Philosophy 235
Philosophy of Language

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Where: Philosophy seminar room (H&SS 7077)
When: Mondays, 3-6pm

Instructor: Jonathan Cohen (joncohenREMOVETHIS@aardvark.ucsd.edu (omit text in caps, which reduces automated spam))

office: (858) 534 6812

Office hours: Tuesday, 10-11:30am in H&SS 7066 (and by appointment; please feel free to call)

This graduate seminar in philosophy will serve as an introduction to several topics in contemporary philosophy of language. I take that to mean that (i) it will be fairly broad (i.e., unspecialized) in its coverage, and (ii) it will be devoted to materials that are often presupposed in more specialized discussions in contemporary philosophy of language. In short, this seminar will provide you an opportunity to read many of the philosophy of language articles that you know you should have under your belt but never get around to reading.

Requirements

Presentation: All attendees (including auditors) will be required to lead seminar discussions at least twice. A presentation should be a critical discussion rather than a summary or book report (after all, the presenter can assume that other participants have done the reading, and the other participants will make it the case that such an assumption is correct!), and should contain a thesis and arguments for that thesis. It can concern any topic connected with the week's reading that is of interest to the presenter. You must discuss your presentation with me sometime before the session in which you present, just to make sure you're on the right track. Seminar presentations may be given from notes (1 page maximum) or overheads; they may not be read aloud from a pre-written paper.

Participation and Short Papers: I want this seminar to be driven by discussion. But that can't happen unless we all come to seminar ready to participate. Therefore, students taking the course for credit will be required to hand in a short (1-2 page) paper every week. In each short paper, critically comment on any aspect of the reading that you find interesting --- again, no book reports. The purpose of these short papers is to force you to engage the reading in a serious way so that you'll be primed to participate actively in the discussion; use the papers to facilitate this goal, as a serious portion of your grade will be determined by seminar participation. I'll mark these short papers on a simple acceptable/unacceptable scale, and you must pass in 7 acceptable assignments to receive a passing grade for the course.

Final Paper: Students taking the course for credit will pass in a single 10-15 page paper by the end of the quarter (extensions will be granted only in cases of extreme emergency), on a topic of their own choosing that relates to the subject matter of the course. All such papers must be pre-approved in conversation with me. I mean it. Really.

Grading

I am deliberately putting extraordinary weight on seminar presentations and participation (emphatically including participation when you are not giving the presentation) as a way of encouraging you to do the reading and get actively involved in seminar discussions. You should come to seminar prepared to make substantive critical contributions every week.

Tentative Schedule