Handouts, Readings and Lecture Notes

General Handouts

• How To Read a Philosophy Paper
• Participation in Section
   
• Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper
• What the Different Grades Mean

Readings and Lecture Notes

Please check this space regularly, as things may sometimes be reorganized, and the schedule will be adjusted, based on how our discussions in class are proceeding.

Appearance versus Reality

• Introductory Notes 2 Feb
• Notes on Whether Knowledge Requires Certainty? 2 Feb
• Read selection from Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1981), pp. 167-69 4 Feb
• Read selection from John Pollock and Joseph Cruz, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, NJ, 1999), pp. 2-5. 4 Feb
• Read selection from George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London, Secker & Warburg, 1949), pp. 245-53, 265-7. 4 Feb
• Notes on Philosophical Issues in the Matrix
  (Internet Movie Database | Official Matrix Website | Philosophy & the Matrix)
• Read James Pryor, "What's so bad about living in the Matrix?" <http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com> 4 Feb
• Read selection from Peter van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Westview, Boulder, Colorado, 1993), pp. 19-21, 56-69. 4 Feb
• Read Feldman, Chapters 1-2, esp. pp. 17-21 and 22-23; also pp. 177-top of 182 4 Feb
• Notes on Knowledge and Facts 4 Feb
• Read Feldman pp. 182-188 on Disagreement 9 Feb
• Notes on Knowledge, Belief, and Reasons 9 Feb

Theory of Knowledge

• Read Rene Descartes, First Meditation, Meditations on First Philosophy (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 12-15. 11 Feb
• Notes on Descartes 16 Feb
• Read Rosenberg's First Conversation and to bottom of p. 22 in Second Conversation 16 Feb
• Read Feldman pp. 108-119 16 Feb
• Read Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1984), Chapter 1 [pp. 1-38]. [Anthology Ch. 1] 16 Feb
• Notes on Stroud's Chapter 1 16 Feb

"Evidentialist" Responses to Skepticism

• Read Feldman pp. 39-49, 119-129, 141-144, 148-152 18 Feb
• Read David Blumenfeld and Jean Blumenfeld, "Can I know that I am not dreaming?," in Michael Hooker, ed. Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1978), pp. 234-55. 18 Feb
• Notes on Blumenfelds 18 Feb

"Relevant Alternatives"

• Notes on Whether this is all Just a Terminological Dispute? 25 Feb
• Read Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1984), Chapter 2 [pp. 39-82]. 25 Feb
• Read Stewart Cohen, "Skepticism and everyday knowledge attributions," in Michael D. Roth and Glenn Ross, eds. Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1990), pp. 161-9. 25 Feb
• Notes on Stroud's Chapter 2 25 Feb

The Gettier Problem and Extra-Evidential Theories of Knowledge

• Read Edmund Gettier, "Is justified true belief knowledge?," Analysis 23 (1963), pp. 121-23. Reprinted in Paul K. Moser, ed., Empirical Knowledge: readings in contemporary epistemology (Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, NJ, 1986), pp. 231-33. 1 Mar [Anthology Ch. 15]
• Read selection from Gilbert Harman, Thought (Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 142-149. 1 Mar [Anthology Ch. 16]
• Read Rosenberg, pp. 20-top of 40 1 Mar
• Read Feldman, Chapter 3 1 Mar
• Notes on The Gettier Problem 1 Mar
• Read Fred Dretske, "The pragmatic dimension of knowledge," Philosophical Studies 40 (1981), pp. 363-78. 3 Mar
• Read Stewart Cohen, "Skepticism, relevance, and relativity," in Brian McLaughlin, ed. Dretske and His Critics (Blackwell, Cambridge, Mass., 1991), pp. 17-37. 3 Mar
• Notes on Dretske's Relevant Alternatives Theory 3 Mar
• Read Alvin Goldman, "Discrimination and perceptual knowledge," Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976), pp. 771-791. 8 Mar
• Read Feldman, pp. 81-86 8 Mar
• Notes on Goldman and Perceptual Discrimination 8 Mar

