Class Times: Tuesdays 4-7pm
Instructor: Gillian Russell
Location: Seminar Room, Wilson Hall
My office: 209 Wilson Hall
Office hours: Thursdays 3-4pm and by appointment
Email: grussell - at - wustl - dot - edu
E-reserves site for this course: http://eres.wustl.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=2305&page=docs
Course Website: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~grussell/Phil502.html
Enrollment in the proseminar restricted to first year graduate students in philosophy, and its aim is to familiarise students with some classic philosophy - the kind of thing that other faculty members will assume you've had some contact with - and at the same time provide an opportunity to hone skills in writing, speaking, philosophical exposition, analysis and argumentation. This semester we'll examine Frege's Foundations of Arithmetic, as well as selection of subsequent work on the same topic by Russell, Carnap, Quine, Dummett, Wright and Burgess. We'll also look at some of Frege's work in the philosophy of language, especially his views on descriptions, as well as selections from subsequent work in this area by Russell, Strawson, Donnellan and Kripke.
No pre-assigned reading. Selections from Mill, Kant, Berkeley and Leibniz.
Introduction and sections 1-45 from the Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege (sections 1-4 are in The Frege Reader and the rest is on e-res)
"The Concept of Number" (also from The Foundations of Arithmetic, sections 55-91, 106-109) reprinted in The Philosophy of Mathematics.
"Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology", Rudolf Carnap (in The Philosophy of Mathematics and on e-res)
"Frege: The Last Logicist" - Paul Benaceraff (on e-res)
"Two Dogmas of Empiricism" - W.V.O. Quine (in Martinich)
Optional Reading: "Truth by Convention" and "Carnap and Logical Truth", both by Quine, in The Philosophy of Mathematics
"On Sinn and Bedeutung " - Gottlob Frege (in The Frege Reader)
Optional: Chapter 1 of Evans' Varieties of Reference (on e-res)
"On Denoting" - Bertrand Russell (Martinich)
Optional: "Descriptions" (in Martinich)
"On Referring" - Peter Strawson (Martinich)
"Reference and Definite Descriptions" - Keith Donnellan (Martinich)
Optional: "Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference", Kripke, (on e-res)
"Naming and Necessity" - Saul Kripke (in Martinich)
"The Causal Theory of Names" - Gareth Evans (in Martinich)
"Meaning and Reference" - Hilary Putnam Assertion - Stahlnaker (on e-res)
"Thought" - Gottlob Frege (in The Frege Reader)
Optional: Ch1 of Understanding Truth by Scott Soames
"A Puzzle about Belief" - Saul Kripke (Martinich)
Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects - Crispin Wright
Frege - Anthony Kenny
Fixing Frege - John Burgess
The aim of this course is to develop philosophical skill, as oposed to cover lots of material, and this aim is reflected in both the farly light reading requirements, and in the assessment mechanisms for the course. There will be six short written assignments, and the average of your best 3 will count as 30% of the grade. Each student will also give short presentations most weeks, and one 30 minute presentation towards the end of the course. The grade for this longer presentation will count as 30% of the course grade. The remaining 40% can come either from a research paper, in which an original philosophical thesis is argued for, or from a 2 hour exam. Both the exam and the research paper are optional, but you must do one of the two.
Any cases of suspected plagiarism, or other problems with academic integrity, will be reported to the Dean in his role as head of the academic integrity committee, with the recommendation that, if found guilty, the student fail the course.