Required textbooks:

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

Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast
Harvard University Press (paperback); ISBN 978-0674290716 (this ISBN is for the 4th ed.; earlier editions are fine)
Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (only this translation, please)
Basic Books (paperback); ISBN 978-0465094080 (this ISBN is for the 3rd ed.; previous editions are fine)
Plato, Timaeus, trans. Zeyl
Hackett (paperback); ISBN 978-0872204461 (however, you may already have a collection of Plato's works containing this translation)
D. M. Armstrong, Nominalism and Realism
Cambridge University Press (paperback); ISBN 978-0521280334 (this is part of a two-volume work titled Universals and Scientific Realism; in this class, you'll only need vol. I)

Reading Assignments:

Aug. 23: Introduction. The three-hour session will be broken up into three one-hour units. Here's optional prereading, in case you feel like being extra oriented.
1. How Metaphysics Arises Out of Logical Technique. You can take a look at one of Plato's 'What-is-F?' dialogs: I'd recommend either the Euthyphro or the Laches.
2. What Intellectual Equipment Do You Need for Inductive Reasoning? David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part iii, secs. 2-4, 6, 8; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, secs. 4-5.
3. A Model for the Kind of Metaphysics of Universals We Want. Very ambitious summer prereading: P. F. Strawson, Individuals, chs. 1-3.

Aug. 30: Universals to Underwrite Inductive Reasoning.
The New Riddle of Induction. Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. I suggest reading it in this order: ch. III ("The New Riddle of Induction"); then ch. IV ("Prospects for a Theory of Projection"); then ch. I ("The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals").

Optional reading: S. Barker and P. Achinstein, "On the New Riddle of Induction", Philosophical Review 69(4), Oct. 1960: 511-22. Goodman, FFF, ch. 2 ("The Passing of the Possible").

Sept. 6: Motivating the Diagnostic Stance (A Traditional Version of the Problem of Universals).
1. Nominalist Reductionism. Reading: Armstrong, Nominalism and Realism, ch. 2 ("Predicate Nominalism") plus p. 27.
  Optional reading: If the terminology is new to you, and you find it confusing, read Armstrong, ch. 1.
2. Older Answers to What Universals Are For. Reading: Alvarado, "Theoretical Roles for Universals".
  Optional reading: Heather Douglas, "The Irreducible Complexity of Objectivity" (available in the Philosophy Department).
3. How Plato Gets Remembered. Reading: Armstrong, Nominalism and Realism, ch. 7.
  Optional reading: Armstrong, Nominalism and Realism, ch. 5.
Sept. 13: Three Functions for Universals.
1. Bundles and Tropes. Reading: Michael Loux, "An Exercise in Constituent Ontology," up to p. 32 (at the section break).
  Optional reading: Mystery mss.
2. Homeostasis and Species. Reading: Reserve mss (at p. 48, you'll want to jump to p. 69).
  Optional reading: Richard Boyd, "Kinds as the 'Workmanship of Men'".

Sept. 20: Echoes of Albritton... and Going Back to the Beginning: A Full-Dress Investigation of a Universal.
1. The Mysteries of Aristotelian Categoricals. Reading: Review Michael Thompson, "The Representation of Life".
  Optional reading: Chrisoula Andreou, "Getting On in a Varied World".
2. The Mysteries of Artworks. Guy Rohrbaugh, "Artworks as Historical Individuals" (hardcopy also on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
  Optional reading: Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
3. What Had Socrates Been Doing? Reading: Republic, Book I. Pay special attention to: 331c-d, 335c-d, 341c-342e, 351b-352c (these are the Stephanus numbers in the margin).
  Optional reading, if you're encountering the Republic for the first time: Nehamas, "The Republic" (an introduction he wrote to a different translation). Very optional further reading, for your amusement: Saul Bellow, Ravelstein.

Sept. 27: An Initial Account of Justice (and a Doubletake).
1. The Confusion at the Base of the Goodman-Barker-Achinstein Exchange. Jason Ripplinger, "Are Typical Color Predicates Really Non-Positional?"
  Optional further reading: C. L. Hardin, Color for Philosophers.
2. Unified Agency. Reading: Christine M. Korsgaard, "Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant", Journal of Ethics 3(1), 1999: 1-29. (JSTOR)
  Optional further reading: Korsgaard, Self-Constitution.
3. A Theory of Justice that Starts with a Censorship Regime? Reading: Republic, Books II-III. Pay special attention to: 358e-359b, 360b-d, 368c-369a, 369e-370c, 389b-c, 392b-c, 394e-395a
  Optional further reading: Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. I.
Oct. 4: The Epistemology of Universals.
1. The Practical Use of Universals: Universalizability vs. Particularism. Reading: Republic, Book IV; review Korsgaard, "Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant".
  Optional reading: Ryle, Plato's Progress, ch. 2 ("The Publication of the Dialogues"; book is available from Marriott).
2. Orderville! Reading: Republic, Book V.
  Optional reading: Peter Geach, "Good and Evil," Analysis 17 (1956): 33–42. (JSTOR)
3. The Form of the Good and the Darkness of the Cave. Reading: Republic, Books VI-VII.
  Optional reading: Nicholas Smith, "Plato's Divided Line" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department) shortly); Vlastos, "A Metaphysical Paradox" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

Have a great Fall Break! Get a head start -- take Strawson's Individuals with you to Bermuda! (Check out "Bodies" and "Sounds".)

