Course Times, Location : Tues and Thurs 1:00 2:30, Wilson 104

PNP Seminar

PNP 495

Spring 2013

General business

Course times, location: Tues and Thurs 1:00 – 2:30, Wilson 104

Instructor, contact: Elizabeth Schechter,

Office hours, location: Tues 2:30-4:30 (please confirm in advance), and by appt, Wilson 108

Course website:on Telesis

Course description

This is a course about how we know about ourselves--and how well. Drawing on theorizing and research from a variety of disciplines we will investigate topics such as the relationship between thinking about oneself and thinking about other people, the nature of self-consciousness, and the problem of self-deception.

Readings

All readings can be found on Telesis.

Evaluation

Sources of points: There are no exams in this class. Your grade will be based on your completion of “critical responses” (20%), the quality of your in-class work (10%), your research paper proposal (5%), and the quality of the research paper itself (65%).

Critical responses: 20% of your grade will come from completion of “critical responses” to the readings. The critical response should be written in two paragraphs. The first should provide a concise critical summary of the central claims or ideas of the reading, and the considerations the author or authors provide to support those claims or ideas. The second paragraph should explain what you found most interesting, problematic, exciting, or confusing about the reading. Feel free to ask any questions you have about the reading, here.

**Please be mindful of the submission policies for critical responses. Each response must be submitted in two ways, in order for you to receive credit. First, your response should be posted as a reply to the relevant thread under “Discussions” on the Telesis page for this site by 8 p.m. on the day before class meets. Second, you must bring a hard copy of your response with you to class the following day. You must be present in class on the day for which a particular reading has been assigned, in order to receive credit for having written the response. You must also have submitted the response online the night before, to give everyone a chance to read what you have written, in advance.

**Please do read each other’s responses before class meets, as they will often form the basis for our discussion. You may of course post responses to each other; your own initial critical response can take someone else’s as a point of departure.

**You may miss five critical responses with no penalty. After that, you will lose two points (out of a total of 20) for each response missed.

**Reading responses cannot be made up and late responses will not be accepted, so please, don’t even ask!

In-class work: On some days you will be asked to produce written work in class, either singly or in groups, for submission. This work will be worth 10% of your grade in the class. In-class work cannot be made up.

Paper proposal: A paper proposal will be required in advance of the first draft. This mainly serves the purpose of making sure everyone is on track to submit a good draft, but it is worth 5% of your total grade in the class.

Paper proposal formatting and submission instructions: There are no particular formatting requirements. Please submit a hard copy in class, and please also email me a copy either just before or just after class. Please title the email: <Your name> Paper Proposal.

Research paper: You are required to submit both a draft and a final version of your research paper. Your overall grade on the paper will come from the quality of your draft (30%) and the quality of the final version (35%).You are to choose your own paper topic, though paper topic ideas will be alluded to throughout the class. You will run your proposed topic by me and by the rest of the class in advance of beginning to write.

Research paper length and formatting requirements : Final research papers should be between five and six thousand words long for undergraduates, seven and eight thousand words long for graduate students. (First papers may be shorter than this.) Please use one-and-a-half-spaced formatting, no weird fonts or margins. Please number your pages. When you submit a hard copy of your paper please make sure that it is stapled or clipped.

Research paper submission instructions: The first drafted paper can be submitted in hard copy only. The second drafted paper should be submitted in hard copy but should also be emailed to me. Hard copies are due in class and these are the copies that will be read and graded; electronic copies may be emailed to me either just before or just after class. Please title the email in which you submit your paper: <Your name> Final Paper.

Academic integrity

Academic integrity is an aspect of good character. I don’t think anyone in this class would deliberately resort to plagiarism, but it can admittedly be difficult for honest students to discern when they have crossed the line. If you have any questions, please just ask.

Important deadlines

The following deadlines are contained in the schedule below, but are consolidated here for your attention:

Submit paper topics on Thursday 21 February
Submit paper proposals on Thursday 7 March
Feedback on proposals returned to you over spring break
Submit first paper on Thursday 21 March
Commentsgiven to you on Tuesday 2 April
Submit second paper on Thursday 18 April

Detailed Schedule of Readings

Note on schedule: This schedule is only approximate. We may speed up or slow down. Some readings may be dropped or added. You will be notified by email. Please do make sure that the course mailing list has your correct email address!

Day One: Tuesday 15 January

Preliminaries

Day Two: Thursday 17 January

Introduction

Neisser.Five kinds of self-knowledge.

Day Three: Tuesday 22 January

Sources of self-knowledge

Clore and Robinson. Knowing our emotions: How do we know what we feel?

Russell. Excerpt.

Ryle. Self-knowledge without privileged access.

Day Four: Thursday 24 January

Sources of self-knowledge

Armstrong. Excerpts.

Day Five: Tuesday 29 January

Sources of self-knowledge

Carruthers.Mindreading the self.

Day Six: Thursday 31 January

Sources of self-knowledge

Rathbone, Moulin, and Conway. Autobiographical memory and amnesia: Using conceptual knowledge to ground the self.

Day Seven: Tuesday 5 February

Sources of self-knowledge

Andersen, Ross, and Lee.Self-knowledge and social inference I.

Day Eight: Thursday 7 February

Sources of self-knowledge

Andersen, Ross, and Lee.Self-knowledge and social inference II.

Day Nine: Tuesday 12 February

Sources of self-knowledge

Moran. Self-Knowledge: Discovery, resolution, and undoing.

Day Ten: Thursday 14 February

Sources of self-knowledge

No new readings.

Day Eleven: Tuesday 19 February

How well do we know ourselves?

Hansen and Pronin. Illusions of self-knowledge.

Day Twelve: Thursday 21 February

How well do we know ourselves?

Schwitzgebel. Self-ignorance

--Submit paper topics--

Day Thirteen: Tuesday 26 February

How well do we know ourselves?

Swann and Brooks. Why threats trigger compensatory reactions: The need for consistency and quest for self-verification.

Day Fourteen: Thursday 28 February