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Theory of Knowledge Philosophy 3300 Fall 2002 |
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Lecture Notes Perception [PDF] Memory [PDF] Testimony [PDF] The
Architecture of Knowledge [PDF] The
Analysis of “Knowledge” [PDF]
Skepticism [PDF] |
Other Course
Materials Paper
Topics [PDF] Exam 1 Study
Questions [PDF] Exam 2
Study Questions [PDF] |
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Instructor: |
Tim Black |
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Class meets: |
Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays; 9:40 a.m.-10:30 a.m. in OSH 138 |
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Office hours: |
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; 10:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m.; other hours by appointment |
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Office: |
OSH 341K |
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Office phone: |
585.5810 |
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Class e-mail: |
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Instructor’s email: |
I invite
you to visit me during my office hours and to talk with me via telephone and
e-mail. I always welcome your comments and questions, and I am exceptionally
happy to talk with you about the course material or about other philosophical
or administrative matters.
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Department office: |
OSH 341 |
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Department phone: |
581.8161 |
Aims of the Course: This
course is designed to provide you with an intermediate-level introduction to a
particular branch of philosophy, namely, epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. We will consider a broad range of topics in
epistemology, but we’ll try to do so without sacrificing a consideration of the
details. Hence, the schedule of readings
for the course is fairly challenging in several ways. We’ll read and discuss a number of papers,
each of which will be philosophically demanding. This is designed to sharpen both your ability
to read and understand philosophical texts and your ability to discuss the
issues addressed in those texts. We will
also write about a number of epistemological topics. This is designed to sharpen both your ability
to write about philosophical issues and your ability to write in general.
Required Text: Michael Huemer, editor. Epistemology: Contemporary Readings (Routledge: London and New York,
2002).
Attendance and
Participation: Since you are responsible for any and all material
presented in class, regular attendance is essential to doing well in this
course. Furthermore, philosophy is akin
to, say, chemistry in that it’s an activity,
not merely a set of purported facts. So
just as you can’t develop your abilities as a chemist without doing some work
in the lab, you can’t develop your philosophical abilities without practice. And practicing means, among other things,
discussing philosophical issues and arguments both in class and outside of
class. Such discussion can benefit you
in a number of ways: it will help you to gain a deeper understanding of the
sometimes fairly difficult material and will thus help you to perform better on
the exams. Both class attendance and
participation in the discussion of philosophical issues are therefore quite
essential to doing well in this course.
Students with Disabilities: If you have a disability, please identify yourself to
me and to the University so that we can reasonably accommodate your learning
and the preparation and evaluation of the work that you must do for this
course. Please contact the Center
for Disability Services, Olpin Union, Room 162, 581.5020.
Evaluation: Your
final grade in the course will be based on the following:
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Exam 1 |
October 11 |
25% |
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Exam 2 |
December 10 |
28% |
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Paper |
Proposal, due October 2 First version, due October
25 Second version, due
November 27 |
32% |
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Other |
5 one-page essays |
15% |
Grades: Letter grades are assigned according to the following
system: 100-92% = A; 91-90% = A-; 89-87% = B+; 86-83% = B; 82-80% = B-; 79-77% =
C+; 76-73% = C; 72-70% = C-; 69-67% = D+; 66-63% = D; 62-60% = D-; 59-0% =
E. If your final grade falls just short
of some higher grade, I will consider the quality of your verbal participation
as grounds for improving your final grade.
I strongly encourage your verbal participation, which can come in class,
in office hours, by phone, or by e-mail.
Cheating and Plagiarism: I consider
academic dishonesty to be a very serious issue. If you are unclear about what
constitutes academic dishonesty or about the possible repercussions of and
penalties for acts of academic dishonesty, please consult the University of Utah Student Code.
One-Page Essays: You
must submit five one-page essays over the course of the semester, one for each
of five of the six topics we will consider.
You’ll have six opportunities to submit a one-page essay, and it’s up to
you to choose which five of those you’ll take.
You may with impunity choose not to write an essay for one – and only one – of the topics we consider. (Choose wisely!) Each of your five essays should be about
350-450 words in length. In writing
them, you’ll be required to do two things.
First, identify one argument with which you want to take issue, and
state that argument as clearly and as succinctly as you can. (The argument you choose can be one that you
find in one of the essays we read – in which case it need not be the main argument – or one that we discuss
in class.) Second, as clearly and as
succinctly as you can, say why you
disagree with the argument. Note that
you won’t be able to do this without providing a set of interrelated reasons for your disagreement. I will
not accept late essay submissions.
Exams: The exams will be designed to determine whether you
understand the lectures and the readings.
Exam 1 will cover the first three sections of the course, which deal
with sources of justification and knowledge.
Exam 2 will cover the last three sections of the course – the
architecture of knowledge, the analysis of “knowledge,” and skepticism. Each exam will consist of two parts. The first part of each exam will consist of a
list of terms that we have encountered and employed. You will be asked to define, in one or two or
three sentences, some of those terms.
The second part of each exam will consist of a list of essay questions,
and you will be asked to write an essay in response to some of those questions.
You may take a make-up exam only if either (a)
you have received, prior to the scheduled date of the exam, my permission to do
so, or (b) you miss the exam due to a documented medical or family emergency. I will grade your responses to the exam
questions on the basis of the accuracy of your claims.
Paper: The paper assignment requires you to write an essay of
3000-4000 words (or about 7-10 pages). I
will at some point distribute three or four paper topics, and you may write on
any one of those topics. Along with the
paper topics, I’ll distribute a list of unassigned essays or book chapters that
may help you in thinking about the paper.
