Current Syllabus

Paper #1

Paper #2

Paper #3

Day

Topic

Reading

9/7

Introduction

 

“A Brief Guide to Logic and Argumentation” (Norton Reader “NR”)

 

Part I – Epistemology: What should I believe?  What do I know?

9/12

Beginning With Doubt

 

Rene Descartes, “Meditation I: What Can Be Called Into Doubt” Meditations on First Phil (NR)

 

9/14

Analyzing Knowledge

 

Edmund Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” (NR)

Dharmottara, examples from Ascertainment of Knowledge 

 

9/19

Knowledge and Experience

 

Gregory Cajete, “Philosophy of Native Science” (from American Indian Thought, ed. Anne Waters)

 

9/21

Skepticism and Evidence

 

Ned Markosian, “Do You Know That You Are Not a Brain in a Vat?”

 

9/26

Knowledge and Context

 

Stewart Cohen, “Contextualism” (NR)

 

9/28

Knowledge, Standpoint, and Power

 

Charles Mills, "White Ignorance"

 

Part II – Metaphysics: What is there?

10/3

Recap and discussion

 

 

 

10/5

Against Physicalism

 

Gideon Rosen, “Numbers and Other Immaterial Objects” (NR)

 

10/10

Things

 

Stephen Yablo, “A Thing and Its Matter” (NR)

 

10/12

Qualia

 

Frank Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia” (NR)

             

Part III – Personal Metaphysics: What am I?  Who am I?  What can I do?

10/17

Personal Identity: What am I?

 

Introduction to Personal Identity, pp. 538-544 of NR

 

10/19

No Class

 

 

 

10/24

Personal Identity: Who am I?

 

Derek Parfit, “Personal Identity” from Reasons and Persons(NR)

 

10/26

Personal Identity: Where am I? 

 

Daniel Dennett, “Where Am I?”

 

10/31

Free Will and Responsibility

 

Galen Strawson, “Free Will” (NR)

 

11/2

Responsibility and External Influence

 

Susan Wolf, “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility” 

 

11/7

Responsibility and Conceptual Limitations

 

Tamar Szabo Gendler, “On the Epistemic Costs of Implicit Bias” 

 

11/9

Personal Identities

 

Sally Haslanger, “Gender and Race: (What) Are They?  (What) Do We Want Them to Be? 

 

11/14

Personal Identities (2)

 

Kwame Anthony Appiah, “The Illusions of Race”

 

Part IV – Ethics: How should I live?  What should I do?  Does it matter?

11/16

The Demands of Morality

 

Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” (NR)

 

11/21

The Demands of Morality (2)

 

Onora O’Neill, “The Moral Perplexities of Famine and World Hunger” (NR)

 

11/28

Moral Knowledge and Experience

 

Sarah McGrath, "Moral Knowledge and Experience"

 

11/30

Moral Knowledge and Experience (2) 

 

John (Fire) Lame Deer, “Talking to the Owls and Butterflies” from Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions 

 

12/5

Does Anything Really Matter?

 

Sharon Street, “Does Anything Really Matter or Did We Just Evolve to Think So?” (NR)

 

 


 

Part V – Social and Political Philosophy: How should we live (together)?

12/7

Preventing All Against All

 

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (excerpts) (NR)

 

12/12

Promoting All For All

 

Julius Nyerere, “Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism” 

 

12/14

Who Are We? 

 

Michael Huemer, “Is there a Right to Immigrate?”