Home Description Requirements Instructor Syllabus Handouts

Philosophy 1870: Theories of Truth
Requirements and Policies

Course Structure

The course will meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1pm, in Sayles 305. When we are reading the more `philosophical' material, the class will be conducted by discussion, so far as possible. I will stop and lecture when that seems advisable and will lecture quite a bit when we do the more technical material.

Classes marked as 'Discussion' are an opportunity for us to try to synthesize some of what we've been studying. You should plan to review the papers we've read since the previous Discussion session and be ready to contribute to discussion in class. Otherwise, it will be very quiet.

Readings

There are no textbooks for the course. All readings are accessible from the course website (though you will need the username and password for many of them).

Prerequisites

We are going to be reading advanced, difficult material (some of it legendarily difficult). You will find extended reading notes to help you on this course web site, but this is not a course for beginners. You should have had at least a few philosophy courses before attempts this one, and at least one of those should have been at the 1000-level.

We shall also be reading and discussing a good deal of formal (mathematical) work on truth. Phil 0540, or something equivalent, is an essential prerequisite. Even more of a prerequisite, however, is that students should be comfortable with mathematical argumentation, that is, with proofs. If you have doubts about your preparation in this respect, please speak to the instructor before deciding to take the course for credit.

Requirements

Grades for the course will be determined as follows.

Reading Responses and Class Participation: 40%
For each assigned reading, students are required to submit, to the courses's Canvas site, a response to that reading no later than 10am the day we will be discussing it. This is to give everyone, and especially me, time to read and digest your responses.
Your response does not have to address the associated questions on the syllabus; those are intended merely to provide some kind of initial guidance.
Students are not specifically required but are encouraged to read each other's postings, to comment upon them, and generally to use the Canvas site as a platform for discussing the readings and asking questions. Doing so counts as `participating' in the class every bit as much as offering comments and objections during class meetings.
The responses will be graded on a scale from 0-5 points. The main criterion here is the amount of thought that emerges in the response. Please note that a 3 does not mean 60%. Rather, a 3 is average. A 4 means the reply shows a deeper understanding than would necessarily be expected, and a 5 will be given only for exceptionally good responses. A 2 means there is some inadequacy in one's understanding of the reading, and a 1 signals a serious misunderstanding that should probably be corrected, or else just a lack of genuine effort.
Short Papers: 30%
There will be three short papers of about 3-5 pages, with a maximum length of 1500 words. Lists of 'topics' will be distributed on a week in advance of the due dates, which are 26 September, 7 November, and 12 December. The 'topics' will be short quotations from various of the papers we read, and the object of the exercise will be expository: You will be asked to explain the passage and its significance.
Problem Sets: 30%
There will be three sets of problems related to the formal material we will study. These are due on 10 October, 22 October, and 26 November.

Grades will be recorded on the course's Canvas site. Pay no attention to Canvas's report of your cumulative grade. This is useless.

Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the day specified. I will not accept late papers. On the other hand, you will find that I am quite prepared to grant extensions, so long as they are requested in advance, that is, at least one day prior to the due-date. Extensions will not be granted after that time except in very unusual and unfortunate circumstancess. Since I am so flexible, there can be no excuse for one's not asking for an extension. It's really just a matter of respect.

Time Expectations

In class time: We expect to have about 35 meetings, so you will spend about 35 hours in class.
You should expect to spend about 3 hours per class reviewing material from the previous class, reading the material for that class, and writing your response on the course forum. This accounts for 105 hours.
For each of the three short papers, about 8 hours. This accounts for 24 hours.
For each of the three problem sets: about 6 hours. This accounts for 18 hours.

You should thus expect your total time commitment for this class to be about 182 hours.

In Class Behavior

Students may use laptops and the like to take notes in class or to access material we are discussing in class, but all other use of computers, tablets, and mobile devices is prohibited during class. This includes but is not limited to checking email, texting, and searching the web, even if the search is related to the course. I establish this rule not for my benefit, not even for yours, but rather for that of your peers.

In a study entitled “Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers” (PDF here), Faria Sana, Tina Weston, and Nichola Cepeda showed exactly that. It is not just that students who "multi-task" during class—check e-mail, text, or whatever—received significantly lower grades in the study than students who did not. This is not surprising, since the human brain simply cannot focus on very many things at one time. (If you're skeptical about this, then watch this video or perhaps some of these ones.) Rather, the surprising conclusion was that students who were sitting near other students who were multi-tasking also received significantly lower grades than students were who not. In fact, they were almost as distracted as the students who were actually doing the multi-tasking!

There is thus evidence that multi-tasking does not only hurt the person doing it. It also harms the people around them. And that is the basis of my request that students not engage in such activities during class. If someone near you is doing so, you should feel free to ask them to stop.

Notice Regarding Academic Accommodations and Short-term Adjustments

Students seeking accommodations due to a disability or medical condition should contact the Office of Student and Employee Accessibility Services (SEAS). Students in need of short-term academic advice or support can contact one of the deans in the Dean of the College's office. Students seeking psychological support services should contact Counseling and Psychological Services.