I strongly encourage you to read one or more of these unassigned works
and to incorporate into your paper arguments and ideas that you find there. On October 2nd, you must submit a
paper proposal, which can include a tentative outline of your paper. The first version of your paper is due on
October 25th. I will take a
look at these papers and return them to you.
You will then revise the paper and submit a second version no later than 9:40 a.m., 27 November
2002. I will accept no paper submitted
later than this. For help, you may
see my A Guide to Writing
Philosophy Papers or some other writing guide. I will evaluate your paper, as well as your
five one-page essays, on the basis of the quality of the arguments you provide
in favor of your position. More
specifically, your paper and essays (a) must be well organized and readable,
(b) must demonstrate your ability to clearly and critically consider a serious
philosophical issue, (c) must demonstrate your ability to present and defend
your own reasonable and persuasive philosophical argument, and (d) must
demonstrate your ability to critically evaluate philosophical arguments.
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Schedule (subject to
revision) |
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Introduction |
August 21 |
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Sources of Justification
and Knowledge: Perception |
August 23 |
John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, pages 32-36 |
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August 26 |
George Berkeley, Of the Principles of Human Knowledge, pp. 37-45 |
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August 28 |
Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, pp. 51-63 |
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August 30 |
Reid’s Essays continued |
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September 2 |
Holiday, Labor Day |
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September 4 |
Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, pp. 64-73 |
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September 6 |
Class Canceled |
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September 9 |
J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, pp. 74-84 |
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September 11 |
Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia continued |
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Sources of
Justification and Knowledge: Memory |
September 13 |
Bertrand Russell, “Memory,” pp. 88-90 |
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September 16 |
Norman Malcolm, “A Definition of Factual Memory,” pp. 91-103; First One-Page Essay Due |
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September 18 |
Malcolm’s “A Definition of Factual Memory” continued |
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September 20 |
John Pollock and Joseph Cruz, “Reasoning and Memory,” pp. 104-112 |
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September 23 |
Michael Huemer, “The Problem of Memory Knowledge,” pp. 113-123 |
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September 25 |
Huemer’s “The Problem of Memory Knowledge” continued |
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Sources of
Justification and Knowledge: Testimony |
September 27 |
John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, pp. 219-220; David Hume, “Of Miracles,” pp. 221-233 |
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September 30 |
Thomas Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind, pp. 234-238; Second One-Page Essay Due |
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October 2 |
C. A. J. Coady, “Testimony and Observation,” pp. 239-249; Paper Proposal Due |
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October 4 |
Holiday, Fall Break |
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October 7 |
Coady’s “Testimony and Observation” continued |
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October 9 |
Review for Exam 1 |
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October 11 |
Exam 1 |
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The Architecture of
Knowledge |
October 14 |
Sextus
Empiricus, “The Five Modes,” pp. 372-374; |
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October 16 |
Laurence BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, pp. 387-401; Third One-Page Essay Due |
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October 18 |
BonJour’s The Structure of Empirical Knowledge continued |
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October 21 |
William Alston (see also here), “Has Foundationalism Been Refuted?,” pp. 402-416 |
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October 23 |
Susan Haack, “A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification,” pp. 417-431 |
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October 25 |
Haack’s “A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification” continued; First Version of Paper Due |
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The Analysis of “Knowledge” |
October 28 |
A. J. Ayer, “Knowing as Having the Right to be Sure,” pp. 440-443; Edmund Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?,” pp. 444-446 |
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October 30 |
Alvin Goldman, “A Causal Theory of Knowing,” pp. 450-463; Fourth One-Page Essay Due |
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November 1 |
Keith Lehrer and Thomas Paxson, “Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief,” pp. 464-474 |
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November 4 |
Robert Nozick, “Knowledge,” pp. 475-490 |
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November 6 |
Nozick’s “Knowledge” continued |
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November 8 |
Keith DeRose, “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions,” pp. 491-506 |
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Skepticism |
November 11 |
René Decartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, pp. 513-523; Fifth One-Page Essay Due |
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November 13 |
Hilary Putnam (see also here), “Brains in a Vat,” pp. 524-538 |
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November 15 |
Putnam’s “Brains in a Vat” continued |
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November 18 |
Fred Dretske (see also here), “The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge,” pp. 539-551 |
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November 20 |
Dretske’s “The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge” continued |
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November 22 |
Peter Klein, “Skepticism and Closure: Why the Evil Genius Argument Fails,” pp. 552-574 |
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November 25 |
Klein’s “Skepticism and Closure: Why the Evil Genius Argument Fails” continued |
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November 27 |
Michael Huemer, “Direct Realism and the Brain-in-a-Vat Argument,” pp. 575-589; Second Version of Paper Due |
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November 29 |
Holiday, Thanksgiving Break |
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December 2 |
Huemer’s “Direct Realism and the Brain-in-a-Vat Argument” continued |
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December 4 |
Review for Exam 2; Sixth One-Page Essay Due |
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December 10 |
Exam 2 (from 8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m. in OSH 138) |
Note: Everything in this syllabus is subject to
revision. I will announce any and all
revisions in class and, in general, do my best to make sure that everyone knows
about revisions. If you miss class, you
must nevertheless submit assignments according to any revisions that I make to
the Schedule. You should either make
sure that you don’t miss class or find a sure way of becoming aware of any
revisions that I make to the Schedule or to the syllabus.
Guides to writing on the web
General
writing guides
- The University
of Victoria’s Hypertext Writer’s Guide
- The National Writing Centers Association, contains a fairly comprehensive list of university on-line writing centers
- Michael Harvey’s The
Nuts and Bolts of College Writing
- Writing at the University of Toronto
- The University of St. Thomas’s Study Guides and Strategies
- The Writing Center at Colorado State University
- Charles Darling’s Guide to Grammar and Writing
Guides to writing philosophy papers
