Handouts, Readings and Lecture Notes

General Handouts

• Philosophical Terms and Methods
• How To Read a Philosophy Paper
• Participation in Section
   
• Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper
• Topics for First Papers
• Topics for Second Papers
• Policies on Late Papers
• What the Different Grades Mean

Readings and Lecture Notes

Please check this space regularly, as things will be reorganized from time to time based on where our discussions are going. The dates for what to read when will also be posted as we go along.

Appearance versus Reality

• Introductory Notes 9/14
• Watch and discuss Twelve Angry Men
• Notes on Whether Knowledge Requires Certainty? 9/14
• Read selection from Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981), pp. 167-69 9/16
• Read selection from John Pollock and Joseph Cruz, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, NJ, 1999), pp. 2-5. 9/16
• Read selection from George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London, Secker & Warburg, 1949), pp. 245-53, 265-7. 9/16
• Notes on Philosophical Issues in the Matrix
  (Internet Movie Database | Official Matrix Website | Philosophy & the Matrix)
• Read James Pryor, "What's so bad about living in the Matrix?" <http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/new_phil_fr_pryor.html> 9/16
• Read selection from Peter van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Westview, Boulder, Colorado, 1993), pp. 19-21, 56-69. 9/16
• Read Feldman, Chapters 1-2, esp. pp. 17-21 and 22-23; also pp. 177-top of 182 9/16
• Notes on Knowledge and Facts 9/16
• Watch and discuss Contact
• Read Feldman pp. 182-188 on Disagreement 9/21
• Notes on Knowledge, Belief, and Reasons 9/21

Theory of Knowledge

• Read Rene Descartes, First Meditation, Meditations on First Philosophy (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 12-15. 9/23
• Notes on Descartes 9/28
• Read Rosenberg's First Conversation and to bottom of p. 22 in Second Conversation 9/28
• Read Feldman pp. 108-119 9/28
• Read Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1984), Chapter 1 [pp. 1-38]. 9/28
• Notes on Stroud's Chapter 1 9/28

"Evidentialist" Responses to Skepticism

• Read Feldman pp. 39-49, 119-129, 141-144, 148-152 9/30
• Read David Blumenfeld and Jean Blumenfeld, "Can I know that I am not dreaming?," in Michael Hooker, ed. Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1978), pp. 234-55. 9/30
• Notes on Blumenfelds 9/30

"Relevant Alternatives"

• Notes on Whether this is all Just a Terminological Dispute? 10/12
• Read Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1984), Chapter 2 [pp. 39-82]. 10/12
• Read Stewart Cohen, "Skepticism and everyday knowledge attributions," in Michael D. Roth and Glenn Ross, eds. Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1990), pp. 161-9. 10/12
• Notes on Stroud's Chapter 2 10/12

The Gettier Problem and Extra-Evidential Theories of Knowledge

• Read Edmund Gettier, "Is justified true belief knowledge?," Analysis 23 (1963), pp. 121-23. Reprinted in Paul K. Moser, ed., Empirical Knowledge: readings in contemporary epistemology (Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, NJ, 1986), pp. 231-33. 10/19
• Read selection from Gilbert Harman, Thought (Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 142-149. 10/19
• Read Rosenberg, pp. 20-top of 40 10/19
• Read Feldman, Chapter 3 10/19
• Notes on The Gettier Problem 10/19
• Read Fred Dretske, "The pragmatic dimension of knowledge," Philosophical Studies 40 (1981), pp. 363-78. 10/21
• Read Stewart Cohen, "Skepticism, relevance, and relativity," in Brian McLaughlin, ed. Dretske and His Critics (Blackwell, Cambridge, Mass., 1991), pp. 17-37. 10/21
• Notes on Dretske's Relevant Alternatives Theory 10/21
• Read Alvin Goldman, "Discrimination and perceptual knowledge," Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976), pp. 771-791.
• Read Feldman, pp. 81-86
• Notes on Goldman and Perceptual Discrimination

Contextualism

• Read Keith DeRose, "Contextualism: an explanation and defense" in John Greco and Ernest Sosa, eds., The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology. (Blackwell, Malden, Mass., 1999), pp. 187-205.
• Read Feldman, pp. 152-155
• Read selection from Ernest Sosa, "Skepticism and contextualism" Philosophical Issues 10 (2000), pp. 1-10.
• Read selection from Hilary Kornblith, "The Contextualist evasion of epistemology" Philosophical Issues 10 (2000), pp. 24-30.
• Notes on Contextualism

Theory of Evidence

• Read Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Holt, New York, 1912), Ch. 1-2 [pp. 7-27]. 11/4
• Read Georges Dicker, Perceptual Knowledge (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1980), pp. 11-46. 11/4
• Notes on Sense-Data 11/4
• Read Feldman, pp. 49-60 11/4
• Read David Armstrong, "Is introspective knowledge incorrigible?" Philosophical Review (1963) 72, pp. 417-32. 11/4
• Optional: Frank Jackson, Perception (Cambridge, 1977), Ch. 1 and 3
• Optional: David Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (Routledge, 1968), Ch. 10
• Optional: Michael Tye, "Visual qualia and visual content" in Tim Crane, ed., The Contents of Experience (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 158-176

Reliabilism

• Read rest of Rosenberg's Third Conversation 11/11
• Read Alvin Goldman, "What is justified belief?," in George Pappas, ed. Justification and Knowledge (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1979), pp. 1-23. 11/11
• Read Feldman, pp. 90-99 11/11
• Notes on Goldman, "What is Justified Belief?" 11/11
• Notes on Problems for Reliabilism 11/16
• Read Laurence BonJour, "Externalist theories of empirical knowledge," in P.A. French, T.E. Uehling and Howard Wettstein, eds. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980), pp. 53-73. 11/18
• Notes on BonJour's Critique of Goldman 11/18
• Read Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, "Internalism defended" American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (2001), pp. 1-18. (Recommended reading)

Foundationalism versus Coherentism

• Notes on Foundationalism and Coherentism 11/30
• Read Laurence BonJour, "Can empirical knowledge have a foundation?," American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978), pp. 1-13. 11/30
• Notes on BonJour's Arguments against Foundationalism 11/30
• Read Laurence BonJour, "The dialectic of foundationalism and coherentism," in John Greco and Ernest Sosa, eds., The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (Blackwell, Malden, Mass., 1999), sections 1-4 [pp. 117-30, 139-40].
• Read Feldman, pp. 60-70
• Read William Alston, "Level confusions in epistemology," in P.A. French, T.E. Uehling and Howard Wettstein, eds. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980), pp. 135-50. Reprinted in his Epistemic Justification (Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, 1989), pp. 153-71.
• Read William Alston, "What's wrong with immediate knowledge?," Synthese 55 (1983), pp. 73-95. Reprinted in his Epistemic Justification (Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, 1989), pp. 57-78.
• Notes on The Given Theory