Sept. 9 Introduction to the course and to logic
Readings:-Exercus: A Little Bit of Logic (see course package)
Sept. 16 Logic continued, God and Reason
-The Existence of God Proven (Aquinas, pp. 41-2)
-Why I am not a Theist (Russell, pp. 25-8)
-God, Evil and the Best of All Possible Worlds (Leibniz, pp.
29-30)
-Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Pt. X (Hume, pp. 63-8,
optional: Part XI)
Sept. 23 God and Reason (continued)
-The Wager (Pascal, pp. 78-81)
(+discussion of pragmatism)
Sept. 30 Epistemology and Metaphysics
-The Meditations On First Philosophy (1-3, pp. 112-123)
(+discussion of paper topics)
Oct. 7, Oct.14 Epistemology and Metaphysics
-The Meditations On First Philosophy, 4-6 (123-36)
Oct.21 Epistemology and Metaphysics
-An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 2-5 as in
text (David Hume, 189-204)
Oct. 28* Knowledge of the Physical World and Laws of Nature
-An Encounter with David Hume (Wesley Salmon, course package)
Nov. 4 On Scepticism Regarding Theories
-Believing Where we Cannot Prove (Kitcher, course package)
-The Church of Science (Kolak, course package)
Nov. 11 Science as Ideology
-Gender and Science (Sandra Harding, pp. 276-86)
-How to Defend Society Against Science (Paul Feyerabend, pp.
287-93)
Nov. 18 Dualism
-Descartes’ Myth (Gilbert Ryle, pp. 305-11)
-Eliminative Materialism (Churchland, pp. 353-7)
Nov. 25* -What is it Like to be a Bat? (Thomas Nagel, pp. 344-352)
-The Nature of Mental States (Hilary Putnam, pp. 322-331)
Dec. 2 Is the Mind a Machine?
-Computing Machinery and Intelligence (Alan Turing, pp. 358-360
+ possible extra sections)
-Minds, Brains and Programs (John Searle, pp. 371-383)
-completing unfinished work and/or topic TBA