PHILOSOPHY 74                                                                                                                                                                     W. Lycan
Fall, 2003

                                      TOPICS FOR PAPER #3


    24.  Assess the Wittgensteinian Use theory as we have sketched it.  If you can, defend it against the Placard objection, the Twin Earth objection, the Novelty objection, or others that have come up in class.

    26.  Can a red/green color-blind person understand the word "red"?  Expound.

    27.  When the second American edition of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations appeared, his executor G.E.M. Anscombe frothed at the mouth and demanded that Macmillan recall all copies immediately.  A main reason for her demand was that the diagram in §48 was not printed in color  instead, each square was done in this manner:
                                                                         _____
                                                                        /_ red /

(I.e., if your browser doesn't display that correctly, each square in the diagram was black-and-white and had just a color word such as "red" inside it.)  Why should that have been so upsetting?  What is really the main point of §s 48 and 49?  And would Anscombe have been similarly upset with me for having produced monochrome copies to give you?

    28.  Can you help out Hempel with the Formulation problem?

    29.  Can you defend the Verification theory against one or more of our other umpteen objections?  (Surely a theory that has claimed the allegiance of so many brilliant philosophers has more to be said for it than I've allowed.)  Or, if you can think of a still further objection, kick the theory while it's down.