Contextualism

• Optional: Keith DeRose, "Contextualism: an explanation and defense" in John Greco and Ernest Sosa, eds., The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology. (Blackwell, Malden, Mass., 1999), pp. 187-205.
• Recommended: Feldman, pp. 152-155
• Optional: selection from Ernest Sosa, "Skepticism and contextualism" Philosophical Issues 10 (2000), pp. 1-10.
• Optional: selection from Hilary Kornblith, "The Contextualist evasion of epistemology" Philosophical Issues 10 (2000), pp. 24-30.
• Recommended: Notes on Contextualism

Theory of Evidence

• Read Feldman, pp. 49-60 26 Mar (actually 29 Mar)
• Read Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Holt, New York, 1912), Ch. 1-2 [pp. 7-27]. 26 Mar (actually 29 Mar)
• Read Georges Dicker, Perceptual Knowledge (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1980), pp. 11-46. 26 Mar (actually 29 Mar)
• Notes on Sense-Data 26 Mar (actually 29 Mar)
• Optional: David Armstrong, "Is introspective knowledge incorrigible?" Philosophical Review (1963) 72, pp. 417-32.
• Optional: Frank Jackson, Perception (Cambridge, 1977), Ch. 1 and 3
• Optional: David Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (Routledge, 1968), Ch. 10
• Optional: Michael Tye, "Visual qualia and visual content" in Tim Crane, ed., The Contents of Experience (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 158-176

Reliabilism

• Read rest of Rosenberg's Third Conversation 31 Mar
• Read Alvin Goldman, "What is justified belief?," in George Pappas, ed. Justification and Knowledge (Reidel, Dordrecht, 1979), pp. 1-23. 31 Mar [Anthology Ch. 26]
• Read Feldman, pp. 90-99 31 Mar
• Notes on Goldman, "What is Justified Belief?" 31 Mar
• Notes on Problems for Reliabilism 5 Apr
• Read Laurence BonJour, "Externalist theories of empirical knowledge," in P.A. French, T.E. Uehling and Howard Wettstein, eds. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980), pp. 53-73. 5 Apr [Anthology Ch. 28]
• Notes on BonJour's Critique of Goldman 5 Apr
• Optional: Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, "Evidentialism," Philosophical Studies 48 (1985), pp. 15-34 [Anthology Ch. 24]
• Optional: Alvin Goldman, "Internalism exposed," Journal of Philosophy 96 (1999), pp. 271-93 [Anthology Ch. 29]
• Recommended: Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, "Internalism defended" American Philosophical Quarterly 38 (2001), pp. 1-18. [Anthology Ch. 31]
• Optional: B. Madison, "Epistemic internalism," Philosophy Compass 5 (2010), pp. 840-53
• Optional: Alvin Goldman, "Immediate justification and process reliabilism," in Q. Smith, ed., Epistemology: New Essays (Oxford, 2008), pp. 63-82
• Optional: Clayton Littlejohn, "Evidence and armchair access," Synthese 179 (2011), pp. 479-500

Foundationalism versus Coherentism

• Notes on Foundationalism and Coherentism 7 Apr
• Read Laurence BonJour, "Can empirical knowledge have a foundation?," American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978), pp. 1-13. 7 Apr [Anthology Ch. 10]
• Notes on BonJour's Arguments against Foundationalism 7 Apr
• Optional: Laurence BonJour, "The dialectic of foundationalism and coherentism," in John Greco and Ernest Sosa, eds., The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (Blackwell, Malden, Mass., 1999), sections 1-4 [pp. 117-30, 139-40].
• Optional: Feldman, pp. 60-70
• Optional: William Alston, "Level confusions in epistemology," in P.A. French, T.E. Uehling and Howard Wettstein, eds. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980), pp. 135-50. Reprinted in his Epistemic Justification (Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, 1989), pp. 153-71.
• Optional: William Alston, "What's wrong with immediate knowledge?," Synthese 55 (1983), pp. 73-95. Reprinted in his Epistemic Justification (Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, 1989), pp. 57-78.
• Optional: Notes on The Given Theory

