We shall be concerned with questions of philosophical interest that arise from the actual practice of the cognitive sciences, especially cognitive psychology. The course will begin with general and foundational issues about psychological explanation and move on to more specific topics in contemporary cognitive science research. For each class, one or two pieces of core reading will be set and a longer reading list will be provided.

In the first class, we shall start with the question 'What is philosophy of cognitive science?' and move on to the distinction between what Daniel Dennett called 'personal' and 'sub-personal' levels of description (Content and Consciousness. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969). For this class, please read:

Daniel Dennett, 'Artificial intelligence as philosophy and as psychology'. In Brainstorms (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981), pp. 109-26.

and either:

Michael I. Posner and Mary K. Rothbart, 'Constructing neuronal theories of the mind'. In C. Koch and J.L. Davis (eds), Large-Scale Neuronal Theories of the Brain (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 183-99.

or:

Michael I. Posner and Marcus E. Raichle, Images of Mind (New York: Scientific American Library, 1994), Chapter 2, 'Measuring mind', pp. 29-51.

Thereafter, in the first half of the term our topics will include: levels of explanation; covering law explanations and explanations by decomposition; the modularity of mind; cognitive neuropsychology and double dissociation arguments; tacit knowledge of rules; the language of thought hypothesis; and, to conclude that part of the course, connectionist models of cognitive processes.

In the second half of the term, we shall turn to more specific topics. These are likely to include: consciousness and blindsight; selective attention and unilateral neglect; theory and simulation in everyday psychological understanding; theory of mind, social skills, and anti-social behaviour; language use in autism and schizophrenia; and delusions.

This course will be about nothing: physical and also metaphysical nothingness. It will mix history of philosophy, history of science, philosophy of science, philosophical cosmology, philosophy of religion, and straight metaphysics.

Physical nothingness - the extra-cosmic void, and the intra-cosmic void or vacuum - will provide one major theme; here the principal authorities are ancient atomists, Aristotle, late-classical critics of Aristotle, medieval theologians and philosophers, and various early-modern thinkers (e.g., Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Boyle, Pascal, Leibniz). But we shall also look at the 'vacuum' in contemporary physics, for it turns out (to put the matter contentiously) that nature does indeed abhor a vacuum: Aristotle, Descartes and Leibniz were right; Democritus, Boyle and Pascal wrong.

Metaphysical nothingness provides another theme, and here the main questions concern the coherence of the notion of absolute nothingness and the project of explaining why, if nothingness is possible, it does not obtain. Giving an account of the possibility of nothingness provides an interesting and unorthodox approach to questions about modality - for example, neither Lewis's modal realism nor Armstrong's states-of-affairs combinatorialism allow for the possibility of nothingness. Some recent arguments defending the claim that there might have been no concrete objects (so-called 'subtraction arguments') will also be examined. Answers to the question why there is something rather than nothing will also be considered: does it make sense to try to explain everything, and what sort of explanation might we offer? Does recent work in physical cosmology offer any hope for an explanation? Could the universe really have sprung from nothing, perhaps at the urging of some Theory of Everything? Or is some necessitarian solution involving the necessary existence either of God or every possible world plausible?

Besides these major themes, I hope to touch on others: the traditional problem of non-being, holes, nothingness in Sartre and Heidegger, non-events.

There will be a considerable amount of reading, and a huge amount of thinking, required. I shall run the course seminar-style, with students responsible for introducing the material.

Further information: sgrover@qc1.qc.edu

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Barrow, John D. The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, voids and the latest ideas about the origin of the universe. New York: Vintage, 2000.
• Genz, Henning. Nothingness: The Science of Empty Space. Tr. Heusch, Karin. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 1999.
• Grant, Edward. Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of space and vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Podolny, R. Something called Nothing. Physical Vacuum: What is it? Moscow: Mir, 1986.
• Saunders, Simon & Brown, Harvey R., ed. The Philosophy of Vacuum. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.

Davidson's primary interest was in the understanding of intentional and rational behavior. But he also thought that this was the best way for philosophers to approach questions about mind, meaning, truth, knowledge and reality. This course will emphasize the systematic character of Davidson's philosophy, examining the connections among his claims in various areas and scrutinizing specific arguments in light of his overall project. Special attention will be paid to the questions what justifies Davidson's initial approach and what kind of "theories" his rampant anti-foundationalism and anti-reductionism leave room for, as well as to the implications of his views for philosophical "dualisms" such as the subjective/objective distinction and the debate between realism and anti-realism and between internalism and externalism, both semantic and epistemic.

