WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC REALISM?

Scientific realism has an existence dimension and an independence dimension. The existence dimension is that, for the most part, the unobservables that science appears to be committed to - atoms, viruses, photons, and the like - really do exist and have the properties specified by science. This is opposed by those - most notably van Fraassen - who are skeptical that science is giving us an accurate picture of reality. The independence dimension is that scientific entities do not depend for their existence and nature on the cognitive activities and capacities of our minds. This is opposed by those - most notably, Kuhn and Feyerabend - who hold that these entities are somehow "constructed" by the theories we have of them.

The course will start by clarifying this metaphysical "definition" of scientific realism and comparing it with the bewildering variety of definitions to be found in the literature. These include epistemic, apparently semantic, and really semantic definitions.

SCIENTIFIC REALISM VS CONSTRUCTIVISM

Constructivism about science arises in the context of the alleged incommensurability of rival paradigms like the Ptolemaic and Copernican. Arguments will be mounted against constructivism, incommensurability, and the methodology that leads to them.

SCIENTIFIC REALISM VS SKEPTICISM

1. Arguments for scientific realism will be examined. The most famous is the argument from success. Why do the observational predictions of theories tend to come out true? The best explanation, the realist claims, is that the theories are (approximately) true. Indeed, if they weren't, this success would be "a miracle." Laudan and Fine have mounted a sustained attack against this argument. Other abductive defenses of realism will be considered along with arguments from scientific practice.
2. Perhaps the most influential argument against realism is the argument from the underdetermination of theories by the evidence. Any theory is alleged to face many empirically equivalent rivals, rivals equally compatible with all possible evidence. This argument will be criticized by appealing to the Duhem-Quine thesis and to the lack of any known limit to our capacity to create evidence.
3. The pessimistic "meta-induction" is another influential argument: past theories have been mostly wrong; so probably present theories are too. Realist defenses against this powerful argument will be explored.

The course will finish with some critical remarks about van Fraassen's antirealism.

The course is not an introduction to the philosophy of science.

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. 50% of grade.
2. A class presentation based on a draft for a paper (topic chosen in consultation with me). The draft to be submitted before Tuesday of the week of presentation. 20% of grade.
3. A 2,500 word paper probably arising from the draft in (ii). 30% of grade.

TEXTS

• Kukla, Andre. 1998. Studies in Scientific Realism. New York: Oxford University Press. [0-19-511865-0]
• Psillos, Stathis. 1999. Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth. New York: Routledge. [0-415-20819-X]

RECOMMENDED

• Churchland, Paul M. and Clifford A. Hooker. 1985. Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism, with a Reply form Bas C. van Fraassen. Chicago: University of Chicago. [0-226-10654-3]
• Devitt, Michael. 1997. Realism and Truth. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [0-691-01187-7]
• Fine, Arthur. 1986a. The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism, and the Quantum Theory Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [0-226-24946-8]
• Laudan, Larry. 1996, Beyond Positivism and Relativism: Theory, Method and Evidence. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. [0-8133-2469-6]
• Leplin, Jarrett. 1997. A Novel Defense of Scientific Realism New York: Oxford University Press. [0-19-511363-2]
• Kukla, Andre. 2000. Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science New York: Routledge. [0-415-23419-0]

Propositional logic: truth tables, deductions. Notions of validity, satisfiability and consequence. Soundness and completeness. Grice's discussion of truth functional connectives, Gricean implicature.

First order logic: formalism, deductions and semantics. Soundness and completeness of the logical system.

Introduction of equality and logic with equality.

Kripke semantics for modal logic and the important modal systems.

Conditionals and the semantics of Lewis and Stalnaker.

Meta-logic: the Goedel incompleteness theorem.

The emphasis of the course will be on becoming comfortable with basic logical techniques and acquiring familiarity with those logical tools which are crucial in philosophy and philosophical logic.

