Announcements

1/12
Two of the suggested readings are books by Segal and Brown. If you're interested in the topics, we encourage you to purchase these books. We haven't ordered any through the NYU Bookstore. But here are Amazon links you can use:

Course Description

This seminar explores a variety of views that make our beliefs or perceptual experiences "externalist." We'll consider: beliefs about natural kinds, de re and demonstrative beliefs, whether experiences have de re contents, "disjunctivist" views of experience, and "factivist" views like Williamson's about what our perceptual evidence consists in. One line of inquiry will be whether these views permit us to have any special epistemic access to our own thoughts and experiences. A second line of inquiry will be what forms of mental causation externalist states can participate in. Here we'll pay special attention to issues about the "basing relation."

Meetings

Wednesdays 6-8, in the Philosophy Seminar Room, on the 5th floor of Silver Center.

We don't mind if attendees have to miss occasional meetings. But we do expect everyone who attends the seminar to have done the required readings and come prepared to participate in the discussion. No exceptions!

Assignments

Students enrolled for credit will write one term paper for the course, of 6000-8000 words. They will consult with the instructors throughout the term about outlines and drafts of this paper.

Contact Info

The course is taught by Jim Pryor and Nico Silins. You can reach Jim as follows:
Email: jim.pryor@nyu.edu
Office: 244 Greene St #306
Phone: (212) 998-8864 (office)
Office hours: Wednesdays 3:30-5

You can reach Nico as follows:
Email: <ns74@nyu.edu>
Office: Silver Center ???
Office hours: ??

Syllabus

Most of these readings are optional; the ones we mark as required we expect everyone to read and be ready to discuss. Nearly all of the readings will be available in the Philosophy Department copy room.

We may add some readings---and we will mark more of them as required---as the term progresses.

