Week One
July 23 (Huemer)
·
Huemer, Skepticism
& the Veil of Perception, ch. II. Read sections 1-2 (rest optional).
·
Huemer, “Foundations
and Coherence.”
·
Klein, “Infinitism
Is the Solution to the Regress Problem.”
July 24 (Huemer)
·
Huemer, “Compassionate
Phenomenal Conservatism.”
·
Huemer, “Phenomenal
Conservatism & the Internalist Intuition.”
July 25 (Tooley)
·
G. E. Moore, “Hume's Theory Examined,”
Chapter VI of Some Main Problems of Philosophy, pages 108-26.
·
Michael Huemer, “Easy
Answers to Skepticism,” Chapter III of Skepticism and the Veil of
Perception, pp. 27-49.
·
Hilary Putnam, “Brains in a Vat,”
Chapter 2 of Reason, Truth, and History, pages 1-21.
July 26 (Tooley)
·
Michael Huemer, “A
Version of Direct Realism,” Chapter IV of Skepticism and the Veil of
Perception, pp. 51-92.
July 27 (Monton)
·
Bas van Fraassen, selections
from The Scientific Image
Van Fraassen
is the preeminent proponent of scientific anti-realism (you'll find out what
that is when you do the reading). His version of scientific anti-realism is
called "constructive empiricism".
·
Paul Churchland, “The
Ontological Status of Observables”
Churchland criticizes constructive
empiricism. Churchland is a scientific realist ...
maybe? The last section of his essay is intriguing.
·
Bas van Fraassen, selections
from his replies to critics
Here
van Fraassen replies to Churchland.
·
Bradley Monton, “Prolegomena
To Any Future Physics-Based Metaphysics”
Even assuming that scientific
realism is true, there are reasons to be careful regarding reading off truths
about the world from science.
[Optional) For an
encyclopedic discussion of constructive empiricism, see my co-authored SEP
entry: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/constructive-empiricism/]
Week Two
July 30 (Lee)
Some of the most important developments
in ancient epistemology occurred in the Hellenistic period, with the Epicureans
and the Stoics. We will examine the sharp debates between Stoics, who put
forward an empiricist theory of perception and knowledge, and their Academic sceptical critics, under whose relentless pressure the
Stoics were forced to revise and refine their views. We will spend Day 1
examining Stoic epistemology, and Day 2 trying to figure out what kind of
‘skeptics’ the Academics were. If you have any questions, please feel free to
contact me by email before the seminar starts.
·
Long and D.N. Sedley, The
Hellenistic Philosophers, v. 1: Translations of the principal sources with
philosophical commentary. Cambridge UP 1987. Stoicism:
Epistemology: Stoics and Academics, pp. 236-266.**
·
Michael Frede, “Stoic
Epistemology,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, K. Algra, J. Barnes, J. Mansfeld and
M. Schofield (eds.) (Cambridge 1999) 295-322.*
·
Vogt, Katja, "Ancient
Skepticism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).
This is a survey of ancient
Greek skepticism—please read pp. 15-25, the section on Academic skepticism, in
order to get a general idea of the contours of Academic scepticism.
July 31 (Lee)
·
Long and Sedley, The
Academics pp. 438-467
·
Gisela Striker, “Sceptical Strategies,” in Schofield et al. (ed.), Doubt
and Dogmatism, Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980, pp. 54-83.
·
Schofield, Malcolm. “Academic
epistemology,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, K. Algra, J. Barnes, J. Mansfeld and
M. Schofield (eds.) (Cambridge 1999) 323-351.*
* Schofield 1999 and Frede 1999 were printed in a volume with a single
bibliography printed at the end. I will post the bibliography soon.
** If anyone would like a copy
of the original Greek/Latin texts for the readings in Long and Sedley, let me know, and I can scan a copy of those (from
Long and Sedley v. 2).
August 1 (Pasnau)
·
Robert Pasnau (2010), “Science and
Certainty”
·
Robert Pasnau (2010), ”Scientia for Mere Mortals”
August 2 (Pasnau)
·
René Descartes, Discourse on Method
pts. 1-4; First Meditation
·
John Locke (1689), Essay Bk. IV excerpts
August 3 (Monton)
·
Buchak, “Can
It Be Rational to Have Faith?”
This paper gets a little
technical toward the end, but it's really good. Don't get too bogged down in
the technical stuff; the paper picks up again on p. 30 with "The upshot of
this discussion...". (For the record, I love the technical stuff, but I
recognize that not everyone does.)
·
Garber, “Religio Philosophi”
Garber
is an atheist, but clearly feels the pull of religious faith.
·
Garber, “What
Happens After Pascal's Wager?”
This
is a beautifully written piece.
[Optional: For great
background reading on Pascal's Wager, see Alan Hajek's
SEP entry: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/]
Week Three
August 6 (Cleland).
·
Carol Cleland (2002), “Methodological
and Epistemic Differences between Historical Science and Experimental Science”
·
Derek Turner (2005), “Local Underdetermination in Historical Science”
·
Carol Cleland (2011), “Prediction
and Explanation in Historical Natural Science”
·
Aviezer Tucker (2011), “Historical Science, Over- and Underdetermined”
[Optional:
Elliot Sober (2001), “Venetian Sea Levels” ]
August 7 (Morriston)
·
Michael Bergmann, “Skeptical Theism
and the Problem of Evil,” in Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, eds., The
Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (OUP 2009).
August 8 (Morriston)
·
Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (OUP 2000), excerpts
August 9 (Oddie)
·
Frederic B. Fitch, “A Logical
Analysis of Some Value Concepts” Journal
of Symbolic Logic 28 (1963) 135-42.
[READ: pages 135-9, up to the end of Theorem 6.]
·
W.D. Hart, “The
epistemology of abstract objects II,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society Supp Vol 53
(1979) 153-65. [The essential reading in Hart is contained on pages
155-56 starting "Quine's epistemology for mathematics
..." and ending "...I am an unreconstructed realist.” However you may
want to read what precedes that and follows it to get the context.
Essentially, Hart extracts the argument in Fitch’s article that is
relevant to the viability of verificationism as a
theory of meaning.]
·
J. L. Mackie, “Truth and Knowability,” Analysis 40 (1980) 90-92. [A
response to Hart.]