PHIL 310 - Seminar in Analytic Philosophy

Semester Offered: Fall and Spring
1 unit(s)

310a: Philosophical Analysis. In this seminar we will examine a number of recent developments in the ongoing relationship between philosophy and empirical inquiry. We shall begin with the proposal that philosophers finally abandon the “linguistic turn,” the characteristically twentieth-century approach to philosophical theorizing in which linguistic analysis is methodologically primary. Then we will explore the controversy swirling around experimental philosophers’ use of procedures drawn from empirical psychology in critically evaluating philosophical claims and methods. Finally, we shall investigate two contemporary debates in which philosophers and scientists disagree about what they have to teach one another. The first concerns the status of evolutionary theory; the other revolves around the issue of whether science can explain why there is anything at all.

310b: Imagination. An investigation into different kinds of imagination and their contributions to our knowledge of what is possible, our knowledge of other minds, our capacity for moral thought an action, and our appreciation of art. 310a: Mr. Winblad. 310b: Ms. Church.

Prerequisite(s): 200-level philosophy course or permission of the instructor.