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PHIL 4400-001/6400-001
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. 27 (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): Either Pink, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction, para. bridging pp. 38f ("But this is not quite..."), or pp. 46-48, from "Take a case where..." through "...which option in particular I follow".
  2. Sept. 3: Either Hume, first Enquiry, sec. 8, Part I, 5th para. ("It seems evident that..."), or sec. 8, Part II, 4th para. ("The only proper object of hatred or vengance...").
  3. Sept. 10: Either Ismael, "Rethinking Time and Determinism," pp. 150f, from "Nor is the transcendent perspective..." to "...and nobody else," or Ismael, "Free Will in the Physical World," from "When it comes to voluntary behavior in a human being..." up to the end of the page (that is, up to the next section, "The self: what are you?").
  4. Sept. 17: Either Chisholm, "Human Freedom and the Self" (ch. 1 in Watson), p. 35, para. starting "This means that, in one very strict sense...", or >Robert Kane, "Responsibility, Luck, and Chance" (ch. 15 in Watson), p. 308, from "The first step in response..." to the end of the section.