PHI 516. Special Topics in the History of Philosophy: Quine and Davidson. Spring Term 2008-2009.

Meeting alternately at Rutgers and Princeton.

Gilbert Harman and Ernie Lepore

Reading should be done ahead of time for discussion at the session indicated.

The following books should be available from the local campus bookstore.

Quine, From a Logical Point of View

Quine, Word and Object

Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events

Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation

Much of the other reading listed is available online from Sakai at Rutgers. Princeton students should send email to harman@princeton.edu to obtain access.

Syllabus

Mondays, 2-5 PM unless otherwise indicated.

1. Analytic/Synthetic I (January 26^th at Rutgers)

Main Readings:

Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” in From a Logical Point of View

Quine, “The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics,” in From a Logical Point of View.

Grice and Strawson, “In Defense of a Dogma”

Supplemental Readings:

Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic

Carnap, "Meaning Postulates"

Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology"

Carnap, "Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages"

Quine, “Truth by Convention” 1936

Quine, On Carnap's Views on Ontology. 1951

Quine, Two Dogmas in Retrospect. 1991

2. Analytic/Synthetic II (Visitor: Jerry Fodor) (Feb 2^nd at Princeton)

Main Readings:

Quine “Truth by Convention”

Quine "Mr. Strawson on Logical Theory"

Boghosssian, “Analyticity Reconsidered”

Harman, “Analyticity Regained?”

Harman, "The Death of Meaning"

Carnap “Meaning Postulates”

Supplementary Readings:

Boghossian, “Analyticity, in A Companion to the Philosophy of Language 1997, pp. 331-368.

3. The reconstruction of meaning on an empiricist basis: Radical translation, indeterminacy, and ontological relativity (Feb 9^th at Rutgers)

Main Readings:
Carnap, "Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages"
Quine, Word and Object, 1960, Chapters 1 and 2
Quine, Ontological Relativity. 1968

Supplemental Readings:

Quine, On the Reasons for Indeterminacy of Translation 1970
Quine, Three Indeterminacies. 1990
Quine, Indeterminacy Without Tears. 1994

Harman, "The Death of Meaning"

4. Ontology and Ontological commitment (Feb 16^th at Princeton)

Main Readings:

Quine, On What There Is. (1948)
Quine, Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis. 1950

Supplemental Readings:

Scheffler and Chomsky, “What Is Said To Be” (PAS 1958-59)

Quine, A Logistic Approach to the Ontological Problem (written in 1939 but not published until 1966 in Ways of Paradox)

Quine, Logic and the Reification of Universals (in From a Logical Point of View)

5. Modality (Guest Presentation: Barry Loewer) (Feb 23^rdh at Rutgers)

Main Readings:

Quine, Reference and Modality

Quine, Three Grades of Modal Involvement

Supplemental Reading

Parsons, “Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic”

Marcus, “Extensionality”

Kripke, “Naming and Necessity,” Lecture 1

Hintikka "The Semantics of Modal Notions"

Burgess "Quinus ab Omni Noevo Vindicatus

6. Truth and Meaning: the role of a truth theory in providing a compositional meaning theory (March 2^nd at Princeton)

Main Readings:

Davidson, Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages, 1965

Davidson, Truth and Meaning, 1967

Davidson, Reply to Foster, 1976.

Supplemental Readings:

Davidson, Semantics for Natural Languages, 1970

Davidson, In Defense of Convention T, 1973

7. Reference (March 9th at Rutgers)

Main Readings:

Quine, Word and Object, 1960, Chapters 3 and 4

Supplemental Readings:

Quine, The Roots of Reference (1973)

8. Regimentation (Guest Presentation: Jim Higginbotham) (March 23^rd at Rutgers)

Main Readings:

Quine, Word and Object, 1960, Chapters 5, 6 and 7.

Supplemental Readings:

Harman, "Quine on Meaning and Existence" Part 2.

Quine, Davidson on Events, 1984

Higginbotham, J. "On Events in Linguistic Semantics." James Higginbotham, Fabio Pianesi, and Achille Varzi (eds.), Speaking of Events. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. pp. 49-79.est, 

9. Agency (Guest Presentation: Kirk Ludwig) (March 30^th meeting at 1:30 in Princeton)

Main Readings:

Davidson, Actions, Reasons and Causes, 1963

Ludwig, “Donald Davidson: Essays on Actions and Events”

Supplemental Readings:

Davidson, How is weakness of the will possible? 1970

Davidson, Agency, 1971

Davidson, Freedom to Act, 1973

Davidson, Intending, 1978

Davidson, Problems in the Explanation of Action, 1987

10. Propositional Attitudes (April 6^th at Princeton)

Main reading:

Quine, Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes. 1956
Davidson, On Saying That, 1967

Supplemental Readings:

Quine, On Mental Entities. 1953
Quine, Propositional Objects. 1968
Quine, Mind and Verbal Dispositions. 1975

11. Radical Interpretation: the role of radical interpretation in Davidson's account of meaning (April 13^th at Rutgers)

Main Readings:

Davidson, Radical Interpretation, 1973

Davidson, Belief and the Basis of meaning, 1974

Supplemental Readings:

Davidson Thought and Talk, 1975

Davidson, Reply to Foster, 1976

Davidson, The Structure and Content of Truth

12. Logical Form (April 20^th at Rutgers)

Main Reading:

Davidson, "The Logical Form of Action Sentences"

Davidson, “Adverbs of Action”

James Higginbotham, "The Logic of Perception Verbs"

Davidson, "The Method of Truth in Metaphysics"

Supplementary Reading:

Terence Parsons, “Some problems concerning the logic of grammatical modifiers.” (Synthese 21: 1970).

Parsons, Events in the Semantics of English. MIT Press: 1990.

13. Ontology and Ontological commitment (Guest Presentation: Gideon Rosen) (April 27^th meeting 1 - 4 in Princeton)
Main Readings:

Quine, Ontological Reduction and the World of Numbers 1964
Quine, Existence. 1970
Quine, Things  and Their Place in Theories, in Theories and Things, 1980

Supplemental Readings:

Quine, Notes on the Theory of Reference (in From a Logical Point of View)
Quine, On Carnap's Views on Ontology. 1951

Quine, The Scope and Language of Science 1957
Quine, Speaking of Objects. 1958

14. Naturalized epistemology (Guest Presentation: Thomas Kelly) (May 4^th meeting 1 - 4 in Princeton)

Main Readings:

Quine, Natural Kinds. 1969
Quine, Epistemology Naturalized. 1971

Supplemental Readings:

Quine, The Nature of Natural Knowledge 1975
Quine, Naturalism; Or, Living Within One's Means 1995
Quine, Five Milestones of Empiricism
Quine, Intensions Revisited. 1977
Quine, On Simple Theories of a Complex World 1963.

Quine, States of Mind 1985

15. Workshop on Davidson (June 15th, meeting 10-5 in Princeton)

10:00-11:00 Adam Crager, "Conceptual Schemes"

11:15-12:15 Richard Dub, "Incommensurability"

12:15-1:15 Lunch Break

1:15-2:15 Aysegul Cakai, "Triangulation"

2:30-3:30 Gilbert Harman, "Soames on Quine"

3:45-5:00 Ernie Lepore, "Soames on Davidson"

16. Second Summer Workshop (August 3^rd meeting 10-5 in Princeton)

Mario di Carlo, "Naturalism"

John Woods, TBA

Thomas Donaldson, "Davidsonian Semantics and Russell's Paradox"

Anthony Cross, "Literary Interpretation"

Ralph Jenkins, and Jenna Schaal-OConnor, "Animal Thought"