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Required textbooks:

You will have to have paper copies of these books, which you will need to bring to class.

Optional textbook:

Reading Assignments:

  1. Aug. 25: Introduction.

    Optional prereading: Descartes, "The Search for Truth" (CSM II:399-420 [that is, in the Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch edition of The Philosophical Writings, vol. II, pp. 399-420]); "Discourse on the Method," first para. of Part II (at CSM I:116-17, starting "At that time I was in Germany...").

    I'll ask you to read Descartes's first Meditation in class, and if you want to preview that, see the link for the following week, below.

  2. Sept. 1: Modern Skepticism.

    • Skepticism with a Point. Meditations on First Philosophy, the First Meditation ("What can be called into doubt," CSM II:12-15).
      Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History, ch. 1; Donald Davidson, "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics," sec. 1.
      Optional reading: Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History, chs. 2-3; Davidson, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge".
    • One Thing I'm Sure About: I'm Right Here! Descartes, Second Meditation (CSM II:16-23). CSM I:127, para. starting "Next I examined attentively..."; Jaakko Hintikka, "Cogito, Ergo Sum: Inference or Performance?". Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, secs. 16-17 (excerpt on handout).
      Optional reading: Robert Nozick, "Fiction," in Socratic Puzzles.
    • If There's One Thing I'm Sure of, Then I Know What I Am. Avner Baz, "Whose Dream Is It Anyway?", sec. 7 only, starting on p. 281.
      Optional reading: Harry Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen, ch. 10. Norman Malcolm, "Descartes's Proof that his Essence is Thinking".
  3. Sept. 8: Building a Skyhook.

    • Various Kinds of Reality. Descartes, Third Meditation.
      Optional reading: Bernard Williams, Descartes, ch. 5 ("God"), up to p. 137 (in the Routledge edition, = p. 153 in the Penguin edition).
    • Reality Conservation. Annette Baier, "The Idea of the True God in Descartes," thru sec. 2 (i.e., up to p. 365), in Rorty, Essays (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
      Optional reading: The remainder of the Baier paper; Margaret Wilson, "Can I Be the Cause of My Idea of the World?", in Rorty, Essays (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
    • Reality Check. Austin, Sense and Sensibility, para. bridging pp. 70-71, under the heading (2): "Next, 'real' is what we may call... "; William James, in The Meaning of Truth, "The Tigers in India," p. 43 up to the top of p. 46, "...any that nature yields," and "Knower and Known," from p. 104, "Suppose me to be sitting..." up through p. 109, at the section break (handout; also available online through Marriott Library).
      Optional followon reading, if you want to follow up on the comparison to the Transcendental Deduction: Lanier Anderson, "Synthesis, Cognitive Normativity, and the Meaning of Kant's Question, 'How Are Synthetic Cognitions A Priori Possible?'" European Journal of Philosophy 9(3), Dec. 2001: 275-305.
  4. Sept. 15: Skyhook Engineering.

    • Fine Print on the Warranty. Descartes, Fourth Meditation. Bernard Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, ch.6 ("Error and the Will").
      Optional reading: Bernard Williams, "Deciding to Believe" (search Marriott for his book, Problems of the Self; this is ch. 9). And a followup: for a more leisurely and Wittgensteinian exploration of the idea that absolute freedom of the will comes of not having anything to contrast it with, see Rogers Albritton, "Freedom of Will and Freedom of Action".
    • Shoring Up the Skyhook: Upcycling Anselm. Descartes, Fifth Meditation. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, "The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God" (A592/B620-A602/B630).
      Optional reading: Bernard Williams, Descartes, the rest of ch. 5 ("God"), from p. 137 (in the Routledge edition, = p. 153 in the Penguin edition).
    • How to Turn an Idea into a Short Paper. Review Baier thru sec. 2.

      Optional reading: Jonathan Bendor, "Intelligence versus Rationality: Simon's Dueling Reference Points" (available shortly).
  5. Sept. 22: Mind, Body, Making Distinct.