An examination of some of the central arguments concerning the objectivity, or lack thereof, of moral judgments and statements employing moral concepts. The intuition that moral judgments are not quite like, not quite as objective as, judgments made about the empirical world is very deep, and, on my view, when stated modestly enough, almost certainly right. Yet recent years have seen an array of powerful arguments to the effect that the asymmetry between moral judgments and empirical judgments is only apparent, and that when we understand "realism" with sufficient sophistication, realism is as irresistible before moral matters as it seems to be everywhere else. If these arguments are found wanting, does that mean that some version of non-factualism, some version of an "error theory," is inevitable? Can morality be construed as "constructed" and still be thought of as objective? Will attending to some of the distinctive features of morality on a first order level, such as its role in structuring social cooperation, support some kind of objectivism? Will to attending to other such features, such as the way it can be the bearer of very personal conceptions, support the non-cognitivist? Is it possible the best theory will be a bifurcated one, arguing for the possibility of a certain kind of objective justification or realism before a certain range of cases, denying that possibility elsewhere?

This course will look at arguments made with respect to all of these issues. The strengths and weaknesses of various forms of objectivism and anti-objectivism will be taken up, largely in contemporary philosophers. In the course of assessing these arguments, and so in understanding some of the central positions in recent moral theory, we will also be concerned with constructing the account of moral judgments we think right.

We are interested in developing some basic themes, formal as well as pragmatic, about explanation, that are common to a whole variety of different theories and models of explanation. We shall begin with a rigorous, but speedy review of the amazing developments and disappointments that have emerged in the last fifty years of classical philosophical studies devoted to explanation, and then focus on the significant literature of the last decade. The stuff that, as it were, has risen out of the rubble.

We shall study the prospects for a theory of explanation that covers standard as well as probabilistic applications, singular as well as general explanation, including some possible mathematical examples (there's a huge controversy here) as well as scientific examples. En route we shall consider theories of contrastive explanation, inference to the best explanation, and explore the connection of explanation and causation, explanation and modality.

The first three weeks will be devoted to D-H Ruben's Explaining Explanation (1992), Routledge paperback. And the remaining literature will consist of distributed Xeroxed articles, and ms. material.

A critical examination of central issues in the philosophy of religion. Authors to be studied include Plato, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas, Hume, Kierkegaard, James, and various contemporary philosophers of religion, including Alston, Hick, Plantinga, Rowe, Swinburne, and Wolterstorff. We shall read two anthologies in their entirety: Ten Essential Texts in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Cahn (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Questions about God, eds. Cahn and Shatz (Oxford University Press, 2002). Several short papers will be required.

For purposes of satisfying the comprehensive examination requirement of two advanced courses in an area, this course is considered an advanced course in the area of metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind.

Hume on feeling and thinking, self and cause

(what did he say? was he right or wrong?)

I think nearly everybody's wrong about Hume, and that he is far more sensible than he is usually made out to be.

The really serious misreading of Hume started in the nineteenth century and was perfected in the twentieth. His eighteenth-century contemporaries didn't misunderstand him. Even Thomas Reid, an indefatigable misreader of others, got Hume's view about cause right. So did Kant.

Kant remarked about history of philosophy that 'if we take single passages, torn from their context, and compare them with one another, contradictions are not likely to be lacking, especially in a work that is written with any freedom of expression...; but they are easily resolved by those who have mastered the idea of the whole' (Critique of Pure Reason, Bxliv). 'Many historians of philosophy', he later added, 'with all their intended praise,...attribute mere nonsense...to past philosophers. They are incapable of recognizing, beyond what the philosophers actually said, what they really meant to say' (Kant 'On a Discovery', 160). This is what has happened to Hume.

I propose to focus on [1] Hume's philosophy of mind and [2] his theory of causation. Within his philosophy of mind I propose to focus on [1a] his naturalistic, empirical-psychological cognitive science (his theory of ideas), and [1b] his metaphysics (and epistemology) of mind and self.

