Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction  
2 Modeling a representation system (I)

Buy at MIT Press Stalnaker, Robert. "The Problem of Intentionality." Chapter 1 in Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780262691130.

Field, Hartry. "Stalnaker on Intentionality." Chapter 3 in Truth and the Absence of Fact. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780199242894.
3 Modeling a representation system (II)

Field, Hartry. "Mental Representation." Chapter 2 in Truth and the Absence of Fact. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780199242894.

Buy at MIT Press Stalnaker, Robert. "The Linguistic Picture." Chapter 2 in Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780262691130.
4 Lewis on radical interpretation

Lewis, David. "Radical Interpretation." Reprinted in Philosophical Papers. Vol. 1. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780195032048.

———. "Languages and Language." Reprinted in Philosophical Papers Vol. 1. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780195032048.

Laurence, Stephen. "A Chomskian Alternative to Convention-based Semantics." Mind 105 (1996): 269-301.
5 The language of thought

Buy at MIT Press Fodor, Jerry. "This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought? (PDF - 3MB) " Appendix in Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780262560528.

———. "Propositional Attitudes." In Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language. Edited by Robert J. Stainton. Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2000. ISBN: 9781551112534.

Optional additional reading:

Rescorla, Michael. "Cognitive Maps and the Language of Thought." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60, no. 2 (2009): 377-407.
6 Grammar for a radical interpreter

Lewis, David. "Index, Context and Content." Chapter 2 in Papers in Philosophical Logic Vol. 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780521587884

———. "Putnam's Paradox." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62, no. 3 (1984): 221-236.

A relevant paper that every philosopher should read at least once:

Lewis, David. "General Semantics." Synthese 22, nos. 1-2 (1970): 18-67.
7 Localism

Rayo, Agustin. "Vague Representation." Mind 117, no. 466 (2008): 329-373.

Some of the discussion will presuppose familiarity with the following:

Stalnaker, Robert. "Assertion." In Context and Content. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780198237075.

———. "On Considering a Possible World as Actual." In Ways a World Might Be. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780199251490.
8

Abilities and incoherent belief

Guest lecture: Adam Elga, Princeton University

Stalnaker, Robert. "The Problem of Logical Omniscience I." In Context and Content. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780198237075.

Optional background readings:

Byrne, Alex. "Review of 'There's Something About Mary." Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, January 20, 2006. (Read the passage beginning "These five options are all controversial..." and ending "...Disputes about our imaginative limitations, the ability hypothesis, acquaintance, and the rest, fascinating though they are, just serve to distract attention from this fundamental flaw.")

Christensen, David. "Does Murphy's Law Apply in Epistemology? Self-Doubt and Rational Ideals." Oxford Studies in Epistemology 2 (2007): 3-31. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Powers, Lawrence H. "Knowledge by Deduction." The Philosophical Review 87, no. 3 (1978): 337-371.
9 Mathematical truth

Rayo, Agustin. "Neo-Fregeanism Reconsidered." Forthcoming in Abstractionism in Mathematics: Status Belli. Edited by Philip Ebert and Marcus Rossberg. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

———. "An Account of Possibility." Draft paper, March 18, 2008. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
10 Believing necessary truths: Mary

Stalnaker, Robert. "Epistemic Possibilities and the Knowledge Argument" and "Phenomenal and Epistemic Indistinguishability." Chapters 2 and 4 in Our Knowledge of the Internal World. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780199545995.

If you're not familiar with the Knowledge Argument, please read:

Byrne, Alex. "Review of 'There's Something About Mary." Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, January 20, 2006.

You might also consider reading:

Lewis, David. "What Experience Teaches." Chapter 17 in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology Vol. 2. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780521587877.
11 Representing degrees of belief

Rayo, Agustin. "A Puzzle About Ineffable Propositions." Draft paper, May 11, 2009. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Optional background readings:

White, Roger. "Evidential Symmetry and Mushy Credence." Forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Epistemology Vol. 3. Edited by Tamar Gendler and John Hawthorne. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780199584093.

Wright, Crispin. "Wittgensteinian Certainties." Chapter 1 in Wittgenstein and Scepticism. Edited by Denis McManus. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. ISBN: 9780415232913. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
12 Hare on self-location Hare, Caspar. On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. (Read chapters 3, 4 and 6.) ISBN: 9780691135311.
13 Student presentations