The primary texts will be Davidson's Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (OUP 1984), Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (OUP 2001) and the section on truth in Truth, Language and History (OUP forthcoming).

Course meets Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last 7 weeks of the semester

John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty was published in 1859, and it has been a major focus of discussion on the limits of state and social interference with the conduct of individuals. Mill argued for the liberty of individuals to engage in conduct not harmful to others, even though they might disapprove of it in other ways, and he also provided a strong defense of the most extensive freedom of discussion. His case for liberty of conduct and of discussion has attracted numerous critics and admirers. This course will re-examine the nature and significance of Mill's case for liberty in the context of contemporary developments, including the debate on multiculturalism and group identity.

Readings

• J.S. Mill, On Liberty (any edition). C.L. Ten (ed.) Mill's Moral, Political and Legal Philosophy (Ashgate, 1999).
• J. Gray and G.W. Smith (ed.) J.S. Mill On Liberty In Focus (Routledge, 1991).
• J. Hamburger, John Stuart Mill On Liberty and Control (Princeton University Press, 1999).
• H.L.A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality (Oxford University Press, 1963).
• Robert P. George, Making Men Moral (Oxford University Press, 1995).
• W. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford University Press, 1989).
• B. Barry, Culture and Equality (Harvard University Press, 2001).

An investigation of the mathematics behind the logic. Intended for students who have had a previous logic course, but little mathematical background. After considering propositional logic in some detail, we will examine the Tarski definition of model and satisfaction. Soundness and completeness will be proved, and some of the fundamental consequences of model theory arising from these results will be examined. We will look at both axiom systems and tableau systems, but familiarity with these proof methods is not presupposed.

TEXT

• Metalogic, an Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First Order Logic, Geoffrey Hunter, 6th printing, 1996, paperback ISBN: 0520023560.

General Description

It is usual to think that referential relations hold between language and thoughts on the one hand, and the world on the other. The most striking example of such a relation is the naming relation, the sort that holds between 'Socrates' and the famous philosopher Socrates. Other sorts of words are best seen as having other sorts of referential relations to the world for which various terms are used; for example, 'denotation' and 'application'. Usually, philosophers are interested in reference because they take it to be the core of meaning. Thus, the fact that 'Socrates' refers to that philosopher is the core of the name's meaning and hence of its contribution to the meaning of any sentence - for example, 'Socrates is wise' - that contains the name.

The central question about reference is: In virtue of what does a term have its reference? Answering this requires a theory that explains the term's relation to its referent. There has been a great surge of interest in theories of reference in recent years.

This course will be concerned primarily with theories of reference for singular terms: for proper names like 'Socrates', demonstratives like 'this cat', pronouns like 'she', definite descriptions like 'the last great philosopher of antiquity', and indefinite descriptions like 'a lion'. Anaphoric reference will not be considered. Figures to be discussed include Frege, Russell, Kripke, Donnellan, Searle, Evans, Putnam, Grice, Kaplan, Wilson, Neale, Bach, Reimer.

This is an advanced course in the philosophy of language and not an introduction. Anyone wishing to take it who has not already taken a graduate course in the philosophy of language should consult with me before enrolling.

Requirements

1. A brief weekly email raising questions about, making criticisms of, or developing points concerning, matters discussed in the class and reading for that week. 40% of grade.
2. A class presentation based on a draft for a paper (topic chosen in consultation with me). The draft to be submitted by the Tuesday before the presentation. 20% of grade.
3. A 10-page paper arising from the draft in (ii). 40% of grade.

TEXTS

• Devitt, M., and K. Sterelny: Language and Reality (2nd. edn. MIT)
• Martinich, A. P., ed. The Philosophy of Language (Oxford) ("M")
• Neale, S: Descriptions (MIT)

RECOMMENDED

• Ostertag, G. ed. Definite Descriptions: A Reader (MIT) ("O") [but note that a lot of its contents are to be found in Martich or Neale]

It is a common view that Descartes was the father of Modern Philosophy, and that this means that he rejected his predecessors' Aristotelian views, and provided a new modern account of natural philosophy, and, therefore, or matter, body, and mind. We will examine the question of whether Descartes' account is the sole and definitive modern view, and whether Descartes' account is a total break from Aristotelian theories of matter, body and mind or whether these Aristotelian theories, in some respects, prepared the way for modern theories. This will lead us to examine two additional and opposing prejudices about scholastic natural philosophy:

1. It is commonly believed that Aristotelian natural philosophy is uniform and uninventive.
2. Charles Schmitt supports the view that scholastics of the Renaissance held a variety of philosophic views, and that these cannot be analyzed except as individual and distinct theoretical accounts.