Weeks 1-2
Beliefs about Natural Kinds
  • Putnam, H. (1973) "Meaning and reference" JP 70, 699-711. Reprinted in Schwartz, ed. (1977) Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds. Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, 119-32.
  • Burge, T. (1982) "Other bodies" in A. Woodfield, ed., Thought and Object. Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 97-120. Reprinted in Pessin and Goldberg, eds. (1996), The Twin Earth Chronicles. Paragon House, New York, 142-60.
  • Putnam, H. (1975) "The meaning of 'meaning'" Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7, 131-93. Reprinted in Putnam, (1975) Mind, Language and Reality. (Philosophical Papers, vol. 2) Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 215-71.
  • Putnam, H. (1988) Representation and Reality. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Chapters 2-3.
Narrow Content
  • Loar, B. (1988) "Social content and psychological content" in R. H. Grimm and D. D. Merrill, eds., Contents of Thought. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, 99-110. Reprinted in Pessin and Goldberg, eds. (1996) The Twin Earth Chronicles. Paragon House, New York, 180-91.
  • Stich, S. (1978) "Autonomous psychology and the belief-desire thesis" Monist 61, 573-91. Reprinted in D. M. Rosenthal, ed. (1991) The Nature of Mind. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 590-600.
  • Jackson, F. and Pettit, P. (1993) "Some content is narrow" in J. Heil and A. Mele, eds., Mental Causation. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 259-82.
  • Lepore, E. and Loewer, B. (1986) "Solipsistic semantics" Midwest Studies in Philosophy 10, 595-614.
  • Stalnaker, R. (1990) "Narrow content" in C. A. Anderson and J. Owens, eds., Propositional Attitudes: the role of content in logic, language, and mind. CSLI, Stanford, 131-45.
  • Stalnaker, R. (1989) "On what's in the head" Philosophical Perspectives 3, 287-316.
Miscellaneous
  • Jackson, F. (1998) "Reference and description revisited" Philosophical Perspectives 12, 201-18.
  • Byrne, A. and Pryor, J. (2006) "Bad intensions" in M. Garcia-Carpintero and J. Macia, eds., The Two-Dimensional Framework. Oxford Univ. Press, 38-54.
  • Soames, S. (2001) Beyond Rigidity: the unfinished semantic agenda of Naming and Necessity. Oxford Univ. Press, New York. Chapters 1-2, 5; Chapters 9-11.
  • Stanley, J. (1997) "Names and rigid designation" in B. Hale and C. Wright, eds., A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. Blackwell, Oxford, 555-85.
Weeks 3-4
Demonstrative and de re thought
  • Donnellan, K. (1966) "Reference and definite descriptions" PR 75, 281-304
  • Kripke, S. (1979) "Speaker's reference and semantic reference" in P. A. French, T. E. Uehling and H. Wettstein, eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 6-27
  • Quine, W. V. O. (1956) "Quantifiers and propositional attitudes" JP 53. Reprinted in Quine (1976) The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, rev. edition. Random House, New York, 185-96.
  • Kaplan, D. (1968) "Quantifying in" Synthese 19, 178-214. Reprinted in Martinich, ed. (1996) The Philosophy of Language, 3rd edition. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 349-70.
  • Kaplan, D. (1978) "Dthat" Syntax and Semantics 9, 221-43. Reprinted in Yourgrau, ed. (1990) Demonstratives. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 11-33.
  • Kaplan, D. (1989) "Demonstratives" and "Afterthoughts" in J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein, eds., Themes from Kaplan. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 481-563 and 565-614.
Acquaintance Theorists
  • Donnellan, K. (1977) "The contingent a priori and rigid designators" Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2, 12-27.
  • Evans, G. (1979) "Reference and contingency" Monist 62, 161-89. Reprinted in Evans (1985) Collected Papers. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 178-213.
  • Jeshion, R. (2001) "Donnellan on Neptune" PPR 63, 111-35.
  • Salmon, N. (1987/8) "How to measure the standard meter" PAS 88, 193-217.
  • Jeshion, R. (2000) "Ways of taking a meter" PS 99, 297-318.
Latitudinarians
  • Sosa, E. (1970) "Propositional attitudes de dicto and de re" JP 67, 883-96.
  • Sosa, E. (1995) "Fregean Reference Defended" and "More on Fregean reference" Philosophical Issues 6, 91-99 and 113-22.
  • Jeshion, R. (2002) “Acquaintanceless de re belief” in J. K. Campbell, M. O'Rourke and D. Shier, eds., Meaning and truth: investigations in philosophical semantics. Seven Bridges Press, New York.
How Closely Do Belief Reports Track What We Believe?
Week 5
What are the contents of experience?
  • Siegel, S. "The Contents of Perception" (on web). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-contents/>
  • Soteriou, M. (2000) "The Particularity of Visual Perception" European Journal of Philosophy 8, 173-89.
  • Tyler Burge, "Vision and Intentional Content," in E. Lepore and R. van Gulick, eds., John Searle and his Critics. Blackwell (1991).
  • John Campbell, Reference and Consciousness. Oxford Univ. Press (2002). Chapter 6.
  • Martin, M. (2002) "Particular Thoughts and Singular Thought" in O'Hear, ed., Logic, Thought, and Language, 173-214.
  • Davies, M. (1997) "Externalism and experience" in N. Block, O. Flanagan and G. Güzeldere, eds., The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical and Scientific Essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 309-27.
  • Susanna Siegel, "Which properties are represented in perception?" forthcoming in T. Gendler-Szabo and J. Hawthorne, eds. Perceptual Experience. <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msKfinal.html>
  • Susanna Siegel, "Are kind properties represented in perception?" <http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msp/msp5_02.html>
Week 6
Disjunctivism about experience
  • Martin, M. (2004) "The limits of self-awareness" PS 120, 37-89.