The fundamental error in the last 150 years of Hume criticism has been to confuse his metaphysics and his epistemology: to think that when he says 'all we can know of X is Y' he commits himself to 'all X is is Y'.

Actually, the muddling up of metaphysics and epistemology is the defining error of twentieth-century analytic philosophy, and its interpretative treatment of Hume is exemplary and highly instructive.

I'm interested in the historical project of establishing what he said but I'm equally interested in whether he was right and wrong and in how his view relates to recent work. One attractive project, for example, is to read Jerry Fodor's recent book Hume Variations in conjunction with a fairly careful study of Hume's theory of ideas. I will also want to look at passages in William James's The Principles of Psychology volume I.

I'm happy to leave some of the details of the course open to negotiation. At the moment I think it best to start with [1a] Hume's theory of ideas, continue with [2] his views of causation and conclude with [1b] his metaphysics of mind.

Texts

Probably ought to use the two new recent Oxford editions, but almost all the references in the secondary literature are to the older Selby-Bigge editions.

Hume, D. (1739-40/2000) A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by D. F. Norton (OUP) [introduction not good in my view]

Hume, D. (1739-40/1978) A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge & P. H. Nidditch (OUP).

Hume, D. (1748/2000) An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, edited by T. Beauchamp (OUP) [generally helpful introduction]

Hume, D. (1748-51/1975) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge (OUP).

Hume, D. (1779/1947), Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, second edition, ed. N. Kemp Smith (Edinburgh: Nelson).

Hume, D. (1779/1993), Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, edited by J. C. A. Gaskin (OUP) .

Fodor, J. (2003) Hume Variations, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Some influential recent books and collections of papers

• Craig, E. J. (1987) The Mind of God and the Works of Man (OUP) [chapter 2]
• Garrett, D. (1997) Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy (OUP).
• Millican, P. ed (2002) Reading Hume on Human Understanding, ed. (OUP).
• Owen, David W. D. (ed.), Hume: General Philosophy (Aldershot and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2000)
• Pears, D. (1990) Hume's System: An Examination of the First Book of His Treatise (OUP).
• Read, R. & Richman, K. eds (2000) The New Hume Debate, ed. (London: Routledge).
• Strawson, G. (1989) The Secret Connexion (OUP).
• Stroud, B. (1977) Hume (London: Routledge).
• Tweyman, Stanley (ed.), David Hume: Critical Assessments (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), six volumes

When I first came to the Graduate Center, I began with a course revisiting my own views in Naming and Necessity. I believe that I did not have much time to discuss natural mind terms, as treated in the book. I wish to do so this time. I also wish to discuss the related questions regarding artifactual terms, physical properties, sensorily perceived properties (whether traditionally "primary" or "secondary"), etc. as time permits. I will naturally discuss related views (especially those of Hilary Putnam). I also will treat the issue (raised in the past and more recently) of the relation of my views of natural kind terms to my views of proper names, also as time permits.

Because knowing requires mental functioning, nineteenth-century discussions typically followed Kant and Descartes in explaining mind in terms of their role in knowing. But knowing not only involves a highly specialized aspect of mental functioning, but goes beyond the strictly mental. So that strategy ignores mental phenomena that play little or no role in knowing and emphasizes epistemic concerns irrelevant to the nature of mind. Contemporary discussion, by contrast, takes language and action as basic, rather than knowing. And, since many mental phenomena express speech or action, this has led to a theoretical focus on the mental as such.

Still, because of a residual concern with knowing, the new focus on mind originated with the concern about how we know about mental states. Our knowledge about our own mental states often seems unmediated by inference and independent of evidence, whereas we seem not to know about the mental states of others in that way. How, then, do we know about others' mental states? How do we know what others are thinking and feeling, and even that they think or feel anything at all? And, because this concern arises from the way knowing one's own mental states differs from knowing others', how do we know even about our own mental states?