We will explore the evidence and counter-evidence in relation to both of these views.

In response to (1), we will look at a variety of diverse and (it seems to me) interesting Aristotelian views of matter, body and mind. This will provide evidence that Aristotelians developed a diversity of inventive views of matter, body and mind from the first century to the eighteenth century.

In response to (2), we will explore two scholastic traditions that developed during the thirteenth century, and that will provide two general frameworks for all these diverse views (i.e., those of medieval, Renaissance, and "modern" Aristotelians).

Readings will include selections from works of Aristotle and of Aristotelians of the medieval, Renaissance, and early modern periods, as well as, briefly, from writings of Descartes and of his arch-rival in natural philosophy, Pierre Gassendi.

A critical examination of major historical and contemporary works in social and political philosophy. Among the authors to be studied are Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Adam Smith, Madison, Marx, Mill, Rawls, Nozick, and Nagel. The text is Classics of Political and Moral Philosophy, ed. Cahn (Oxford University Press, 2002). Grades will be based on an optional mid-term examination and a required final examination.

Our principal focus will be on the nature of sensations and their relation both to thinking and consciousness. We'll discuss mainly perceptual sensations, such as sensations of red, but also bodily sensations, such as pains and aches.

We individuate and taxonomize sensations by way of their various mental qualities, but theorists differ about the nature of those mental qualities. Some have held that there is nothing to mental qualities apart from what consciousness reveals to us. If so, it may be that sensations and their mental qualities cannot occur without being conscious. And, if these qualities are fixed by way of consciousness, they might be independent of functional role, in particular, perceptual role; perhaps, then, qualities could be inverted relative to their role in perceiving, or even be altogether absent. This gives rise to one cluster of problems we'll discuss: Can sensations occur without being conscious? If so, what is the nature of their distinguishing mental qualities? And what, then, explains the way the mental qualities conscious sensations "light up," their subjectivity? In virtue of what are conscious sensations conscious? And what explains the compelling intuition that sensations and their mental qualities cannot occur without being conscious? Is inversion or absence of qualities really possible? What's involved in one's recognizing what sensation one has? Are there recognitional concepts? Does it matter for these issues whether the sensations are perceptual or bodily?

Post-Cartesian theories typically characterize sensations as purely qualitative and thinking as purely intentional. They thereby reject the standard pre-Cartesian view, tacitly shared by many contemporary psychologists, that since thinking is in effect an abstract form of sensing, thinking and sensing are continuous. If sensing is purely qualitative, perhaps it plays no representational role; sensing could not then be continuous with thinking, and only consciousness could reveal its nature. But this view makes a mystery of the essential role sensations and their mental qualities seem to play in perceiving and the way perceiving exhibits both qualitative and conceptual aspects. This tension leads to a second cluster of questions: Are qualitative states representational?If so, how? How about bodily sensations? Can the apparent gulf between sensing and thinking be bridged by positing some nonconceptual content? Or by the representational character of qualitative states? If sensations are purely qualitative, why do qualities of distinct modalities seem inextricably bound together? Is there a "common sense" that's independent of the various modalities, which perhaps senses size, shape, and location? How does sensing such spatial properties differ from sensing properties such as color and sound? How do qualitative states come to be conceptualized in perceiving? Are sensing and thinking conscious in the same way?

Readings will be from authors such as Sellars, Chisholm, Shoemaker, Block, Harman, Jackson, Dennett, Peacocke, Loar, Lewis, Levine, Dretske, Churchland, and Anscombe, and Rosenthal.

No stage in the history of western thought is closer to current work on language, logic, and attendant metaphysical questions than the fourteenth century. In their own way, figures such as Ockham and Buridan dealt with the same central questions that Frege, Russell, Quine, Davidson and Kripke have. We aspire to be part of the tradition in modern logic and its philosophy that takes cognizance of the history of philosophy and tries to discover and at times to absorb themes from an older tradition into a new one - transforming philosophers such as Ockham and Buridan into contemporaries. This tradition, as Arthur Prior put it, "contirves both to use modern techniques to bring out more clearly what the ancients were driving at, and to learn from the ancients useful...devices which the moderns have in general forgotten.

Some of the topics we will take up are:

1) Logic and natural language; signification, supposition, and compositionality

2) Empty names, existential import and expressing existence claims, e.g., the copula (Aristotle) versus the quantified (Frege, Russell, Quine).