Oct. 18: The Form of the Good and the Darkness of the Cave.
1. Aristotelian Categoricals for Cyborgs! Reading: Dallas Thornley, "The Precision Principle".
  Optional reading: Review Thompson, "The Representation of Life".
2. A Universal Collapses. Reading: Republic, Books VIII-IX; Jonathan Lear, "Inside and Outside the Republic").
  Optional reading: Norbert Bloessner, "The City-Soul Analogy" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
3. Can a Universal Be Incoherent? Reading: Republic, Book X; Bernard Williams, "The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato's Republic".
  Optional reading: Alexander Nehamas, "Plato and the Mass Media" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).
Oct. 25: The Form of Participation.
1. Is Socrates Just another Artist? Reading: Moises Munoz-Huizar, "Socrates and the Imitators of Truth".
  Optional reading: David Keyt, "The Mad Craftsman of the Timaeus" , Philosophical Review 80(2), April 1971: 230-235.
2. The Tradesman at Work. Reading: Timaeus.
  Optional reading: R. M. Hare, "Plato and the Mathematicians" (through the bottom of p. 31, and then from bottom p. 35 to the end).
Nov. 1: A Model for Investigating Universals.
1. What Are Particulars? Reading: Strawson, Individuals, ch. 1 ("Bodies").
  Optional reading: Vlastos, "The Disorderly Motion in the Timaeus".
Nov. 8: A Space for Universals?
1. A Transcendental Argument! Reading: Strawson, Individuals, ch. 2 ("Sounds").
  Optional reading: Harrison, On What There Must Be, ch. 4.
2. How Plato's Best Graduate Student Solved His Big Problem. Reading: Aristotle, Categories, chs. 1-5. (Please bring the hardcopy to class.)
  Optional followon reading: Wolfgang-Ranier Mann, The Discovery of Things.
3. Artifactual Universals. Reading: Reserve typescript.
  Optional reading: Review Thompson, "The Representation of Life".
Nov. 15: Cost-Benefit Tradeoffs, Bounded Rationality and Universals.
1. The Method of Modern Metaphysics. David Lewis, "New Work for a Theory of Universals".
  Optional reading: Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds, pp. 3-5.
2. Bounded Rationality in Metaphysics. Reading: Nozick, "Necessity and Contingency".
  Optional further reading: Shaun Nichols, "Imaginative Blocks and Impossibility," in his The Architecture of the Imagination (available through the Marriott catalog).
3. Universals as Simplified Misrepresentations. Reading: Nietzsche, The Gay Science, secs. 110-12, 121, 354; "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense".
  Optional further reading: Wimsatt, "Important Properties of Heuristics" (available shortly).
Nov. 22: From Analogies to Universals.
1. Reading: Michael Mohr, "An Argument for the List-Form Model of Life".
  Optional reading: Anscombe, Intention, sec. 32.
2. Reductionism about Analogy. Reading: John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Book III, ch. xx. (If you don't own the book, I recommend finding the chapter this way. Go to the online version, download the "facsimile pdf"; pp. 554-61 of the printed book are pages 673 to 680 of the pdf, and you can jump to those).
  Optional reading: Mill, A System of Logic, Book I, ch. vii, sec. 4 ("Kinds have a real existence in nature"; in the same volume, this is pp. 122-26).
3. The Universals-First Approach. Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard, "Analogical Mapping by Constraint Satisfaction", up to p. 315.
  Optional reading: Dedre Gentner and Francisco Maravilla, "Analogical Reasoning".
4. The Analogies-First Approach. Reading: Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard, Mental Leaps, ch. 5 ("The Construction of Similarity"; available online via the Marriott catalog).
  Optional followon reading: Hofstadter et al., Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution.
Have a great Thanksgiving! Take Bowker and Star to Mendocino, as after-dinner reading.
Nov. 29: Are These Really Universals? (What's at Stake in Realism?)
1. What's Wrong with Whole-Person Attributability? Reading: Abby Pace, "Attributability: We Know What We're Doing".
  Optional followon reading: Millgram, "Practical Reason and the Structure of Actions", sec. 2.
2. Social Construction! Reading: Bowker and Star, Sorting Things Out, pp. 51-133.
  Optional reading: Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Essay I, sec. 13.
3. Can Universals Be Vague? Reading: Timothy Williamson, "Vagueness and Ignorance"; Roy Sorensen, Vagueness and Contradiction, pp. 1-7, chs. 3, 11.
  Optional reading: Sorensen, Vagueness and Contradiction, ch. 10; Williamson, "Vagueness and Ignorance" (book chapter). Followon reading, for the very ambitious: Michael Dummett, The Logical Basis of Metaphysics.
Dec. 6: Two Approaches to Metaphysics. No new required reading. Optional reading: John Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules", sec. III; Peter Fritz and Nicholas Jones, "Higher-Order Metaphysics: An Introduction", sec. 1.