These questions leads to another. We must somehow know about the minds of others by way of connections mental states have to bodily states or to behavior. So we can answer that question only if we can first determine in general terms how mind and body are related. Are mental states a special type of bodily states? Or are they nonphysical states causally related to bodily states?

But we cannot effectively invesigate whether mental phenomena are physical without determining what it is for a phenomenon to be mental in the first place. We'll approach this problem of characterizing mental phenomena by focusing on three groups: intentional states such as thinking, doubting, and desiring; sensory states—both bodily sensations such as pains and tickles and the sensations that figure in perceiving; and what it is to be a self or a person and what it is for a mental state to be conscious.

We often determine the nature of something by its role in explaining things. So we may be able to resolve disagreements about how to characterize mental phenomena by appeal to their role in psychological explanation. Psychological explanations are sometimes cast in commonsense terms and sometimes in scientific terms. We'll consider both, asking how psychological states explain behavior, what constraints such explanations impose on the nature of mental states, and whether the explanations of scientific psychology cast doubt on the applicability of our commonsense psychologycal concepts.

We'll use The Nature of Mind, ed. Rosenthal (available through the Graduate Center bookstore arrangement) and a few xeroxes on library reserve.

The seminar will focus on Kant's moral philosophy as set forth primarily in his Groundwork (1785) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), but attention will also be given to the political and anthropological applications of his theory in the Metaphysics of Morals (1797) and in his later political writings. Topics will include: the notion of the good will, duty, autonomy, the distinction between empirical and pure practical reason, the categorical imperative and the "fact of reason," as well as Kant's doctrine of virtue and of right, of republican government and international law.

Throughout the seminar we will evaluate a Kantian ethics in the face of utilitarian, Hegelian, the more recent communitarian and feminist criticism, as well as in the context of contemporary discussions of globalization and cosmopolitan community.

Main Texts (all by Immanuel Kant)

• Lectures on Ethics (1775-1780)
• Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
• Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
• The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), trans. M. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1991.
• Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793), trans. T. M. Greene and H. Hudson. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960.
• Political Writings (1784-1797), ed. H. Reiss. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1970.

A review of the principal issues and authors in moral philosophy from its Athenian roots to contemporary thought. The purpose of the course is to gain familiarity with the key concepts, distinctions, issues, and stances that form the present context of discussion in ethical theory, moral epistemology, moral psychology, and metaethics. The topics considered will include:

• Classical Content (Plato and Aristotle);
• Ethics within the bounds of Christianity (Augustine, Aquinas);
• The English Enlightenment (Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Bentham, Mill);
• Continental Moralists (Rousseau, Kant, Nietzsche);
• The Autonomy of Ethics (Sidgwick, Moore, Ross);
• Contemporary non-cognitivism, relativism, and antirealism.

Required texts include the main ethical works of the moralists as listed below, and William Frankena's Ethics, 2nd Edition.

• Plato includes the Euthyphro, Crito, and the Republic;
• Aristole - Nicomachean Ethics;
• Hobbes - Leviathan, :Parts I and II;
• Butler - 15 Sermons - Esp. 1-3, and 11 and 12;
• Hume - Treatise Bk III or the Enguiry;
• Benthan - Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation - Chs. 1-7;
• Mill, J.S. - Utilitarianism;
• Rousseau - Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract;
• Kant - Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals;
• Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil or The Geneology of Morals;
• Sidgwick - Methods of Ethics, Ch. 1;
• Moore - Principia Ethica;
• Prichard - Moral Obligation;
• Ross - The Right and The Good;
• Rawls - Essays

One should, if possible, obtain individual editions of these texts. A useful alternative is Ethics, ed. by Steven Cahn and Peter Markie, Oxford 1998. This volume also contains other essays which will be assigned periodically. Please use the 2nd edition of this book.

The first three classes will be devoted to Plato and Aristotle.

This material should be given a fresh reading before the first class.