3) Formal logic for assertoric and modal syllogistics with multiply quantified sentences (i.e. for "syllogisms from oblique terms").

4) Nominalism vs. realism in ontology and semantics

5) Intentional contexts, e.g. Frege's morning star problem, or "John seeks a unicorn."

6) The paradox of the liar, e.g., "This sentence is not true."

The problem of testimony (briefly: should we trust the word of others, especially strangers, and if so, why?), as we will treat it, is 60% (social) epistemology, 30% pragmatics, and 10% ethics.

We can understand the main problems of testimony via the (alleged) Default Rule:

If S(the speaker) asserts that p (to H the hearer), then H ought [is entitled] to accept S's assertion (as true), unless H has special reason to object.

1. Is this rule correct or not (does it [must it] rightly characterize our conversational practice)?
2. If it is correct (and binding on us), is it a rule that establishes a justification or an entitlement (to accept)?
3. If correct, is it justified a priori or a posteriori?
4. If much of our knowledge derives from default-rule based testimony, is our knowledge socially dependent and fragile because it depends upon trust (truthfulness) in others (and ourselves)?
5. Does the practice of assertion parallel the analysis of knowing or believing: S properly asserts [believes] that p only if S knows that p? (Connections here to Moore's Paradox and to the contextual dependence of knowledge and assertion.)

Readings from Coady, Burge, Brandom, Fricker, Grice, Davidson, Goldman, Williamson, DeRose, Lewis, Unger, and B. Williams.

What is the nature of applied philosophy? Is it primarily reflection on the practice and content of the sciences and professions - e.g. philosophy of science, of law, of history, of economics, of medicine; or is it primarily the application of philosophic knowledge and analytical results to ethical problems in the professions, as in medical ethics, legal ethics, business ethics, engineering ethics, academic ethics etc.. The former form of study is primarily theoretical (epistemology) while the latter is mainly practical (ethics). This seminar will address itself to both in an effort to develop some systematic connections between them.

Among topics to be investigated:

1) What should the philosopher know of philosophy to do applied philosophy?

2) What should the philosopher know of the subject matter theorized about?

3) Are, e.g. philosophy of science and philosophy of law applied philosophy?

4) Does every profession have its own chief good?

5) Casuistry.

6) The relation between rules, cases, and deciding what to do.

7) Applied logic and decision theory

8) Ideological subjects: e.g. environmental ethics

9) Drafting codes of ethics and following the rules

10) Ethics committees and ethicists on committees

11) Are these parts of applied philosophy: philosophy of sex, love, children, parenting, race?

12) Are social and political philosophy part of applied philosophy or the reverse?

13) The public philosopher and the campus philosopher.

Among the resources to be used will be the following journals: Journal of Applied Philosophy, Philosophy and Public Affairs, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophy and Policy, Metaphilosophy (including the special volume Applying Philosophy, 1988).

This course will focus on the most important works in 20th century philosophy of language. We will discuss some of the main constributions to the subject that were made by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Reichenbach, Carnap, Quine, Tarski, Davidson, Grice, Kripke, Putnam, Burge, and Chomsky. Many of the readings to be assigned are included in The Philosophy of Language, edited by A.P. Martinich, OUP.

This course will be capped at 10 students.

An exploration of some of the central issues in philosophical aesthetics, largely through modern and contemporary writers. Topics to be taken up include: What is the right account of the concept of intention in art and art criticism? May art be seen, as Goodman and Langer have held, as a "language" and if so, what advantages follow from this picture? How are aesthetic descriptions to be understood - if such descriptions do not appear to follow from naturalistic descriptions, are they then inchoate or mysterious? How are critical justifications to be understood - if, as it certainly seems, there are no laws of aesthetic success, is it the case then that there really are no justifications either? How we are to understand the institutional theory of art and the more subtle historical version of that theory recently developed by Danto?

Philosophical aesthetics faces in two directions. Where relevant, the connections between these theories to more general arguments or positions in philosophy will be taken up. How positions in aesthetics follow from or fit in with various arguments made in philosophy generally will be one of the main concerns of this course. But we will also be concerned with the degree to which these positions do justice to or illuminate our considered experience of art and art criticism.

I have been asked to give this course to the graduate students of Hunter College's studio art and art history program. Hence the location and the two and half hour time slot (do not be alarmed - I am sure we will take a break). The presence of actual artists, a group not known for excessive deference to authority, and art historians, who I assume, will have a wealth of examples to draw upon, should make things very interesting; at the same time, a certain amount of patience with the philosophically young will be expected. Course requirements: a final exam or 15 page course paper.

