to lecture. My TA, Moises, was awesome and he basically summarized everything in 50 minutes that the prof couldn't do in 2.5 hours. There are only three assignments total which were all super doable and my TA let us turn in our rough drafts for editing, basically ensuring an A on each paper. Even if you wanted to go to lecture, he records it and I found it more helpful to listen to him in 2x speed when I was trying to find info for the papers anyways. So I guess I would recommend it lol
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