Rationalism and Empiricism
Instructor: Jonathan Cohen
(joncohenREMOVETHIS@aardvark.ucsd.edu (omit text in caps, which reduces automated spam))
office: (732) 445 6163
home: (718) 499 1213
Office hours: Tuesday, 12:30 to 2:00, in
Psychology A132, on Busch Campus.
Overview
This course will study rationalism and empiricism as opposing
conceptions of the nature of knowledge, and of human minds.
Among other matters, we'll be comparing what (historical and
contemporary) rationalists and empiricists have said about such topics
as learning, innateness, the status of mathematical knowledge and the
epistemology of mathematics, the relationship between knowledge of
language and knowledge of the world, and perception.
Course Requirements
If you are taking the class for credit, you will be responsible for
passing in two short papers (~10-12 pages) or one long paper (20-25
pages) on some issue raised in the course.
You must meet with me prior to writing any paper for the course to
make sure that the topic you choose to write on is appropriate.
Reading List
- Historical Rationalisms, Historical Empiricisms
- Locke, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Book
I, introduction; I,i,1-15; II,i,1-8; II,i,24-25; II,ii,1-3;
IV,i,1-9; IV,ii,1-15; IV,iii,1-18
- Leinbiz, "Letter to Queen Charlotte of Prussia"
- Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Introduction
- Mill, A System of Logic (selections)
- Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, sections
7-17
- Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, chapter 4
- Innateness and Language
- Chomsky, "Methodological Preliminaries"
- Chomsky, Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and
Use, chapter 1
- Chomsky, Cartesian Lingusitics
- Pinker, Learnability and Cognition (selections)
- Cowie, What's Within?: Nativism Reconsidered,
chapters 7-11
- Innateness and Concepts
- Fodor, The Language of Thought, chapter 2
- Fodor, "The Present Status of the Innateness Controversy"
- Fodor, Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went
Wrong, chapter 6
- Cowie, What's Within?: Nativism Reconsidered,
chapters 1-6
- Analyticity
- Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, chapter 1
- Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"
- Grice and Strawson, "In Defense of a Dogma"
- Katz, "Analyticity, Necessity, and the Epistemology of
Semantics"
- Cohen, "Analyticity and Katz's New Intensionalism"
- Kripke, Naming and Necessity, lecture 1
- Mathematical Knowledge
- Benacerraf, "What Numbers Could Not Be"
- Benacerraf, "Mathematical Truth"
- Benacerraf, "What Mathematical Truth Could Not Be"
- Chihara, "A Godelian Thesis Regarding Mathematical
Objects: Do They Exist? And Can We See Them?"
- Kitcher, The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge,
chapters 1-5
- Steiner, Mathematical Knowledge
- Katz, Realistic Rationalism, chapters 2-3