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.
Class meets Tuesday and Friday, 9:50 to 11:10; in
Scott
207 on the College Avenue Campus.
This course is an honors introduction to philosophy. It has no prerequisites, and assumes nothing in the way of previous philosophical exposure.
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Organization --
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Grading --
Overview --
Schedule
Organization --
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Schedule
Therefore, on days designated below as discussion days, we'll spend
the class period considering your questions, objections, and
arguments. On these days, you must pass in at the beginning of class a
short (1 to 2 paragraphs, typed) assignment in which you raise some
point about the week's reading. You may comment on anything which
grabs you --- anything exciting, boring, right, wrong, fun, stupid,
puzzling, or anything else. In short, just show that you've
thoughtfully engaged some aspect of the reading. We'll spend the class
period sharing these reflections with each other, and then discussing
them as a class.
To pass the course, you must hand in six of these discussion pieces
on the day on which they are due. They will not be given letter
grades.
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However, you only need to complete two of the five writing assignments.
If you hand in more than two of them, I'll use your best two in
determining your grade.
Although philosophical writing is an essential part of your
introduction to philosophy, it is a skill which can be quite difficult
to master. I'll be giving extensive feedback on your written work, and
you may find it useful to consult some of these tips on philosophical writing.
On the days when assignments are due, I will collect them at the
beginning of class. Anything handed in after the beginning of the
class -- be it 5 minutes or 5 days after the beginning of the
class -- is late. I don't accept late assignments unless I have given
an extension. I only give extensions in advance and only in cases of
real need. Of course, do not cause or allow your work to resemble
that of anyone else in the class, lest I suspect plagiarism is involved.
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Organization --
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Schedule
However, the most important connection between these materials in my
eyes (and the reason I have chosen them) is that they all reflect, in
different ways and to different extents, a rejection of prior
philosophical work in favor of a new and stronger conception of
philosophy. This is directly apparent in Descartes's rejection of the
Scholastic tradition and in his choice of radical doubt as the proper
starting place for his philosophy. It is found again in the attempt of
both Hume and the logical empiricists to restore philosophy to a
proper course by rejecting anything which falls afoul of their
methodological prescriptions. The sense of reform in the face of
crisis comes up in different ways in the last two segments of the
course. Here, the realization that innocuous premises apparently lead,
by valid reasoning, to shocking conclusions has indicated to many that
quite drastic changes are in order. In both of these cases, such
realizations have led to radical reformulations in the way we think
about what might initially have appeared to be quite simple concepts.
I hope that these sweeping reformations will be intellectually
exhilarating to you. By setting up the backgrounds to the problems we
shall consider, and then examining the problems and some proposed
solutions in detail, I hope to give you a feel for these issues and,
thereby, to introduce you to philosophy.
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3 September --- Organizational meeting; no reading due.
7 September -- Historical background to Descartes.
10 September -- Cartesian scepticism, nature of mind.
14 September -- Discussion day.
17 September -- Class canceled due to flooding!
21 September -- God, truth and falsity.
24 September -- God again, mind and body.
28 September -- Discussion day.
1 October -- Comments on Descartes's system.
5 October -- Background to Hume, Hume's psychology.
8 October -- Hume's psychology part 2, Hume on causation.
12 October -- Hume on probability and necessary connection.
15 October -- Discussion day.
19 October -- Liberty and necessity, free will, evil.
22 October -- Intro to logical empiricism, meaningfulness criterion.
26 October -- Problem of unobservables, confirmation paradoxes.
29 October -- Auxiliary statements, dispositional terms.
2 November -- Discussion day.
5 November -- Quine and analyticity, part I.
9 November -- Quine and analyticity, part II.
12 November -- Discussion day.
16 November -- Paradoxes, the heap, epistemic solution,
supervaluational solution.
19 November -- Objections to supervaluations.
23 November -- Degrees of truth solution, questions about degrees of
truth, vague objects.
24 November -- Discussion day (NOTE: class meets on Wednesday, not Friday).
30 November -- Confirmation and its paradoxes.
3 December -- Goodman's grue.
7 December -- Gettier on knowledge.
10 December -- Discussion day.
14 December -- Review period.
21 December (12:00 noon - 3:00 PM) -- Final exam.
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Organization
In general, introductory classes in philosophy tend to divide into two
types. They are either historical surveys of the thought of a few
important philosophers, or they focus on specific philosophical
problems. In this class, I want to try to combine these approaches.
We'll do this by dividing our time into five segments, some of which
will fall into the historical mold, and some of which will be based on
philosophical problems. The segments are as follows.
Note that section 5 may be abbreviated (or even skipped), depending on
how far behind we get in the material.
Books
There are four required texts for the class. These are Descartes's
Meditations, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic, and
R. M. Sainsbury's Paradoxes (second edition). I'm told that
these are all available at the bookstore. It's fine with me if you
want to use editions of the first three books other than the ones I
ordered, but you must use the second edition of the Sainsbury.
There will also be a few articles I'll xerox and pass out to the
course.
Discussions
Philosophy is not something that can be learned passively. To get the
most out of the course, it is absolutely essential that you read
carefully and actively, think hard about what you read, and then
challenge the material by finding objections against it. Learning
these skills is a difficult enterprise, but it one for which it is
well worth setting aside some time. Consequently, I want to spend a
significant amount of the time we have together on discussion, rather
than lectures.
Written Work
In addition to the discussion pieces and the (mandatory, closed book,
open note, in class) final, there is a writing assignment for
each segment. These assignments are given here.
Grading
I'll determine your grade for the course mostly on the basis of your
two papers (or your best two, in case you hand in more than two) and
your exam: each paper will be worth 40%, your exam will be worth 20%,
and I'll use class participation and your short discussion assignments
as a way of deciding borderline cases.
Note, however, that you cannot pass the course without handing in six
of the seven discussion assignments.
Overview
Although it may first appear that these materials treat completely
unrelated topics in philosophy, they are in fact related in several
important ways. For example, there are the historical connections: e.g.,
Hume's scepticism as a response to Descartes's rationalism, Ayer's
vision of himself as returning to Hume's sober reigning-in of
philosophy. There are also connections in subject matter: for example,
we'll have occasion to compare the different views of the nature of
knowledge which come up in the material on rational belief and
Gettier, in Descartes, and in Hume.
Tentative Schedule
(NB: readings listed on a certain day are TO HAVE BEEN READ on that
day.)
Reading: (From Descartes's Meditations) Preface to the Reader,
Synopsis of the following six Meditations.
Reading: Meditations 1-2.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: Meditations 3-4.
Reading: Meditations 5-6.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: None.
Writing: Descartes assignment due.
Reading: Hume, sections 1-2.
Reading: Hume, sections 3-5.
Reading: Hume, sections 6-7.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: Hume, section 8.
Writing: Hume assignment due.
Reading: Ayer, pp. 33-45.
Reading: Ayer, pp. 46-71.
Reading: Ayer pp. 71-87.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: Quine, ``Two Dogmas of Empiricism'' (this is a difficult
piece, and is worth reading at least twice).
Reading: Carnap, ``Quine on Analyticity''.
Writing: Logical empiricism assignment due.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: Sainsbury, pp 1-3, 23-36.
Reading: Sainsbury, pp 36-40.
Reading: Sainsbury, pp 36-51.
Writing: Heap/vagueness assignment due.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: Sainsbury, pp 73-81.
Reading: Sainsbury, pp 81-91.
Reading: Gettier, ``Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?''.
Writing: Belief and knowledge assignment due.
Reading: None.
Writing: Short discussion assignment due.
Reading: None.