The focus will be Wittgenstein's later work on meaning, experience, and the nature of philosophy. Our main text will be his Philosophical Investigations. But - in order to see this from the right perspective - we will begin by reading his earlier book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Philosophy in the past and present century has been dominated by an approach that takes philosophy to be the piecemeal solution of problems attacked with analytic methods. The most prestigious philosophers -Frege, Pierce, Russell, Husserl, Wittgenstein, Ramsey, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, Lewis, present crisply defined issues and introduce devices by which they and others advance philosophical inquiry. The result has been the transformation of philosophy into a quasi-scientific field with an advancing frontier of technical results.

The analytical approach contrasts with an older tradition in which the most illustrious philosophers generated large scale philosophical systems. Such philosophers developed maps of reality in which the various areas of human experience where charted and compared. These systematic philosophers felt that philosophy required a distinctive mode of thinking, different from the methods of the mathematicians and scientists, invoking a special repertoire of distinctively philosophical concepts.

Unfortunately the study of some the best known 20th century philosophers using the systematic mode-e.g., Heidegger, Gadamer, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty-is impeded by poor and misleading English translations. The course investigates full fledged philosophical systems created in the English language in the 20th century. In the 14 weeks, the course will investigate 14 philosophical systems with a view to discovering whether systematic metaphysics survived in the 20th century, whether "philosophizing" is a distinct style of thought, and whether a philosophy can illuminate in one conceptual stroke areas as diverse as science, art, history, and ethics.

The philosophers include: Bradley (Appearance and Reality), James (A World of Pure Experience) , McTaggart (The Nature of Existence), Alexander (Space, Time and Deity), Russell (An Outline of Philosophy), Whitehead (Process and Reality), Dewey (Experience and Nature), Cassirer (An Essay on Man), C. I. Lewis (Mind and the World Order), R. G. Collingwood (Speculum Mentis), Paul Weiss (Reality), J.N. Findlay (The Transcendence of the Cave), Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth, and History), Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking).

This seminar will be devoted to an exploration of the concepts of autonomy and liberty in moral and political philosophy. We will dedicate the first third to a review of the classical literature on autonomy and liberty reading from Aristotle, Kant, Mill, and I. Berlin. We will then move onto some of the key contemporary classics that deal with paternalism and the limits of liberty (e.g., Frankfurt, G. Dworkin, Sartorius), discussing justifications for constraining liberty, higher order desires, and the distinction between soft and hard paternalism. The final third of the semester will be devoted to some current controversies in medicine in which these concepts are at the crux of the debate. In the clinical context, we shall address the ethics of determination of decisional capacity and also the legitimacy of advance directives and precedent autonomy. We shall also explore health policy and legislation on issues such as prohibitions of drugs, abortion, organ sales, and physician-assisted suicide. For these discussions, we shall draw on the writing of R. Dworkin, Brock, Buchanan, and other philosophers who employ the concepts of autonomy and liberty in their arguments and refine their understanding of autonomy and liberty through wrestling with the issues.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics remains for thinkers today not only a striking example of, but also a provocative stimulus to, moral philosophizing. The same cannot be said with like confidence of his Politics. That is not only a pity, it is also, from Aristotle's own point of view, a mistake. For, according to him, the Ethics and the Politics constitute a single study, and to understand one treatise requires understanding the other. This is seldom what is done. The Ethics is standardly read without reference to the Politics, and if the Politics is read with more acknowledgement of its connection to the Ethics this is not carried out in any systematic way.

It would naturally be impossible in a single course to study both works in toto, but it should be possible to study representative selections that will illustrate, explore, elaborate, question the unity of thought and structure that (allegedly) subsists between them. At any rate that will be the premise of this course. The aim will be to get, in the light of that premise, as good an understanding as possible of what for Aristotle a complete practical philosophy, or a complete philosophy of "the human things", should look like. Whether, when read like this, Aristotle's Ethics and Politics should rise or fall in our philosophical estimation is a question that no doubt will excite our interest along the way.

