GENERAL INFORMATION FOR UNDERGRADUATES

 

The best way to contact me is by email:  <gwitmer>  You can also call me at my office:  (352) 392-2084 ext. 209.

 

My office is located at 115B Griffin-Floyd Hall.  My office is one of the small handful of philosophy offices that is on the first floor of Griffin-Floyd Hall.  Next to room 100 on that first floor is an entrance labeled "115" that leads to a suite of offices; go down that hallway to find mine on the left.

 

Office hours for Spring 2008:

Tuesdays 3 PM - 5 PM

Thursdays 4 PM - 5 PM

And by appointment

 

Occasionally students ask permission to come by during regular office hours, but no permission is needed.  Regular office hours are times during which you can simply walk in with questions or the like; no appointment is needed.  Of course, there may be a line at such times.

 

See here for the current CLASS POLICIES AND DETAILS document.  If you are taking one of my classes this semester you are responsible for the contents of this document.

 

See here for the current ESSENTIAL PHILOSOPHICAL TOOLS document.  This is a document I've developed for students in my undergraduate classes covering a variety of basic points on argumentation, common philosophical terms, and advice on writing philosophy papers.

 

The Florida Student Philosophy Blog was created in January 2007 as a venue for philosophy discussion by students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level.  It includes announcements of conferences and contests as well as general discussion of a very wide range of topics.

 

The American Philosophical Association is the primary professional organization for philosophers in the United States.  The Florida Philosophical Association is an organization for those of us in Florida.  You may wish to attend one of the FPA's annual conferences; you might also want to submit a paper for consideration in their annual undergraduate essay contest.  See their page for details.

 

As I point out in the "Essential Philosophical Tools" handout, you should be quite careful in making use of any outside sources in writing your own papers.  That said, if you want to browse an excellent online source of information on philosophy, you should look at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  The entries in the SEP are often quite advanced and can be very intimidating; still, you may find it interesting simply to browse the entries.  The UF Library's Philosophy Resources page provides an excellent list of links to various other sources online.  If you use these or any other outside sources at any point in working on your own papers, I strongly recommend that you do so only after you've already made extensive efforts on your own to tackle the material in the class.  Further, of course, you need to remember to provide a proper citation for any such sources; failure to do so will constitute academic dishonesty.  (If you have any questions about such citation or the like, do feel free to ask me.)