This course will focus upon the fundamental skills, methods, concepts and distinctions that are essential for the study of philosophy.  The basic skills covered will include the writing of philosophy papers, the reading of articles, the extraction of arguments, and the evaluation of arguments.  The philosophical methods discussed will include the technique of counterexamples, the formulation of analyses by searching for necessary conditions, reductive analyses of concepts, functionalist analyses of concepts, methods of analyzing theoretical terms, the technique of reductio ad absurdum arguments, and the use of infinite regress arguments.  The basic concepts to be covered will include the concepts of analysis, supervenience, reduction, quasi-logical vocabulary, theoretical terms, subjunctive conditionals, the verifiability principle, logical form, truthmakers, modal logic, and possible worlds, while the distinctions examined will include necessary versus sufficient conditions, a priori versus a posteriori knowledge, necessary versus contingent truths, analytic versus synthetic statements, sense versus reference, intensional versus extensional contexts, de re versus de dicto statements, deduction versus induction, and inductive generalization versus inference to the best explanation.

Course Web Site

        The address of the course web site for this section of Philosophy 3480 is as follows:  http://spot.Colorado.EDU/~tooley/Philosophy3480.html

        On the course web site, you will find the syllabus, additional course readings, and lecture material relevant to the exercises to be assigned.

        Detailed instructions for the exercises will also be posted throughout the semester, as the exercises are assigned.

Textbooks

A. P. Martinich, Philosophical Writing, 2nd edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1996)

Optional - Out of Print

Samuel Gorovitz, Merrill Hintikka, and Donald Provence, Philosophical Analysis, 3rd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979)
 
 

Exercise 1:  Inference-Indicators and the Logical Structure of Arguments. (5%)

                                                                                            Due date:   Wednesday, January 19

Exercise 2:  Validity.  (5%)
                                                                                            Due date:   Monday, January 24

Exercise 3:  Analyzing a More Complex Argument.  (5%)
                                                                                            Due date:   Monday, January 31

Exercise 4:  The Technique of Counterexamples.  (5%)
                                                                                            Due date:   Monday, February 7

Exercise 5:  Analysis and Preliminary Evaluation of an Argument:  An Argument from Causation for the Existence of God.   (10%)
                                                                                            Due date:   Monday, February 14

Exercise 6:  Analysis and Preliminary Evaluation of an Argument:  Richard Swinburne's Proof of the Existence of the Soul.  (10%)
                                                                                            Due date:   Wednesday, February 23
 

Essay-Writing Exercises

Sub-assignments:

            (a)  Analysis and preliminary evaluation of the argument.  (10%)

                                                                             Due date:   Monday, March 4

            (b)  Basic thesis, and the structure of your essay.  (5%)

                                                                              Due date:   Monday, March 14

            (c)  The completed essay.  (15%)

                                                                             Due date:   Wednesday, March 30

Essay 2:  Defending a position on some ethical issue.  (30%)

Sub-assignments
:
            (a)  Basic thesis, and the structure of your essay.  (5%)

                                                                             Due date:   Friday, April 8

            (b)  Central argument or arguments in step-by-step form.  (10%)

                                                                              Due date:   Friday, April15

            (c)  The completed essay.  (15%)

                                                                              Due date:   Monday, April 25
 

Topics and Readings

Part I:  Some Logical Background

1.  Reasons and Arguments:  Deductive Logic and Inductive Logic

Philosophical Analysis, chapter I, pages 3-6.

2.  Evaluating Arguments:  Validity and Truth

Philosophical Analysis, chapter I, pages 6-18.

Philosophical Writing, chapter 2, pages 18-51.

3.  Review of Propositional Logic

Philosophical Analysis, chapter I, pages 18-38.

4.  Review of Predicate Logic

Philosophical Analysis, chapter II, pages 39-50.
 

Part II:  Some Fundamental Philosophical Methods and Skills

5.  The Technique of Counterexamples:    I.  Normative Ethics

Philosophical Writing, "Counterexamples", chapter 5, section 5, pages 119-29.

Abortion Argument Handouts.

6.  Basic Versus Derived Moral Principles

Abortion Argument Handouts.

7.  Writing Philosophy Essays

Philosophical Analysis, chapter III, "Important Terms", pages 59-74.

Philosophical Analysis, chapter VIII, "Reading and Writing Philosophy", pages 145-58.

Philosophical Writing, chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and Appendix A, pages 52-186.

Handout on Writing Philosophy Essays.

8.  Necessary Truths and Contingent Truths

Philosophical Analysis, chapter VI, "The Analytic-Synthetic and A Priori-A Posteriori Distinctions", pages 119-34.

9.  Analysis, and Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Philosophical Analysis, chapter VII, "Definition and Philosophical Analysis", pages 135-44.

Philosophical Writing, "Definitions", "Distinctions", and "Analysis", chapter 5, sections 1, 2, and 3, pages 96-114.

Edmund L. Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Analysis, Volume 23, (1963), pages 121-3.

10.  The Technique of Counterexamples:    II.  Conceptual Claims

Philosophical Writing, "Counterexamples", chapter 5, section 5, pages 119-29.

Edmund L. Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Analysis, Volume 23, (1963), pages 121-3.

David Armstrong, "Identity Through Time", page 75.

11.  Infinite Regress Arguments

Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, page 67.

12.  Reductio ad Absurdum Arguments

Philosophical Writing, "Reductio ad Absurdum", chapter 5, section 6, pages 129-36.

Philosophical Analysis, chapter III, pages 50-55, on set theory and Russell's paradox.

Anselm, Proslogion, chapters 2 and 3.

Gaunilo, On Behalf of the Fool, paragraph 6.

Ontological Argument Handout.

13.  Proof by Refutation of the Alternatives

Non-Inferentially Justified Belief Handout.

14.  The Postulation of Truthmakers Technique

Handout on Laws of Nature and Uninstantiated Properties.

David Lewis, Counterfactuals, pages 84-91.
 

Part III:  Some Important Philosophical Concepts and Distinctions

15.  Truth and the Bearers of Truth

Philosophical Analysis, chapter IV, "Truth and the Vehicles of Truth", pages 85-98.

16.  Sense and Reference

Philosophical Analysis, chapter V, "Extensions Versus Intensions", pages 99-118.

Gottlob Frege, "On Sense and Reference".  (On reserve)

17.  Extensional Versus Intensional Contexts

Intentionality Handout.

Roderick M. Chisholm, "Intentionality and the Theory of Signs", Philosophical Studies, Volume 3, (1952).

A passage from Bishop Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.

18.  Reductive Analyses Versus Theoretical Term Analyses

David Lewis, "An Argument for the Identity Theory", Journal of Philosophy, volume 63, (1966), pages 17-25.   (On reserve)

John L. Mackie, Ethics:  Inventing Right and Wrong, (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1977), chapter 1, especially pages 27-30 and 42-6.

19.  Reduction and Supervenience

Handout on Logical Supervenience, A Priori Supervenience, and Nomological Supervenience.

20.  Modal Logic and Possible Worlds

Philosophical Analysis, chapter III, "Modal Logic", pages 75-81.
 
 

Disability Services Statement

        If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner so that your needs may be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices).