Spring 2008
Logic
Course
Outline:
This is a standard introduction to
symbolic logic with a twist. We'll get up to speed with
first-order logic before spending the last third of the class
examining creativity and proof in mathematics. We'll look at
various styles of proof and will consider a few classic mathematical
proofs in detail. If you're math phobic, this course will cure
you.
Philosophical Methods
Course
Outline:
This class introduces aspiring and
current MA students in philosophy to formal methods commonly used in
contemporary philosophy. Topics will include decision theory,
computability, set theory, probability theory and modal logic.
Special focus for this semester will be on Bayesian approaches in
epistemology and philosophy of science. No special background
is required for the course and we will be using Clark Glymour's
Thinking Things Through as a reference and as a way of structuring
the topics. MA students will be expected to develop a project
related to their MA thesis as part of the class.
Course Schedule
Fall 2007
Philosophy of Mind
I'll be using
Lowe's An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind in addition to
the primary articles.
Slides for September
Slides
for October
American Philosophy
My version of American is light on the pragmatism and
heavy on the Kripke.
From the syllabus:
Course
Outline:
We will sample some of the
highlights of pragmatism before studying the reemergence of
metaphysics with the work of Ruth Barcan Marcus and Saul Kripke in
the 1960s and 1970s. Barcan Marcus’ importance lies in the
centrality of her arguments in the development of a genuinely robust
philosophical tradition in the United States. Her criticism of
Quine’s rejection of modality in the early 1960s can be understood
as a turning point in the history of philosophy. We will study her
work in detail. Building directly on her contribution, Kripke’s
lectures in Naming and Necessity have informed the way we
think about language, mind and inquiry and have set the stage for
much of contemporary philosophy. His Wittgenstein on Rules and
Private Languages tackles the challenge of understanding the
difference between correct and incorrect cases of following a rule.
This investigation connects directly to the intersection between
philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of mind and perhaps even moral
philosophy
Jim Pryor provides an excellent guide to writing a philosophy
paper
here