Graduate

Courses: Spring 2006

Course descriptions for Fall 2006 are now available here.

The department offers two kinds of seminars: Background Seminars and Research Seminars. For details, see the Graduate Student Handbook.

Background seminars

2245 Analytic Philosophy

Ricketts, Thomas | Tuesdays 9:30--12:00

A survey of Frege, Russell (1900-1914), and Wittgenstein (to 1922) focusing on their views of logic, truth, ontology, judgment, and analysis. About half the semester will be spent on Frege and the remainder divided between Russell and Wittgenstein. Written work for the course will be short papers, including a take home final exam.

2340 Philosophical Perspectives On Feminism

Ruetsche, Laura | Mondays 6:00--8:30

Cross-listed with HPS2696

This course will focus on issues of gender and science, and in particular on the question of how gender might matter to the epistemic dimension of scientific inquiry. Our method will be to examine cases, drawn predominantly but not exclusively from the history of the biosocial science, where (critics contend) gender has mattered, with a view toward identifying the ways gender could matter to epistemic questions like: What counts as evidence? What does it take to appreciate evidence as evidence? We'll also consider a variety of epistemologies of science -- traditional, overtly feminist, and somewhere in between -- with the aim of assessing their capacity to make sense of ways gender might matter to the epistemic dimension of science. Because it's been a while since a course has been offered either to graduates or to undergraduates under the title "feminist philosophy," this course is open to all interested and qualified students of either sort.

2400 Metaphysics-Epistemology (Core)

Gupta, Anil | Thursdays 2:00--4:30

This course will be an intensive introduction to some central problems in epistemology and metaphysics.

Prerequisite(s): Enrollment is limited to first year students in Ph.D. program in Philosophy, except by permission of instructor.

2500 Advanced Logic (Core)

Belnap, Nuel | Thursdays 9:30--12:00

This course is a rigorous philosophical (conceptual) introduction to logic for graduate students. We will begin with a VERY fast review of the natural deduction system used in "Notes on the art of logic." (It is better to have worked through this ahead of time!) We shall learn the arts of elementary set theory, formal arithmetic, and the theory of definitions, as tools. Then we shall emphasize the rigorous conceptual analysis of the grammar, semantics, and proof-theory of truth-functional logic and (to a lesser extent) quantificational logic, with special attention to consistency and completeness. The last weeks of the term will be devoted to various topics in philosophical logic.

Prerequisite(s): An undergraduate logic course covering truth-functional logic and quantifier logic. Understanding some method of "natural deduction" is essential, as is some ability to move between symbols and English. If in doubt, see instructor. Some students will benefit from "Notes on the art of logic," which is at www.pitt.edu/~belnap/. Also Connie in the Philosophy Office is likely to have copies for sale.

2627 Philosophy Of Quantum Mechanics

Belot, Gordon | Mondays 2:30--5:00 (rescheduled)

This seminar will focus on flaky interpretations of quantum mechanics, especially those deriving from Everett's approach (many worlds, many minds, etc.). Such interpretations promise to allow us to make sense of quantum mechanics on its own terms (without the addition of exogenous dynamical principles), and to allow one to apply quantum mechanics to the universe as a whole. But they are subject to powerful objections, centering on their strange ontologies, difficulties regarding probability, and difficulties in explaining why the world should appear classical to us. We will read some recent and classic articles. This seminar will be a background seminar.

Research seminars

2020 Plato

Allen, James | Thursdays 7:00--9:30

Cross-listed with CLASS2313

The seminar will be devoted to Plato's Cratylus and Theaetetus.

2170 Kant

Rescher, Nicholas | Wednesdays 9:30--12:00

This course aims at a general understanding of the Critique of Pure Reason as a whole. It will examine the work's central metaphysical and epistemological doctrines, with attention to their historical context. Emphasis will be placed on the basic objectives of the Critique in relation to its doctrines and its strategies of argument. While some attention will be given to varying interpretations of the Critique, the principal focus will be on Kant's text.

Prerequisite(s): Prior familiarity with the Critique and with Descartes, Leibniz, and Hume will be helpful, but is not required.

2335 Topics in Contemporary Philosophy

McDowell, John | Mondays 2:00--4:30

We will read and discuss some of Sellars' key work, certainly including "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" and parts of Science and Metaphysics.

