Syllabus

Main Readings

• Gottlob Frege: 'Sense and Reference'

Other Readings

• Joan Weiner: Frege (An overview of Frege's work. I suggest chs.2 and 6 in particular.)
• Jeff Speaks: Frege's Theory of Reference
  
• Jeff Speaks: Frege's Theory of Sense
  
• My Slides on Frege
  

Main Readings

• Bertrand Russell: 'On Denoting' (Warning: difficult. Additional readings will help.)
• Bertrand Russell: 'Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description'
  

Additional Readings

• Bertrand Russell: Descriptions (An easier restatement of Russell's theory.)
• Jeff Speaks: Russell's 'On Denoting'
  (A very helpful guide to Russell's paper.)
• Jeff Speaks: The Mysterious 'Gray's Elegy' Argument
  (This is a useful 4-page guide to the most confusing passage of Russell's paper.)
• My Slides on Russell
  

Main Readings

• A. J. Ayer: Language, Truth, and Logic (chs.1 and 6 required)

Additional Readings

• Carl Hempel: Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance: Problems and Changes (An influential critique of verificationism)
• Peter Godfrey-Smith: Logic Plus Empiricism (A clear overview of logical empiricism)
• Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Try the first few pages and then pp.86&89.)
• My Slides on Ayer
  

Main Readings

• Willard Van Orman Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism
• Willard Van Orman Quine: Word and Object (ch.1)

Additional Readings

• Jeff Speaks: Quine on the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
• Peter Hylton: Quine (chs. 1 and 3 are particularly useful)
• My Slides on Quine
  

Note: CLASS CANCELLED on Tuesday, February 26th (T)
(If you did not get the email about this on the morning of Tuesday, February 26th, you should change your email address in CUNYfirst to one that you regularly check.)

Main Readings

• Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations (sections 1–32)
• Saul Kripke: On Rules and Private Language

Additional Readings

• Marie McGinn: Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations


• My Slides on Wittgenstein
  

Note: CLASS CANCELLED on Tuesday, March 5th

Main Readings

• J. L. Austin: How to do Things with Words (Lectures 1–3, 8–9, and 11‐12 are required. This is a lot of pages but it will go faster than most readings.)


• My Slides on Austin
  

Main Readings

• Paul Grice: 'Meaning'
• Thom Scott-Phillips: Speaking Our Minds, ch.1 (note: this is an epub file, so you'll need an e-reader app to read it. Apple iBooks works, but there are also many free options available. I couldn't find a PDF of this book.)

Additional Readings

• P. F. Stawson: Intention and Convention in Speech Acts

Main Readings

• Paul Grice: 'Logic and Conversation'

Additional Readings

• Stephen Neale: Paul Grice and the Philosophy of Language


• My Slides on Grice
  

NOTE: We will spend only one day on this unit.

Main Readings

• Kripke: Naming and Necessity (excerpt)
• Hilary Putnam: Meaning and Reference

Additional Readings

• Scott Soames: Saul Kripke on Naming and Necessity


• First Essay Due in class on April 9th

My Slides on Kripke and Putnam

NOTE: There will be no class on Friday, April 5.

Main Readings

• Noam Chomsky: Knowledge of Language (ch.2 will be our main focus; you may also want to read Ch.1)

Additional Readings

• Lila Gleitman and Elissa Newport: The Invention of Language by Children
• Peter Ludlow: The Philosophy of Generative Linguistics, Ch.1

My Slides on Generative Linguistics

Main Readings

• Elisabeth Camp: Metaphor and that Certain 'Je Ne Sais Quoi'
• Ray Buchanan: A Puzzle about Meaning and Communication

Additional Readings

• Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone: Against Metaphorical Meaning


• My Slides on Effability
  

Main Readings

• Elisabeth Camp: Putting Thoughts to Work: Concepts, Systematicity, and Stimulus-Independence


• My Slides on Camp
  

Note: On May 10th, instead of our usual class, you are invited on a field trip to the Varieties of Intentionality conference at the New School, where Jake Quilty Dunn will be presenting on Elisabeth Camp's paper, 'Putting Thoughts to Work', and Camp will be responding. You can attend as much of this conference as you like, but You can write a short (2-page) summary of something that you learned, or that caught your attention, at this event, in order to replace your lowest weekly-assignment grade.