    • Mind vs. Body. Descartes, Sixth Meditation.
      Optional reading: Marleen Rozemond, "Descartes's Dualism" (available from Marriott Library; for the online version, look for Janet Broughton and John Carriero, A Companion to Descartes; this is ch. 22, which you'll find under "Part III"). For the full-length version, see Rozemond, Descartes's Dualism, also available from Marriott Library (in that case, focus on the chapter on "The Real Distinction Argument").
    • Using LLMs for Argument Analysis, plus: Scholarly Etiquette Review. Review Med. II:30-32 (at CSM II:33f) plus TBA.

      Optional reading: Mystery Mss, Lect. IV.
    • The Pre-Refuted Publication! First Lap....
      Letter to the Sorbonne; Preface to the Reader; First Objections and Replies (CSM II:3-8, 66-86).
  6. Sept. 29: What Was All That About?

    • Student Sessions.
      Reading: Andrew Shackelford, "The Dangers of Anachronistic Analysis"; Logan Kelly, "Whose Dream But My Own?"
      Optional reading: Louis Loeb, "Is There Radical Dissimulation in Descartes' Meditations?" (ch. 11 in Baier, Essays); review Avner Baz, "Whose Dream Is It Anyway?"
    • Intricate Engines and the Clarity Touchstone. Reading: Second Objections and Replies (CSM II:87-120); review First Objections and Replies.
      Optional reading: John Carriero, "The Cartesian Circle and the Foundations of Knowledge" (available from Marriott Library; for the online version, look for Janet Broughton and John Carriero, A Companion to Descartes; this is ch. 18, which you'll find under "Part III").
    • What's Legitimized by Underwriting the Scientific Enterprise? Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen, chs. 2-3. Optional reading: Hilary Putnam, "Logical Positivism, the Kantian Tradition, and the Bounds of Sense" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Charles Sanders Peirce, "The Fixation of Belief," in N. Houser and C. Kloesel, eds., The Essential Peirce (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
  7. Oct. 6: Mind, Body, and Methodology.

    • What Kind of Control Do You Have Over Your Will? Review Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen, ch. 2, then read ch. 4. Principles of Philosophy, Part I, arts. 31-42 (CSM I:203-06). Optional reading: David Rosenthal, "Will and the Theory of Judgment" (in Rorty, Essays).
    • Student Sessions.
      Reading: Marshal Ruiz, "No Regrets".
      Optional reading: O. K. Bouwsma, "Descartes' Evil Genius".
    • Why Draw the Mind-Body Distinction There? Reading: Discourse, Part V, at CSM I:139-41, from "I explained all these matters..." to the end of the section; review CSM II:59/VI:19 (para. starting "The first observation I make..."); review CSM II:109, from "Our natural knowledge tells us..." to the end of the para.; Wilson, Descartes, pp. 194-198 (from "In the Fourth Objections, Antoine Arnauld..." up to "...concerning the 'particulars' of sense").
      Optional reading: Ruth Mattern, "Descartes: 'All Things Which I Conceive Clearly and Distinctly in Corporeal Objects Are in Them'" (in Rorty, Essays).

    Have a great Fall Break! Take CSM vol. I to Aruba, and check out: Rules of the Direction of the Mind (I:9-76), Principles of Philosophy, Part II ("Principles of Material Things," I:223-47), and The World (I:81-98).

  8. Oct. 20: From Epistemology to Apriori Physics. (tentative)

    • Scientific Method, the Early Version. Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action, pp. 85-89 (on reserve in the Philosophy Department); Rules of the Direction of the Mind, through Rule Four (i.e., up to CSM I:20); Principles of Philosophy, Part II, through art. 25.; art. 33 to 37; art. 55; art. 64.
      Optional reading: Heather Douglas, "The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity".
    • Student Sessions.
      Reading: TBA.
      Optional reading: TBA.
    • Descartes' Timaeus. Reading: The World (I:81-98); Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, ch. 9 ("Science and Experiment").
      Optional reading: TBA.