2480 Metaphysics

Wilson, Mark | Wednesdays 2:00--4:30

My spring metaphysics seminar will read parts of Scott Soames' Philosophical Analysis in theTwentieth Century in conjunction with the source materials he discusses. Our focus will be upon what, if anything, the term "analytic philosophy" connotes. Due to scheduling conflicts, the time of the seminar may need to be changed. Interested participants should contact me beforehand.

2505 Topics In Philosophical Logic

Belnap, Nuel | Tuesdays 4:45--7:15

Algebraic logic is a great topic and a great tool, along side of semantics and proof theory. We will read together from the book Algebraic Methods in Philosophical Logic by J. Michael Dunn and Gary Hardegree. There will be many opportunities to explain material in brief (half-hour) presentations, and the opportunities will be passed around among all of us. Problem-sets will be a feature. No exams (perhaps an occasional short quiz). No paper. All work to be completed during the term.

2625 Recent Topics In Philosophy Of Science

Baltas, A. | Mondays 5:00--7:30

Cross-listed with HPS2622

The guiding idea of the seminar is the following: The ways in which the discipline of physics is internally structured and organized. That is, ways in which it carves out its subject matter and how it sets up its concepts and conducts the experimental transactions proper to it, determine, to a large extent, the major epistemological values tending to elevate it to the status of the scientific discipline par excellence: Some of those values are accuracy in prediction, repeatable experiments repeatable, conceptual rigor, etc. This structure and those values make up the specificity of physics; other disciplines may share some of these values but rarely all of them. The purpose of the seminar is to examine the precise ways in which the structure of physics determines the values in question and what, if anything, is lost in the process. This examination will be conducted by contrast to other disciplines (e.g. historiography or psychoanalysis) whose internal structures do not lead to the same epistemological values, yet they redress the balance by replacing those values with others, e.g. knowledge of particulars and of their proper history. On the basis of this examination, the seminar will also try looking at the ways in which such structural characteristics have a bearing on issues that have been taxing philosophy of science for long (theory change, incommensurability, relativism, the realism/antirealism debate etc). The seminar will be based on the ideas of Bachelard and Canguilhem, among others, as well as on work done by the instructor whose egotistical aim is to use the seminar for organizing and clarifying his own ideas. Grades will be based on class participation and a term paper of about 10-15 page.

2662 Causality

Glymour, Clark | Wednesdays 2:00--4:30

Cross-listed with HPS2660

Approximately: before Kant, philosophy of science aimed to aid the sciences by improving methods of inquiry; after Kant, philosophy of science aimed only to analyze and justify the results of scientific inquiry. Inquiry into causal relations is one domain in which philosophy of science has retained some of the pre-Kantian ambitions to improve methodology. New methodologies, prompted by work in philosophy, have entered into biology, economics, epidemiology, psychology and other areas. These developments have, predictably, been both attacked, defended and applied by others. This seminar will (1) briefly survey ideas about methods for causal inference from 1900 to 1980; (2) describe the basic properties and uses of graphical representation of causal relations, sometimes known as causal Bayes nets, that emerged between 1980 and 2005, illustrate empirical applications, from estimating the influence of lead exposure to discovering climate teleconnection mechanisms, and the bearing of the methods on some traditional issues in philosophy of science, e.g., the theoretician's dilemma (why, and when, should unobserved quantities be postulated?). (3) consider three criticisms of the new methods, from, respectively, David Freedman and Paul Humphreys; Nancy Cartwright; and Jaime Robins and Larry Wasserman. (I will argue that Freedman and Humphreys are dishonest; Robins and Wasserman discover something very important; and Cartwright is mostly just confused). (4) consider the increasingly popular, but still controversial, use in psychology of causal Bayes nets as a framework for how children, and even adults, learn the causal structure of the world, and contrast this approach with neural net and mechanistic proposals. (5) consider, if there is time, recent literature on singular or token causation Seminar participants will be asked to do three things: (1) attend (2) analyze an empirical data set, either one you find or one I provide. Software will be available. (No philosopher should be licensed to write about the social, biological, behavioral or medical sciences unless they have done as much at least once.) (3) write a term paper.

2672 Genes And Behavior

Schaffner, Kenneth | Thursdays 1:00--4:30

Cross-listed with HPS2662

The relations between genes and behaviors will be considered from both classical ("heritability") as well as molecular perspectives. Examples will be drawn from model organism research (worm, fly, mouse) as well as human studies including IQ controversy, normal personality genetics, and analyses of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. The roles of the environment and intermediate phenotypes (endophenotypes) including brain imaging studies will be discussed. Philosophical readings include reductionistic, interactionist, and emergentist approaches.