Disagreement

• Read Frances book, up to p. 56 (sections 1-6 from Part I) 12 Apr
• Read Frances book, up to p. 104 (sections 7-16 from Part I) 14 Apr
• Read Frances book, up to p. 174 (sections 1-8 from Part II) 19 Apr
• Read Frances book, up to p. 207 (sections 9-12 from Part II) 26 Apr
• Optional: Roger White, "Epistemic permissiveness," Philosophical Perspectives 19 (2005), pp. 445-59
• Optional: Tom Kelly, "Evidence can be permissive," in M. Steup and J. Turri, eds., Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (Blackwell, 2013), pp. 298-??
• Optional: Roger White, "Evidence cannot be permissive," in M. Steup and J. Turri, eds., Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (Blackwell, 2013), pp. 312-??
• Optional: Richard Feldman, "Epistemological puzzles about disagreement," in Stephen Hetherington, ed., Epistemological Futures (Oxford, 2006), pp. 216-36
• Optional: Richard Feldman, "Evidentialism, higher-order evidence, and disagreement," Episteme 6 (2009), pp. 294-312
• Optional: Richard Feldman, "Reasonable religious disagreement," in Louise Antony, ed., Philosophers without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular (Oxford, 2007), pp. 194-214
• Optional: Richard Feldman, "Deep disagreement, rational resolutions, and critical thinking," Informal Logic 25 (2005), pp. 12-23
• Optional: Tom Kelly, "The epistemic significance of disagreement," Oxford Studies in Epistemology 1 (2005), pp. 167-96
• Optional: Tom Kelly, "Peer disagreement and higher-order evidence," in A. Goldman and D. Whitcomb, eds., Social Epistemology: Essential Readings (Oxford, 2010), pp. 183-217
• Optional: David Christensen, "Epistemology of disagreement: the good news," Philosophical Review 116 (2007), pp. 187-217
• Optional: David Christensen, "Disagreement as evidence: the epistemology of controversy," Philosophical Compass 4 (2009), pp. 756-67
• Optional: David Christensen, "Conciliation, uniqueness, and rational toxicity," Nous 49 (2014), pp. ??-??
• Optional: David Christensen, "Does Murphy's Law apply in epistemology? Self-doubt and rational ideals," Oxford Studies in Epistemology 2 (2007), pp. 3-31
• Optional: David Christensen, "Epistemic modesty defended," in D. Christensen and J. Lackey, eds. The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays (Oxford, 2013), pp. 77-??

Additional Readings

• Ernest Sosa and Barry Stroud, "Philosophical skepticism", Aristotelian Society Suppl Volume 68 (1994)
• Ted Warfield, "Knowledge from falsehood," Philosophical Perspectives 19 (2005), pp. 405-16
• Richard Feldman, "Fallibilism and knowing that one knows," Philosophical Review 90 (1981), pp. 266-82
• Richard Feldman, "Contextualism and skepticism," Philosophical Perspectives 13 (1999), pp. 91-114
• Gail Stine, "Skepticism, relevant alternatives, and deductive closure," Philosophical Studies 29 (1976), pp. 249-61 [Anthology Ch. 20]
• Jonathan Vogel, "Counterexamples to the closure principle," in M.D. Roth and G. Ross, eds., Doubting (Kluwer, 1990), pp. 13-27 [Anthology Ch. 23]
• Richard Foley, "The epistemology of belief and the epistemology of degrees of belief," American Philosophical Quarterly 29 (1992), pp. 111-24
• Tom Kelly, "The rationality of belief and other propositional attitudes," Philosophical Studies 110 (2002), pp. 163-96
• Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath, "Evidence, pragmatics, and justification," Philosophical Review 111 (2002), pp. 67-94 [Anthology Ch. 51]
• Mark Kaplan, "It's not what you know that counts," Journal of Philosophy 82 (1985), pp. 350-63
• Tom Kelly, "Epistemic rationality as instrumental rationality: a critique," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2003), pp. 612-40
• Adam Leite, "Epistemic instrumentalism and reasons for belief," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2007), pp. 456-64
• Tom Kelly, "Evidence and normativity: reply to Leite," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2007), pp. 265-74
• Richard Feldman, "The ethics of belief," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (2000), pp. 667-95
• Jennifer Lackey, "Testimonial knowledge and transmission," Philosophical Quarterly 50 (1999), pp. 471-90 [Anthology Ch. 57]
• Michael Huemer, "The problem of memory knowledge," Philosophical Quarterly 80 (1999), pp. 346-57 [Anthology Ch. 58]
• George Pappas, "Lost justification," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980), pp. 127-34