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PHIL 3300
Weekly Assignments

    • The default is to outline the passage I assign.
    • If you choose a different passage:
      • make sure it contains an argument.
      • you have to tell me what it is. (I'm not a mind reader.)
      • please make it terse -- a paragraph or two, not a chapter, or anything like a chapter.

        (I have to read the passage side by side with your outline, to check that the latter correctly represents the argument in the former.)

        My experience is that attempts to outline longer stretches of text don't generally work out well.

  1. Aug. 19: (for those of you who have already taken a class from me, who know what these outline assignments -- not the same as microcommentary assignments! -- are supposed to look like, and who want to get an early start): Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, in Med. I, fifth para. (in the Cress translation, "All of this would be well and good..."; Haldane [the online link on the readings page]has it: "At the same time I must remember that I am a man...").
  2. Aug. 26: Either Descartes, Third Meditation, second para. (Cress trans.: "In these few words I have summed up..."), or, Baier, p. 367, from "At the end of the Second Replies, Descartes defines..." to the end of the para.
  3. Sept. 2: Either Descartes, Fourth Meditation, second and third paras. (Cress trans.: "To begin with, I acknowledge..."), or, Bouwsma, "Descartes' Evil Genius," p. 149, last two paras., from "'Tom,' he said..." to the end of the page. (Remember, the illustrations in the story aren't part of the argument.)
  4. Sept. 9: Descartes, Sixth Meditation, (Cress. trans.; new ed. p. 56 "Now my first observation here..." ; Cress, old ed. p. 53 "Now, first, I realize at this point..."; CSM II:59, "The first observation I make at this point..."). or, Mill, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 184, para. starting "Perhaps it may be objected..."
  5. Sept. 16: Either Ayer, Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, pp. 10f, para. starting "This point being established, the argument proceeds as follows", or, pp. 137f, two paras. starting "To illustrate the point of view..." (make sure to paraphrase esp. "had its beginning", saying explicitly what the claim in question is).
  6. Sept. 23: Either Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, pp. 14f, 3 paras. from "I have now given the argument..." to "So it is (necessarily) false", or pp. 18f, from "And signs do not..." to "meanings just aren't in the head".
  7. Sept. 30: Either Sense and Sensibilia, p. 19, first para. ("Thus, it is quite plain..."); or On Certainty, section 36.
  8. Oct. 7 (Fall Break catchup opportunity!): Either Finkelstein, Expression and the Inner, p. 26, from "But it is a mistake, nevertheless..." to "...be utterly detached from his anger"; or Shoemaker, "On Knowing One's Own Mind," sec. V, first four paras. (from "To say, 'It is raining...", to "...reductio ad absurdum of the view that self-blindness is a possibility").

    9. FROM HERE ON OUT, WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS ARE TWO-PART; SEE THE REQUIREMENTS PAGE FOR DETAILS

  9. Oct. 14: Shoemaker, "On Knowing One's Own Mind," sec. VI, third para., starting "The answer to this is that the case..."
  10. Oct. 21: Moran, Authority and Estrangement, either p. 14, para. starting "Rather different problems...", or p. 26, from "Finally, any adequate analysis..." to the end of the paragraph; or Gareth Evans, Varieties of Reference, p. 225, from "The crucial point is the one I have italicized", to the end of the para. ("...to insert his knife").
  11. Oct. 28: Either Moran, Authority and Estrangement, p. 57, from "The difficulty here...", to the end of the para., or McGeer, p. 504, from "The success of folk psychology depends..." to the end of the paragraph.
  12. Nov. 4: Either Shoemaker, 1st Royce Lecture, 3rd para. of sec. V, starting "But there are other reasons for denying..." (in The First-Person Perspective, this is on pp. 213f) or, in the 2nd Royce Lecture, sec. ii, paras. 3-4 (from "So let us try to imagine creatures..." to "...the other inhabitant of the body"). In The First-Person Perspective, these paras. bridge pp. 227f.
  13. Nov. 11: Dennett, Consciousness Explained, either p. 35, para. starting "Just as one would expect," or pp. 52f, para. starting "Among the things to be seen..."
  14. Nov. 18: Dennett, Consciousness Explained, either para. bridging pp. 107f, "The Cartesian Theater is a metaphorical picture...," or p. 115, two paras. starting "The same question can of course..."
  15. Nov. 25: Dennett, Consciousness Explained, either p. 354f, three paras., from "Consider how the brain..." to "...not even as a bit-map". (Make sure to abstract away from the illustration to the structure of the argument.) or pp. 364f, two segments taken together: from "Now you've done it" (on the top of 364) to "and this time you're right -- there really are," plus, on 365, from "Well, yes. What there is..." to "There is no such thing."
  16. Dec. 2: Dennett, Consciousness Explained, either pp.391-93, from "What the qualophile needs..." to "...there is no such additional presentation process", or p. 397f, from "It may help to break down the residual attractiveness..." to the end of the para. ("'my visual field is still upside down'").