Philosophy 290-7

Spring 2010

Number Title Instructor Days/time Room
290-7 Graduate Seminar: Concepts, Attitudes, and the Unity of Judgement Stroud Tu 4-6 234 Moses Hall

A wide-ranging seminar on the conditions of thought and of the attribution of attitudes.

Some questions to be considered are: What is involved in possessing a concept by which you can think about something? What does it take to have a thought that is true or false? What is the relation between having a concept and having a capacity for judgement? What is the role or significance of predication? Can believing and other ‘propositional’ attitudes involving predication be understood as a person’s standing in a certain relation to certain objects? If so, what relation? What objects? If not, how is belief and the attribution of ‘propositional’ attitudes to others to be understood? What metaphysical or epistemological consequences, if any, can be drawn from fulfillment of the necessary conditions of thought and of the attribution of attitudes?

Readings from Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Geach, Quine, Evans, Strawson, Davidson and others, with additional secondary material.

Those attending will be expected to contribute to the discussion.