Contemporary analytic philosophy began with certain discoveries in formal logic, and much of the work we shall be reading is informed in one way or another by logic: Arguments, premises, and conclusions are often stated using the concepts of formal logic. A working understanding of basic logic, such as one would acquire in Phil 0640, is therefore almost but not quite essential. An introductory course in linguistics, or in semantics, is also sufficient.
Significant prior exposure to philosophy is more or less essential: Much of the material we will be reading is very difficult. As usual with 1000-level courses, then, students should have taken at least one prior course in philosophy, and two are really preferred. But it is possible to compensate for this with prior work in linguistics, especially semantics and pragmatics.
Students who are unsure of their preparation in either respect should speak with the instructor before enrolling.
As just said, the papers we will be reading are generally hard. You should expect to read each paper at least twice in order to understand it. The first time you read a paper, I'd suggest you just read through it quickly; don't worry too much if you're not getting everything. At this point, you're just trying to get a general sense for what the author is trying to do. The second time you read the paper, you should slow down. This is when you really do want to pause and think carefully through the various arguments that the author is giving. You will find extended reading notes to help you elsewhere on this website.
There are no textbooks for the course. All readings are accessible on Canvasand from this website; the website also includes many optional readings for students who would like to look deeper into a given topic. For papers linked from here, you will need a username and password that is available on Canvas. We will, though, be reading quite a few of the papers that are collected in Donald Davidson's Inquiries Into Truth and Interpretation, so it would be worth getting a copy. I did not, however, order it.
The course will meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12:00pm, in Smith-Buonanno G01. So far as possible, the course will be conducted as a discussion, not a lecture. Students should arrive appropriately prepared with questions, comments, and criticisms. We will generally discuss one paper each meeting. Reading notes will be posted to the course website to help guide students through the reading, together with some questions worth considering as you read. Each student is required to post a 'response' to the reading to the course's Canvas site by no later than 11pm the day before we will be discussing it. This is to give everyone, especially me, time to read and digest the responses. Students are (not specifically required to but are) encouraged to read each other's postings, to comment upon them, and generally to use Canvas a platform for discussing the readings and asking questions. In particular, you do not necessarily have to write your own comment. You are welcome instead to respond to or amplify someone else's remarks.
NOTE: The due date for reading responses shows as 12:01am the day we will be discussing the papers in class. This is so the dates for the readings show properly (and not as the day before). They are still due at 11pm.
Depending upon enrollment, we may adjust how often students are required to post.
The 'responses' do not need to answer any (let alone all) of the questions raised in the reading notes. What I am really interested to know is which parts of the papers students felt they understood, which they felt they did not, and what questions they have about the paper, so I can structure our discussion appropriately. As for length, a paragraph is sufficient, though students are welcome to write more if they have more to say.
Class periods 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 write some thoughts, as usual, to Canvas.
Jim Pryor, a friend and former colleague who is now at UNC, has written two pieces that address the questions how to read philosophy papers and how to write philosophy papers. You may find them here:
If you are new (or newish) to philosophy, then they are very highly recommended. And, even if you are an old hand, you are sure to find something of value in what Prof Pryor has to say.If the above links are broken, try the Wayback Machine:
Here is another set of pages, written by Joe Cruz, who is at Williams College, about how to write a philosophy paper. It presents an example of a short philosophy paper and shows how it develops, from initial sketches through a series of drafts.
Grades for the course will be determined as follows.
Graduate students are welcome, if they wish, not to write the short papers but instead to write a 15-20 page final paper. This should be discussed with the instructor before the first short paper is due.
Grades will be recorded on the course's Canvas site. Pay no attention to Canvas's report of your cumulative grade. It is useless, because Canvas does not know how to calculate the participation part of the grade.
Warning: Late papers will be penalized half a grade per day. (So, e.g., a B+ would be become a B-/B after one day, a C+ after two days.) That said, I am extremely flexible about due dates. If someone should need an extra day or two, they need only ask; no reason need even be given. If someone should need more time than that, then some reason does need to be given, but the request will usually be granted. Since I am so flexible, there can be no excuse for not asking for an extension. Extensions should, however, be requested no later than 5pm the day before something is due. Plan ahead!
Brown's Academic Code details standards we have all agreed to follow, to ensure that the work we present as our own really is our own. Specifically:
A student’s name on any exercise (e.g., a theme, report, notebook, performance, computer program, course paper, quiz, or examination) is regarded as assurance that the exercise is the result of the student’s own thoughts and study, stated in his or her own words, and produced without assistance, except as quotation marks, references, and footnotes acknowledge the use of printed sources or other outside help. (emphasis added)
Ideas, someone once said, are the currency of intellectual work, and stealing ideas is theft. Plagarism is stealing ideas: claiming as your own what was the fruit of someone else's work. It is not the worst thing one can do, but it is pretty bad.
Nowadays, however, there are other temptations, in the form of AI-based tools like ChatGPT that can write papers all by themselves. The Academic Code clearly prohibits submitting the output of such a tool as one's own work. Indeed, the Academic Code requires acknowledgement of any "outside help" one may have received in writing a paper. Since it is not entirely clear what that means in this case, let me be clear what my standards are.
You are welcome to use AI the way you would a search engine, or to help you brainstorm, or to help you improve your writing, or what have you. But you should never 'quote' anything generated by AI, or even rephrase it and cite it. (It goes without saying that you absolutely cannot use such material without attribution). ChatGPT is not an authoritive source, and it cannot be cited as such, so it cannot be cited period, so you cannot use material directly from it. If you should uncover something interesting using such a tool, then what you should do is go find the original source yourself, read it yourself (to make sure what ChatGPT said is actually accurate), and then cite the original source. Indeed, since, as is well-known, AI-based tools sometimes just make things up (including citations), that would be a good idea anyway.
Frankly, having played around with ChatGPT, I would regard using it even in the ways just described as unwise: It takes an expert to disentangle what it gets right from what it gets wrong. Here's an example: I recently fed ChatGPT a passage from a paper by H.P. Grice in which I had sprinkled enough "not"s to make it say the opposite of what it originally said. I told ChatGPT that the passage came from Grice and asked it to explain the passage and how it fit into Grice's philosophy. It was quite happy to do so, even though the altered version of the passage completely contradicts Grice's views.
If you do choose to use AI assistants to help you with the paper, then you must, in accordance with the policy quoted above, acknowledge that assitance. For the purposes of this course, that means explaining, in a footnote, which AI assistant you used and exactly how you used it.
Violations of this policy will be taken extremely seriously and will be reported to the Dean of the College. Confirmed violations will result in exclusion from the course and a grade of No Credit. The College may impose additional penalties for such violations, up to and including expulsion.
It's important to understand that writing is not just a matter of putting down on paper what you already think. Rather, writing is a way of developing your thoughts, of forcing yourself "to figure out lines of argument that are coherent, choose evidence that is relevant, find sources of information and inspiration that are useful, and---most importantly---learn the craft of expressing yourself in sentences that are readable and clear" (John Naughton). This is true of all writing, but especially of philosophical writing. I have often had students say things like, "I know what X means, but when I try to write it down...". The response is: Then you don't know what X means. Figuring out how to write it down is figuring out what X means.
Philosophy is about thinking for yourself. If you don't want to think for yourself, then don't take philosophy courses.
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", 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.
Brown University is committed to full inclusion of all students. Please inform the instructor early in the term if you have a disability or other condition that might require accommodations or modification of any of the course procedures. For more information, please contact the Office of Student and Employee Accessibility Services. Students in need of short-term academic advice or support can contact one of the deans in the Dean of the College's office.