  • Siegel, S. (2004) "Indiscriminability and the phenomenal" PS 120, 91-112.
  • Hawthorne, J. and Kovakovich, K. "Disjunctivism" (manuscript)
  • Byrne, A. and Logue, H. "Either/or: disjunctivism for dummies" (manuscript)
  • McDowell, J. (1986) "Singular thought and the extent of inner space" in P. Pettit and J. McDowell, eds., Subject, Thought and Context. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 137-68. Reprinted in McDowell (1998) Meaning, Knowledge and Reality. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass, 228-59.
Week 7
Factivism about what our perceptual evidence is
  • McDowell, J. (1995) "Knowledge and the internal" PPR 55, 877-93. Reprinted in McDowell (1998) Meaning, Knowledge and Reality. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass, 395-413.
  • Timothy Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford Univ. Press (2000). Chapters 1 and 9.
  • Byrne, A. and Logue, H. "Either/or: disjunctivism for dummies" (manuscript)
Weeks 8-9
Externalism and self-knowledge
  • Heil, J. (1988) "Privileged access" Mind 97, 238-51. Reprinted in Ludlow and Martin, eds. (1998) Externalism and Self-Knowledge. CSLI Publications, Stanford, 129-45.
  • Brown, J. (1995) "The incompatibility of anti-individualism and privileged access" Analysis 55, 149-56. Reprinted in Ludlow and Martin, eds. (1998) Externalism and Self-Knowledge. CSLI Publications, Stanford, 185-93.
  • Boghossian, P. (1997) "What the externalist can know a priori" PAS 97, 161-75. Reprinted in Wright, Smith, and Macdonald, eds. (1998) Knowing Our Own Minds: Essays in Self-Knowledge. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 271-84.
  • McLaughlin, B. and Tye, M. (1998) "Externalism, Twin Earth, and self-knowledge" in C. Wright, M. Smith and C. Macdonald, eds., Knowing Our Own Minds: Essays in Self-Knowledge. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 285-320.
  • McLaughlin, B. and Tye, M. (1998) "Is content-externalism compatible with privileged access?" PR 107, 349-80.
  • James Pryor, "Externalism about content and McKinsey-style Reasoning." <http://www.jimpryor.net/research/papers/McKinsey.pdf>
  • James Pryor, "Hyper-Reliability and A Priority" forthcoming in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. <http://www.jimpryor.net/research/papers/Hyper-Reliability.pdf>
  • Jessica Brown, Anti-Individualism and Knowledge. MIT Press (2004)
  • Davies, M. (2000) "Externalism and armchair knowledge" in P. Boghossian and C. Peacocke, eds., New Essays on the A Priori. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 384-414.
  • Beebee, H. (2001) "Transfer of warrant, begging the question, and semantic externalism" PQ 51, 356-74.
  • Davies, M. (2003) "The problem of armchair knowledge" in S. Nuccetelli, ed., New Essays on Semantic Externalism and Self-Knowledge. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 23-55.
  • Wright, C. (2000) "Cogency and question-begging: some reflections on McKinsey's paradox and Putnam's proof" Philosophical Issues 10, 140-63.
  • Boghossian, P. (1989) "Content and self-knowledge" Philosophical Topics 17, 5-26. Reprinted in Ludlow and Martin, eds. (1998) Externalism and Self-Knowledge. CSLI Publications, Stanford, 149-73.
  • Sydney Shoemaker, "Self-knowledge and inner sense, Lecture I" (1994), in his The First-Person Perspective and Other Essays. Cambridge Univ. Press (1996)
Weeks 10-11
Is there any causal role for externalist mental states?
  • Burge, T. (1986) "Cartesian error and the objectivity of perception" in P. Pettit and J. McDowell, eds., Subject, Thought and Context. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 117-36. Reprinted in Grimm and Merrill, ed. (1988) Contents of Thought. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, 62-76.
  • Burge, T. (1993) "Mind-body causation and explanatory practice" in J. Heil and A. Mele, eds., Mental Causation. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 97-120.
  • Kim, J. (1982) "Psychophysical supervenience" PS 41, 51-70. Reprinted in Kim (1993) Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 175-93.
  • Kim, J. (1989) "Mechanism, purpose, and explanatory exclusion" Philosophical Perspectives 3, 77-108. Reprinted in Kim (1993) Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 237-64.
  • Kim, J. (1989) "The myth of nonreductive materialism" APA 63, 31-47. Reprinted in Kim (1993) Supervenience and Mind. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 265-84.
  • Block, N. (1990) "Can the mind change the world?" in G. Boolos, ed., Meaning and Method: essays in honor of Hilary Putnam. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 137-70.
  • Segal, G. (1989) "The return of the individual" Mind 98, 39-57.
  • Segal, G. (2000) A Slim Book about Narrow Content. MIT Press.
Weeks 12-13
The "Basing Relation" and externalist states
  • Audi, R. (1986) "Belief, reason, and inference," Phil Topics 14, 27-65. Reprinted in Audi (1993) The Structure of Justification. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, Chapter 8, 233-73.
  • Ralph Wedgwood, "Internalism Explained," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (2002), 349-369.
  • Wedgwood, R. "The normative force of reasoning" (unpublished). Forthcoming in Nous. <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert1230/reasoning.ltr.pdf>
  • Williamson, T. "Can cognition be factorised into internal and external components?" (unpublished). Forthcoming in Robert Stainton, ed. Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Blackwell. <http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/faculty/members/docs/Stainton.pdf>
  • Wedgwood, R. "The Internal and external components of cognition" (unpublished). Forthcoming in Robert Stainton, ed. Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science. Blackwell. <http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert1230/cognition.ltr.pdf>