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Classics of Analytic Philosophy
First Year Seminar
PrincetonUniversity
Fall 2008
Delia G. Fara
Thomas Kelly
Wednesdays, 2:30-4:30.
Each week we will read a seminal work of twentieth century analytic philosophy and try to make as much sense of it as we can together. We will attempt to reconstruct and evaluate the author's argument, but we will be no less concerned to place the work in historical context and to understand why it achieved landmark status.
Students will make presentations and write short (2-3 page) papers on a regular basis (roughly, every other week). Please bring two hard copies of your paper to class.
Schedule of Readings(subject to change at discretion of the instructors).
Week 1, 9/17.
G.E. Moore, “The Subject Matter of Ethics”, chapter 1 of hisPrincipia Ethica (1903).
Week 2, 9/24.
Bertrand Russell, “On Denoting”. Mind, New Series, vol.14, No.56 (Oct.1905),
pp.479-493. Available viaJSTOR. Reprinted in his Logic and Knowledge.
Russell, “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge By Description”, Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society (New Series), Vol.XI, (1910-1911), pp.108-128.Reprinted
in his Mysticism and Logic.
Week 3, 10/1.
A.J. Ayer, “The Elimination of Metaphysics”, “The Function of Philosophy”, and
“The A Priori”, Chapters 1,2, and 4 of his Language, Truth, and Logic (1936), pp.33-
58, 71-87.
Week 4, 10/8.
Ayer, “Critique of Ethics and Theology”, chapter 6 of Language, Truth,and Logic,
pp.102-120.
J.L.Mackie, “The Subjectivity of Values”, chapter 1 of his Ethics:Inventing Right and
Wrong (1977), pp.15-49.
Week 5, 10/15.
W.V.Quine “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”The Philosophical Review,Vol. 60, No. 1
(Jan., 1951), pp. 20-43. Available via JSTOR.
Week 6, 10/22.
Nelson Goodman, “The New Riddle of Induction”,Chapter 3 of his Fact,Fiction, and
Forecast, pp.59-83.
Goodman, “The Passing of the Possible” (selections), Chapter 2 of Fact,Fiction, and
Forecast.
Fall Break
Week 7, 11/5.
Carl Hempel, “Explanation in Science and in History”, in R.G. Golodny (ed.)
Frontiers of Science and Philosophy (London and Pittsburgh: Allen& Unwin, 1962):
7-33. Reprinted in David-Hillel Ruben (ed.) Explanation (OxfordUniversity Press,
1993, 17-41.
Week 8, 11/12.
Edmund Gettier, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” in Analysis, Vol.23, No. 6
(Jun., 1963), pp. 121-123. Available via JSTOR.
Gilbert Harman, “The Inference to the Best Explanation”, ThePhilosophical Review,
Vol. 74, No. 1 (Jan., 1965), pp. 88-95.
Week 9, 11/19.
Alvin Goldman, “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge” The Journal of
Philosophy, Vol. 73, No. 20, 771-791. Nov. 18, 1976. Available online via JSTOR.
David Lewis, “Elusive Knowledge”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, volume 74,
Issue 4, 1996, Pages 549 – 567. Available online fromPrinceton e-journals.
Also reprinted in his Papers in Metaphysics andEpistemology.
Week 10, 11/26.
Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity.
Week 11, 12/3.
Kripke, Naming and Necessity (continued).
Week 12, 12/10.
Frank Jackson, “Epiphenomenal Qualia”, Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982):127-36.
Available online via JSTOR.
David Lewis, “Mad Pain and Martian Pain”, in his Philosophical Papers, vol.I,
pp.122-132 (including postscript).