[Static In My Head] the reflected sound of everything

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

PHIL 120-01 - "Metaphysics"
Miner Hall 224
David Denby / Tuesday, Thursday 12:00-1:15
The aims will be to introduce some techniques of contemporary philosophy, introduce some of the classic problems in metaphysics and the main lines of response, and engage in philosophical debate. After an initial discussion of ontology, we will focus on six topics, though other issues will also come up: properties, substances, parts, change, causation, and modality.

PHIL 192-02 - "Metaethics"
Miner Hall 225
Lionel McPherson / Tuesday 1:30-4:00
This seminar will survey prominent positions and arguments in metaethics by philosophers ranging from G.E. Moore to John McDowell. Rather than directly diving into the debates—for example, naturalism vs. non-naturalism, cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, and externalism vs. internalism—we will start with overviews before discussing representative primary sources. In the last section of the seminar, we will consider how these debates play out in the context of the question of moral obligation.

PHIL 192-07 - "Seminar: Contemporary Problems in Philosophy of Science"
Miner Hall 110
Patrick Forber / Wednesday 1:30-4:00
This seminar will review and assess contemporary perspectives on causal inference. We will begin be surveying the standard philosophical approaches and the apparent impasse. We will then examine different proposals for naturalizing the concept, evaluating their potential philosophical importance. Our exploration of new work on causal inference also intersects with recent discussion on the viability of naturalism as a strategy for philosophical theorizing, and we will conclude by discussing whether and how this sort of strategy can inform our theories of causation.

(Teaching Assistantship)
PHIL 024-01 - "Introduction to Ethics"
Robinson Hall 253
David Denby / Tuesday, Thursday 1:30-2:45
After a brief introductory discussion of logic and the nature of ethical theory we will spend most of the semester critically evaluating a number of normative ethical theories. These will include various forms of Relativism, religiously-based theories, Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Egoism and Social Contract theories. We will also discuss self-interest, values, and other matters. Finally, we will discuss how to apply what we've learned to issues of contemporary moral concern.

"Observation is a form of physical contact between our minds and the world. This contact is the product of evolution, and it has whatever degree of reliability it has because of our evolutionary history and the contingent relationship between our structure and that of our surroundings. Science is an attempt to exploit this contact between our minds and the world, and science is also motivated by the limitations that results from our relations to the world; we need science because much of the world is not accessible to ordinary observation. Science works by taking theoretical ideas and trying to find ways to expose them to observation. The scientific strategy is to construe ideas, to embed them in surrounding conceptual frameworks, and to develop them, in such a way that this exposure is possible even in the case of the most general and ambitious hypotheses about the universe."

"There are still harmless self-observers who believe 'immediate certainties' exist, for example 'I think' or, as was Schopenhauer's superstition, 'I will': as though knowledge here got hold of its object pure and naked, as 'thing in itself', and no falsification occurred either on the side of the subject or on that of the object. But I shall reiterate a hundred times that 'immediate certainty', like 'absolute knowledge' and 'thing in itself', contains a contradictio in adjecto: we really ought to get free from the seduction of words! Let the people believe that knowledge is total knowledge, but the philosopher must say to himself: when I analyse the event expressed in the sentence 'I think', I acquire a series of rash assertions which are difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove - for example, that it is I who think, that it has to be something at all which thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of an entity thought of as a cause, that an 'I' exists, finally that what is designated by 'thinking' has already been determined - that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided that matter within myself, by what standard could I determine that what is happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? Enough: this 'I think' presupposes that I compare my present state with other known states of myself in order to determine what it is: on account of this retrospective connection with other 'knowledge' at any rate it possesses no immediate certainty for me. - In place of that 'immediate certainty' in which the people may believe in the present case, the philosopher acquires in this way a series of metaphysical questions, true questions of conscience for the intellect, namely: 'Whence do I take the concept thinking? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'I' as cause, and finally of an 'I' as cause of thought?' Whoever feels able to answer these metaphysical questions straight away with an appeal to a sort of intuitive knowledge, as he does who says: 'I think, and know at least that this is true, actual and certain' - will find a philosopher today ready with a smile and two question-marks. 'My dear sir,' the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, 'it is improbable you are not mistaken: but why do you want the truth at all?'"

"Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have, I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, invironed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty. Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther."

"Scientific progress has often been compared to a mounting tide; applied to the evolution of physical theories, this comparison seems to us very appropriate... Whoever casts a brief glance at the waves striking a beach does not see the tide mount; he sees a wave rise, run, uncurl itself, and cover a narrow strip of sand, then withdraw by leaving dry the terrain which it had seemed to conquer, a new wave follows, sometimes going a little farther than the preceding one, but also sometimes not even reaching the sea shell made wet by the former wave. But under this superficial to-and-fro motion, another movement is produced, deeper, slower, imperceptible to the casual observer; it is a progressive movement continuing steadily in the same direction and by virtue of it the sea constantly rises. The going and coming of the waves is the faithful image of those attempts at explanation which arise only to be crumbled, which advance only to retreat; underneath there continues the slow and constant progress whose flow steadily conquers new lands, and guarantees to physical doctrines the continuity of a tradition."

"Scientific explanation is not aimed at creating a sense of at-homeness or of familiarity with the phenomena of nature. That kind of feeling may well be evoked even by metaphorical accounts that have no explanatory value at all, such as the ‘natural affinity’ construal of gravitation or the conception of biological processes as being directed by vital forces. What scientific explanation, especially theoretical explanation, aims at is not this intuitive and highly subjective kind of understanding, but an objective kind of insight that is achieved by a systematic unification, by exhibiting the phenomena as manifestations of common underlying structures and processes that conform to specific, testable, basic principles. If such an account can be given in terms that show certain analogies with familiar phenomena, then very well. Otherwise, science will not hesitate to explain even the familiar by reduction to the unfamiliar by means of concepts and principles of novel kinds that may at first be repugnant to our intuition."

Philosophy 024 / “Introduction to Ethics” (TEACHING ASSISTANT)
David Denby / Monday, Wednesday 3:00-4:15
After a brief introductory discussion of logic and the nature of ethical theory we will spend most of the semester critically evaluating a number of normative ethical theories. These will include various forms of Relativism, religiously-based theories, Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Egoism and Social Contract theories. We will also discuss self-interest, values, and other matters. Finally, we will discuss how to apply what we've learned to issues of contemporary moral concern.

Philosophy 117 / “Philosophy of Mind”
Stephen White / Monday, Wednesday 4:30-5:45
This course will focus on the nature of conscious experience, its relation to the subjective point of view, and the implications of both for the mind-body problem, the problem of agency, and the problem of other minds. The traditional mind-body problem has been taken to raise such questions as whether we could continue to exist after our bodies had been destroyed and whether computers could be conscious. We will consider these questions, but we will also consider carefully the nature of the subjective point of view and the question what is involved in seeing a world that contains opportunities for genuine action, states of affairs worth striving for, and agents like ourselves.

Philosophy 116 / “Philosophy of Science”
George Smith / Tuesday, Thursday 3:00-4:15
An examination of central philosophical problems concerning scientific method and scientific knowledge, such as: How is theory related to observation, or prediction to explanation? How can we justify the scientific method, induction, and our notions of space and time? Do scientific theories and methods impose a structure on the world, or do they tell us about the way the world really is?

Philosophy 114 / “Topics in Logic: Quine from Early to Late” (AUDITING)
Jody Azzouni / George Smith / Tuesday 6:30-9:00
Some philosophers continue to focus for their entire philosophical lives on the same issue or a very small number of issues that were the first to catch their attention and draw them into professional philosophy. This was certainly true of Quine whose very first extant writing, some lectures on Carnap, centered on the nature of the a priori, a topic to which he returned again and again for next the sixty years. Students rarely have the opportunity in their course work to see how a position a philosopher adopts early in his or her career evolves over time as they think increasingly deeply about it. This course will enable students to do this, specifically for Quine and his lifelong preoccupation with what to say about a priori truth and the epistemology of logic.