Spring 2003

Seminar on Twin Earth

Assoc. Prof. James Pryor

Course Description

This seminar explores some issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind raised by Twin Earth thought-experiments. We'll be talking about these topics:

• Externalism about content
• The nature of a priori knowledge
• The nature and epistemology of de re belief
• Connections between indexicality and a prioricity
• The relations between externalism and knowledge of the contents of your own thoughts
• Reference-fixing and whether it gives us a priori knowledge
• How to understand the necessary a posteriori and illusions of contingency
• Two-dimensionalist theories of content, and the kinds of a priori knowledge they assume we can have

When and Where

Spring 2003, Tuesday evenings 7-10 PM, in Marx Hall Room 201.

Handouts

• Syllabus posted 2/4
• Ch. 1-2 of Jim's Old Water MS
• Varieties of 2Dism
• Glossary of terms we'll be encountering this semester
• Representing Propositional Structures with Trees 28 Feb

[Twin Earth Seminar] [Syllabus] [Notes and Handouts] [James Pryor] [Philosophy Links] [Philosophy Dept.]