Philosophy 38:
Experience and Reality
Spring 2007; Section 001: King 228
Monday and Thursday,
Instructor: Ted Parent
Email: tparent@email.unc.edu
Office: Archdale Hall 213
Office Hours: TBA
Course Website: http://www.unc.edu/~tparent/philosophy38.html
This course is an introduction to metaphysics—the subdiscipline of philosophy
concerned with questions about what exists, the nature of things, and the
nature of reality in general. Since metaphysics is too wide-ranging to
survey in a semester, this course will focus exclusively on metaphysical issues
concerning mental representation. Mental representations—thoughts,
concepts, and percepts—are able to represent things in the world. But
how can they do that? And how do they represent the particular things they do?
Moreover, how are we to understand this representational capacity of the mind
as part of the biological and physical order of things? We will examine these
issues by studying some of the contemporary literature on these topics.
Texts:
Rosenthal, David M. The Nature of Mind,
Course Assignments:
(1) Every Thursday (with a few exceptions; see below), there will be an
in-class writing assignment (about a paragraph in length) on the reading for
that week. Satisfactory performance on these assignments is a requirement for
the course, which means that unsatsifactory
performance can lower your final grade. However, exemplary performance on these
assignments can also act as “extra credit” to boost your final grade.
(2) Paper on February 18 worth 35% of the final grade.
(3) Paper (no min length; max length 5 pages) due March 22 worth 35% of
the final grade.
(4) Final Exam April 26 worth 30% of the final grade.
No late assignments accepted. If you are unwilling to abide by this policy, please drop the course.
N.B. Excellent or poor participation/attendance will also affect your final grade. In extreme cases, poor attendance will result in an automatic ‘F’ for the course, regardless of your performance on the assignments.
Tentative Schedule
Preliminaries
*WEEK ONE
Jan. 8
Introductory session.
Jan. 11 F. Jackson, “What Mary Didn’t Know”
WEEK TWO
Jan. 15 NO
CLASS (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day)
Jan. 18
*WEEK THREE
Jan. 22, 25 T. Nagel, “What is it like to be a Bat?”
WEEK FOUR
Jan. 29, Feb 1
W. Sellars, excerpts from “Phenomenalism” and “Being and Being Known”
WEEK FIVE
Feb. 5, 8 F. Jackson, “The
Existence of Mental Objects.”
WEEK SIX
Feb. 12, 15 R. Chisholm, “Intentional Inexistence”
Paper due Feb 14
*WEEK SEVEN
Feb. 19, 22 J. A. Fodor,
“Propositional Attitudes”
WEEK EIGHT
Feb. 26, Mar. 1
F. Dretske, “The Intentionality of Cognitive States”
March 5, 8 SPRING BREAK
WEEK NINE
Mar. 12, 15 R. Millikan, “Biosemantics” [Available at www.jstor.org]
WEEK TEN
Mar. 19, 22 D. Dennett, “True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why it Works”
*WEEK ELEVEN
Mar. 26, 29 T. Burge, “Individualism and the Mental”
Mar 28: Paper due
WEEK TWELVE
Apr. 2 Burge
(cont’)
Apr. 5 J. A. Fodor, “Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy in Cognitive Psychology.”
WEEK THIRTEEN
Apr. 9, 12 Fodor (cont’)
WEEK FOURTEEN
Apr. 16, 19 Burge, “Individualism and Psychology”
[Available at www.jstor.org]
*WEEK FIFTEEN
Apr. 23 P. Churchland, “Eliminative
Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes”
Final Exam at
*Indicates a week where there will NOT be an in-class writing assignment.