301 - 310 of 317 results for: PHIL

Attention is a big deal, and it's recently been having something of a philosophical moment. In this seminar, we'll start by looking at some foundational work on what attention is and what it is to attend to something, before turning to explore some areas in which the notion is employed. In the philosophy of language, this might include recent work on demonstratives, slurs, and identity labels, as well as foundational theories of meaning. After reading some classic work on what is typically called 'the ethics of attention,' we'll look at some recent papers on the virtues and vices of attending and of calling attention in different ways.This class is open to all philosophy graduate students, and to other students only with instructor permission. The 2 unit option is only allowed for Philosophy PhD students who are beyond the second year.

This class is open to all philosophy graduate students, and to other students only with instructor permission. The 2-unit option is only allowed for Philosophy PhD students who are beyond the second year.

When you do something intentionally, you have a special kind of knowledge of what you are doing. Anscombe called this practical knowledge. She argued that it is non-observational and non-inferential, and that it plays a role in making your action intentional at all. Was Anscombe right? What kind of knowledge do you have of your action when you are acting intentionally? We will consider various interpretations of Anscombe's view on practical knowledge, and various competitors. This class is open to all philosophy graduate students, and to other students only with instructor permission. The 2 unit option is only allowed for Philosophy PhD students who are beyond the second year.

What do you do when you reason with beliefs or suppositions? What sort of mental event or process constitutes an inference? How can that event or process make it the case that one belief is held on the basis of another? How does it ground any form of epistemic responsibility for that basing relationship? We will consider various recent answers to these questions, including those given by Boghossian, Broome, Frege, Harman, Neta, Pavese, Siegel, Stroud, and Wedgwood. This is a graduate seminar primarily for graduate students in philosophy. All others need permission to enroll. The 2 unit option is only allowed for Philosophy PhD students who are beyond the second year.

May be repeated for credit. 2 unit option is only for Phil PhD students beyond the second year.

This class is open to graduate students in philosophy, all others need explicit permission. 2 unit option is only for Philosophy PhDs beyond the second year.

Course may be repeat for credit. 2 unit option for PhD students only.

This seminar will focus on various "qualitativist" doctrines, all of which hold that reality contains no facts about particular objects. Topics we're likely to discuss include: (i) Bundle theories of objects, which in various ways privilege properties over objects as constituents of reality, (ii) Objections to bundle theories from the possibility of reality exhibiting certain symmetries, (iii) Various contemporary versions of qualitativism, which are meant to improve on traditional bundle theories, (iv) The interaction between all of these doctrines and debates in the metaphysics of modality over "haecceitism," the doctrine that some metaphysical possibilities differ only over facts about particular objects, (v) The connections between these doctrines and complaints about "bare particulars," as well as debates over the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, (vi) The various theoretical virtues that are meant to motivate qualitativism, and whether these motivations succeed, and (vii) The connections between qualitativism and certain revisionary ontological doctrines, all of which hold that there are far fewer objects than we ordinarily take there to be. Depending on students' interests, we might also look at connections between these issues in metaphysics and related debates in the philosophy of science and physics, including: (i) The nature and structure of space and time, (ii) The nature of symmetries in physical theories, and (iii) Different disambiguations of the elusive doctrine of "structuralism." Our focus will be on contemporary work. Those enrolling in the seminar should be comfortable with the basics of first-order logic. This is a graduate seminar. 2 unit option for Philosophy PhD students beyond the second year only. May be repeated for credit.

Thinking is something you do. It is something you can do intentionally, for particular reasons. It can be successful or unsuccessful. It can be effortful, and it can feel that way. All of these are possible features of mental actions: things you do in thought. In this seminar, we will explore the nature of mental action and its importance to mental metaphysics and epistemology. Why do we think we have the capacity to act in thought? What are the constraints on that agency? What kinds of mental actions can we perform intentionally? Are those actions freely willed? Are they voluntary? What kind of responsibility do we bear for them? What kind of knowledge do we have of them? 2 unit option for Philosophy PhD students beyond the second year only.