Note: This course will study Aristotle's texts in the original Greek and therefore requires some knowledge of the language. Students in the philosophy program, or other programs, who may be interested in this course but are unsure about their language competence should contact me beforehand: simpson@postbox.csi.cuny.edu

This course address some of the main questions concerning the nature, constitution and structure of reality. It is divided into four sections.

I. Ontological Commitment and Methodology

What is there in the world and how are we supposed to answer this question? What is it for something to be real? Is ontology relative to conceptual scheme? Or does the very idea of a conceptual scheme make no sense? If it doesn't, does it follow that reality is completely independent of our beliefs about it?

II. Universals, Properties, Kinds

Do the various qualities we attribute to things exist independently of our thinking and speaking about them? If they do, in what sense do they? Do they exist independently of the things to which we attribute those qualities? Are there genuine properties and kinds in nature existing independently of all concepts and languages?

III. Things, Selves and their Persistence

What is it to be a particular thing and to remain the same thing through changes? Do ordinary material things persist through time? If so, what does their persistence consist in? What is it for a person to be the same person at another time? Is personal identity connected with bodily continuity or psychological continuity? Is it an all-or-nothing affair?

IV. Causation

Are there genuine causal relations and, if so, what are they? Must causal relations be covered by laws? What sorts of entities are connected by causal relations? How does causation differ from explanation?

Written work: Two medium-length papers.

Text: Kim and Sosa (eds), Metaphysics: An Anthology, Blackwell 2002

The reading assignment for the first meeting is Quine, "On What There Is".

Nationalism and patriotism are commonly conflated, but should probably be distinguished. When distinguished, one is often said to be deeply problematic and the other contingently acceptable. This course will consider both the distinction and the relative merits of nationalism and patriotism. It will do this against the background of a broader treatment of loyalty and loyalties.

For additional details, contact me at: John.Kleinig@any.edu.au

Texts:

• Robert McKim & Jeff McMahan (eds) The Morality of Nationalism (OUP, 1997)
• Igor Primoratz (ed.), Patriotism (Humanity/Prometheus, 2002)

The course provides an introduction to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and investigates several abiding concerns in his philosophy, including his exploration of the relationship between art and culture; the nature of moral, epistemic, and artistic values; and the aims of philosophy. Three works will anchor our inquiries. The Birth of Tragedy will provide an initial take on how Nietzsche thinks about philosophy and will invite consideration of the relation between philosophy and culture. A work typically associated with Nietzsche's "middle period," The Gay Science, will allow us to consider his interest in a variety of subjects (e.g., freedom, truth, and morality) and experimental forms of philosophizing (e.g., poetry and aphorisms). The final third of the semester will be devoted to an intensive study of Nietzsche's later work On the Genealogy of Morals, which in many ways unites and further develops the themes introduced in the earlier writings.

My current research projects lead me to have a special interest in Nietzsche's naturalism and how it is potentially relevant to the current tendency toward naturalism in various areas of philosophy. Students can expect this preoccupation to be especially prominent in class discussions of Nietzsche's moral psychology and his views about cognition. These appear to intersect in Nietzsche's perspectivism, although it is not at all clear precisely what Nietzsche means by perspectivism, what it entails, and whether and how it is relevant to contemporary issues in philosophy. Students will be particularly encouraged to formulate thoughtful, careful, and elaborate accounts of this view and its applications.

Required texts (works by Nietzsche): The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, On the Genealogy of Morals, and possibly a copy packet of supplementary materials and miscellaneous writings. Preferred translations include those by Kaufmann, Hollingdale, and Clark and Swenson. Students might also find it helpful to have easy access to copies of Human All Too Human, Beyond Good and Evil, Twilight of the Idols, and The Antichrist.

Supplemental/critical works to be discussed: Christoph Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation (University of California Press, 1999) and Steven D. Hales and Rex Welshon, Nietzsche's Perspectivism (University of Illinois Press, 2000). These works will be placed on reserve in the library.