This is the CUNY/MSSM elective seminar in medical ethics. This seminar which will be taught at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, will be available to CUNY Graduate Center Philosophy students ant to MSSM medical students and students in the MSSM Masters Programs in Public Health, Clinical Research, and Genetics Counseling.

We will begin with discussion of several critical topics in the philosophy of science (scientific explanation, prediction, proof, and the logic of the controlled clinical trial). These first sessions will provide the necessary background for more extended discussions of the history of eugenics, the impact of the human genome project, and the uses of genetic knowledge and bioengineering (e.g., genetic counseling, cloning, germ-line therapeutic interventions, stem cell research, the creation of chimera). The remainder of the seminar will address the classic literature and core issues in medical ethics: abortion, assisted reproduction, life termination policies, organ transplantation, control of epidemics, and justice in health care distribution. Ethical theory will be discussed as it relates to individual topics and cases.

Instructors:

• Daniel Moros, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Neurology (MSSM)
• Rosamond Rhodes, Ph.D., Professor of Medical Education (MSSM) and Philosophy (CUNY).

We will concentrate on such topics as scientific explanation, the validation of scientific knowledge, conceptual change, and the ontological import of scientific knowledge. No special scientific knowledge will be presupposed, only elementary (undergraduate) logic and philosophy. We will discuss essays representing the most central contemporary positions and approaches. The selection of readings will be varied enough both to embody relevant dialogue among key authors and to encourage critical discussion. We will put special emphasis on the official "reading list" for philosophy of science.

meglev@nyc.rr.com

This course aims to familiarize students with two sorts of issues: those that have been central to epistemology over the past few centuries, and those that have been of particular interest to philosophers in recent decades. Among the former are: scepticism and responses to it, perception, induction, and necessary truth. Among the latter are: the definition of knowledge, the prospects for externalism and reliabilism, contextualism, and virtue epistemology. The primary required text for the course will be Louis Pojman, ed.,The Theory of Knowledge, 3rd ed. (Wadsworth). On reserve students will find Knowledge, eds. Bernecker and Dretske, The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, eds. Greco and Sosa, Epistemology, eds. Sosa and Kim, Robert Nozick's Philosophical Explanations, Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and its Limits, and possibly some works by the instructor. The student might also wish to acquire the Bernecker and Dretske, although there is some overlap with the Pojman.

There will be a number of short written assignments, and an in-class final.

Below is a syllabus. The student is expected to have read the material for meeting I by the beginning of the Spring semester. I should emphasize that the syllabus is tentative, and I urge all students who expect to take the course to get in touch with me (meglev@nyc.rr.com) before the semester begins. It would be useful to me to know what previous work in theory of knowledge you have done, and your general philosophical interests.

Meeting I: Descartes (pp. 22-39), Lehrer (56-63), Hume (40-48), Moore (49-55), all in Pojman.

II Unger, in Bernecker and Dretske, pp. 324-338; Levin, "Demons, Possibility and Evidence"

III Gettier (125), Feldman (127); in Pojman, Levin "Gettier Cases without False Lemmas?"

IV Goldman (129), Goldman (260); in Pojman

V Nozick, from Philosophical Explanations: in Bernecker and Dretske (347), or Philosophical Explanations (167-247) (a much larger selection).; Williamson, Knowledge and its Limits (147-161; challenging).

VI Conee and Feldman (296), Lehrer (273); in Pojman; Levin and Adler, "Is the Generality Problem Too General?," J. Vogel, "Reliabilism Leveled."

VII Steup (310), Quine (287), Kornblith (322); all in Pojman; Kim (279, in Bernecker and Dretske).

VIII Annis (248), Lewis (334); in Pojman

IX Locke (75), Stace (96), Reid (108; a slightly different selection is in Westphal, ed., Certainty);

Strawson (452 in Bernecker and Dretske)

X-XI Kant (370), Ayer (378), Quine (391), Grice and Strawson (403), Kripke (422); all in Pojman;

Levin, "Rigid Designators: Two Applications."

XII Hume (434), Reichenbach (451), Goodman (460); in Pojman; Levin, "Reliabilism and Induction."

XIII Rorty (588), Levin (596); in Pojman

XIV Zagzebski, "What is Knowledge," in Greco and Sosa, ed., Blackwell Guide to Epistemology; Levin, "Gettier Problems: No New Cure."