Παρουσίαση/Προβολή

(PHS589) -  Ελένη Μανωλακάκη

Περιγραφή Μαθήματος

FUNDAMENTALS OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY

General Description:

The course introduces students to the ideas, theses, methods, arguments and argumentation styles an from the philosophical tradition of Analytic Philosophy.  It covers both methodological and theoretical issues from the tradition of Analytic Philosophy.  

Course Requirements:

 

• Students are expected to read articles and passages from books after each class and prepare in written a critical overview (approx. 800 words) of the main points that have been discussed in the class. 12 such written outlines are required in the week after each meeting.
• A 15-page final paper is due by the end of the semester
• Optional Extra Credit is available for students wishing to give oral reports on secondary literature. You may choose from the additional readings indicated in the weekly schedule below.

 

Weekly Schedule:

 

WEEK 1: Introduction

What is Analytic Philosophy? Is it possible to characterize the school of Philosophy called ‘Analytic’? We will present some prominent examples of the analytic approach to philosophical problems and we will point to the difficulties of providing a unique and distinctive way to characterize the analytic tradition.

 

WEEK 2: Historical underpinnings

Russell’s critique of internal relations. The distinction between the mental act of judgement/ objective content of judgement and Frege’s critique of Psychologism. Frege’s function-argument logic and new forms of analysis (transformative analysis).

 

WEEK 3: The Logicism of Frege and Russell

We will discuss features and details of the ways Frege and Russell meant to implement the Logicism program in the Foundation of Mathematics. We will focus on the notion of analyticity, necessity and a priori as involved in the Logicism program of reduction of Arithmetic to Logic. We will hint on the weaknesses that led to the decline of Logicism and we will sketch its modification by Neo-logicism.

 

Week 4: The theory of Descriptions and Russell’s Logical Atomism

We will present in detail Russell’s theory of Descriptions and we will see how it has figured as an exemplary case of transformative analysis. We will analyse Russell’s introduction of objects as logical constructions and we will present Russell’s theory of logical atomism.

 

WEEK 5: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

We will present the main themes of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and we will discuss its interpretations. We focus on the nature of representation, meaningfulness and meaninglessness, the notions of Contingency, Possibility and Necessity that spring from the Tractatus.

 

 

WEEK 6: Logical Empiricism/Positivism

 

In this class we will offer a general introduction to Logical Empiricism: Verificationism, Anti-metaphysics and Unity of Science. We will focus on Carnap’s suggestion of Syntactical Analysis of Scientific Language as the Method of Philosophy. We will include in our discussion the Problems with the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning as have been pointed out by Hempel.

 

WEEK 7: The Application on Moral Terms

In this class we will discuss in detail how the methodological and substantial imports from the early analytic philosophy were applied to moral terms and gave rise to a new approach to Ethics and Meta-ethics. We will discuss Moore’s analysis of the concept of Good and expressivists and generally non-cognitivists conceptions of Ethics.

 

WEEK 8: Critique of Logical Empiricism

In this class we will present the views of later Carnap concerning linguistic frameworks and their implications to ontology and to a conception of analyticity. We will analyse into detail Quine’s critique of Carnap and his critique the analytic synthetic distinction.

 

Week 9: The influence of Pragmatism

This class offers an introduction to the contribution of Pragmatism to the shaping of Analytic Philosophy in the post-positivist era. We will focus on the contributions of Nelson Goodman, Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam.

 

 

WEEK 10: Theories of meaning and general philosophical outlooks

This class is dedicated to demonstrate how linguistic analysis and theories of meaning were put into play and contributed to forming general philosophical outlooks. We will present into detail the way the Davidsonian theory of interpretation brought about a philosophical outlook concerning conceptual relativism, skepticism and a theory about the mental.

 

WEEKS 11: The Rebirth of Metaphysics

The class introduces the tools and the criticisms that led to the rebirth of Metaphysics in Analytic Philosophy. In the first class on the rebirth of Metaphysics we will focus on Essentialist theories. The difference between classical essentialist theories and analytic essentialism is that the latter is vindicated by the success and the application of semantic theories for certain rich languages that contain modal terms. We will elaborate on essentialist thesis as implied by the semantics for certain modal languages.

 

 

WEEK 12: Modal Realism

In the second class on the rebirth of Metaphysics in Analytic Philosophy we will discuss into detail the motives and tools by which David Lewis introduces and elaborates the thesis of Modal Realism, that is, the thesis that there are possible worlds which have the same status of existence as the actual world. We will also present the form and foci of the debate between modal realists and modal anti-realists.

 

WEEK 13: The Cognitive turn in Analytic Philosophy

In the final class we will elaborate on the contribution of analytic philosophers to the study of cognition and we will demonstrate how the study of cognitive states, as well as mental content and concepts is the focus of much research in Analytic Philosophy. We will present in details Jerry Fodor’s theory of content and concepts and the ways controversies over Fodor’s approach have been raised.

 

Final Paper due: max. 15 pages

Ημερομηνία δημιουργίας

Τετάρτη 2 Αυγούστου 2023