Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language Harvard University Press, 1984

Brandom

M&E Core Course

Fall 2009

Bob Brandom

Course website at www.pitt.edu/~brandom

Books:

Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (There is a 1997 Harvard University Press edition, with Brandom’s commentary, and a 2000 Hackett edition, with DeVries and Triplett’s commentary.)

Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language [Harvard University Press, 1984]

Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity [Harvard University Press 1980] (Note: a bootleg version of the text is available online.)

Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis [Oxford University Press, 2000]. We will read Chapters 1-3.

Schedule:

1. 9/1/09: Introduction

2. 9/8/09: W.V.O Quine “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html);

D. Davidson “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (drawer)

3. 9/15/09: W. Sellars “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” §§1-38.

4. 9/22/09: W. Sellars “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” §§39-end.

5. 9/29/09: First paper due. W.V.O. Quine Word and Object Chapters 1 & 2 (drawer).

6. 10/6/09: S. Kripke Wittgenstein on Rules… Chapters 1 & 2.

7. 10/13/09 No class. [Monday Fall Break classes on this day.]

8. 10/20: S. Kripke Wittgenstein on Rules… Chapter 3;

J. McDowell “Wittgenstein on Following a Rule” Synthese, vol 58 JSTOR.

9. 10/27/09: Second paper due. Hartry Field “Tarski's Theory of Truth” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 69, No. 13. (Jul. 13, 1972), pp. 347-375. JSTOR;

J. McDowell, “Physicalism and Primitive Denotation: Field on Tarski” Erkenntnis JSTOR;

D. Davidson, “Truth and Meaning” Synthese 1967 JSTOR;

10. 11/3/09: S. Kripke Naming and Necessity.

11. 11/10/09: H. Putnam “The Meaning of Meaning” (in Putnam’s Mind, Language and Reality and Pessin and Sanford (eds) Twin Earth Chronicles) (drawer);

“Brains in a Vat” (Chapter 1 of Reason, Truth and History) (drawer);

A. Brueckner “Brains in a Vat” JSTOR;

M. David “Neither Mentioning ‘Brains in a Vat’ nor Mentioning Brains in a Vat Will Prove that We Are Not Brains in a Vat” JSTOR.

12. 11/17/09: F. Jackson From Metaphysics to Ethics Chapters 1, 2, 3.

13. 11/24/09: Third paper due. Alvin I. Goldman “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 73, No. 20. (Nov. 18, 1976), pp. 771-791. JSTOR; Brandom: “Insights and Blindspots of Reliabilism” (on course website).

14. 12/1/09: D. Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” J. Philosophy 1969 JSTOR.

Document1 1 8/27/2009