Philosophy 355: Contemporary Philosophy

Russell Marcus, Instructor. Email me.

Hamilton College, Fall 2008

Readings

Descartes, from Meditations...

Skinner, from Science and Human Behavior

Hempel, “The Logical Analysis of Psychology

Place, “Is Consciousness a Brain Process?

Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes"

Putnam, “The Nature of Mental States

Fodor, from “Something on the State of the Art”

Block, “Troubles with Functionalism

Nagel, “What is it Like to be a Bat?

Locke, on inverted spectra

Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia

Wittgenstein, from Philosophical Investigations

Dennett, “Quining Qualia

Dennett, "What RoboMary Knows"

Rorty, from Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

Profile of the Churchlands

Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness

Chalmers, "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia"

Harcastle, "When a Pain is Not"

Mack and Rock, “Inattentional Blindness: An Overview

Weiskrantz, "The Case of Blindsight"

Brook and Mandik, "The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement"

Mandik, "The Neurophilosophy of Consciousness"

Mandik, "The Neurophilosophy of Subjectivity"

Mandik, "The Introspectibility of Brain States as Such"

Mandik and Weisberg, "Type-Q Materialism"

Kripke, "from Naming and Necessity"

Daniels, “Reflective Equilibrium

Stich, “Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology, and the Problem of Cognitive Diversity

Stich and Nisbett, "Justification and the Psychology of Human Reasoning"

Sosa, "A Defense of the Use of Intuitions in Philosophy"

Devitt, "Intuitions"

Nolt, “Modal Logics

Goodman, "The New Riddle of Induction"

Hume, "On Laws of Nature"

Hempel, “Laws and Their Role in Scientific Explanation

Railton, "A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation"

Van Fraassen (and Earman, Armstrong, and Cartwright), "Symposium on Laws and Symmetry"

Lewis, “Introduction

Lewis, “Humean Supervenience Debugged

Maudlin, “Why be a Humean?

Carroll, “The Humean Tradition

Carroll, from Laws of Nature

Beebee, “The Non-Governing Conception of Laws of Nature

Loewer, “Humean Supervenience

Roberts, "Lewis, Carroll, and Seeing Through the Looking Glass"

Schneider, "What is the Significance of the Intuition that the Laws of Nature Govern?"

Smullyan, “Knights and Knaves

Rabern and Rabern, “A Simple Solution to the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever