PHILOSOPHY 490A: Reading Assignments

Readings are from the two texts, BonJour, In Defense of Pure Reason (IDPR) and Nozick, The Nature of Rationality (NR); from the four course readers available for purchase at the Copy Center in the basement of the Communications Building (CMU Room B042); and on the PHIL 490 Web site.

Week #1 (Jan. 7-9): Introduction

(1) Talbott Manuscript, Preface and Chaps. 1-2 (available on the PHIL 490 Web site).

Week #2 (Jan. 14-16): An Advocate of the Proof Paradigm (BonJour)

(1) BonJour IDPR, Preface and Chaps. 1-3.

Week #3 (Jan. 21-23): An Advocate of the Naturalist Paradigm (Nozick)

(1) Nozick, NR, Chaps. Introduction, Chaps. 1 and 3 (omit Chap. 2).

Week #4 (Jan. 28-30): An Alternative to the Proof Paradigm and to the Naturalist Paradigm

(1) Talbott Manuscript, Chaps. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. [READER, Vol. 3]

Week #5 (Feb. 4-6): Moderate Rationalist Epistemology

BonJour, IDPR, Chaps. 4 and 5 and the Appendix.

Week #6 (Feb. 11-13): Evolutionary Naturalist Epistemology

Nozick, NR, Chaps. 4 and 5.

Week #7 (Feb. 18-20): A Priori Premises

Talbott Manuscript, Chaps. 8 and 9. [READER, Vol. 4]

Week #8 (Feb. 25-27): Reasoning

The readings for this week are also in the PHIL 450 Reader from last quarter.

(1) Stephen P. Stich, "Could Man be an Irrational Animal?" [READER, Vol. 1, pp. 2-12]

(2) Discussion of the Monty Hall Problem in columns of Marilyn vos Savant in Parade. [READER, Vol. 1, pp. 13-16]

(3) Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So, Chap. 5, "Seeing What We Want to See".

[READER, Vol. 1, pp. 17-31]

Week #9 (Mar. 4-6): The Metaphysics of Epistemology

(1) BonJour, IDPR, Chap. 6.

(2) Nozick, Invariances, Excerpt from Chap. 3 (and notes to the excerpt), pp. 120 to 148 and 341 to 356. [READER, Vol. 2, pp. 32-55]

Week #10: Skepticism

BonJour, IDPR, Chap. 7.

Reread Nozick's discussion in NR, pp. 121-124.