Philosophy 0540: Requirements

There will be a mid-term examination on TBA and a final examination during the final examination period. (This is presently scheduled for Thursday, 17 December, at 2pm.) There will also be eight problem sets.

Final grades will be determined by a variety of factors.

• The first and most important factor is that all of the problem sets must be completed and submitted for marking. We'll let you off once, if you do miss one. Failure to submit all (but one) of the problem sets will automatically lead to a grade of NC. It is, quite simply, impossible to learn this material without doing a lot of problems, and students should actually plan to do a lot more problems than are actually assigned. Please note that the requirement is that the problem sets should be "completed", and by that I mean that one has given them a proper effort. Simply turning in a piece of paper with a few random jottings does not count as completing a problem set.
• It is impossible to do worse in this class than you do on the final exam. That is: If you get an A on the final (and have turned in all the problem sets), you will get an A for the course; if you get a B on the final, you cannot get worse than a B for the course, though you might get an A.
• It is impossible to fail the class if you have given it what we regard as proper effort.
• A presumptive grade will be determined by performance on the two exams, with about twice as much weight being given to the final. Borderline cases will be decided by performance on the problem sets. Exceptionally good or bad performance on the problem sets may move a grade up or down.

Problem sets are due in class on the day specified below. We will not accept late problem sets, as late sets make the graders' task much more difficult. On the other hand, you will find that we are quite prepared to grant extensions, so long as they are requested in advance, that is, at least one day prior to the due-date. Extensions will not be granted after that time except in very unusual and unfortunate circumstancess. And because we are so reasonable, exploitation of our reasonableness will be taken badly.

Let me emphasize again something said above. As with any mathematical subject-matter, it is impossible to learn this material without doing a lot of exercises. The book contains many more exercises than are assigned, and students are encouraged to do additional exercises to improve their understanding of the material. Students are also encouraged to work on the problems together—though, of course, submitted material should be a student's own work.

I should also emphasize, and will emphasize repeatedly throughout the semester, that, while the course is fairly easy at the beginning, it starts to get more difficult after the mid-term, and it then quickly becomes very difficult. And the course is very cumulative, so, if you get behind, it can be very difficult to catch up. It is absolutely impossible to learn this material in the two weeks before the final exam, and, if you try to learn it that way, I can pretty much guarantee that you will fail the course. Several people do regularly fail the course each time it is offered for this very reason.

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Richard Heck Department of Philosophy Brown University