Analytic%20Philosophy

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Analytic Philosophy

• Introduction and a Brief History

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Introduction

• About this course
• Analytic philosophy in the history of philosophy
  and the history of analytic philosophy
• Areas of philosophy and central philosophical
  issues

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About this course

• Mechanics, requiements and expectations

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Syllabus

• Office Founders 165c
• Telephone [phone] USD [phone]
  mobile
• Email baber_at_sandiego.edu
• Class Website http//home.sandiego.edu/baber/ana
  lytic/
• Message Board http//analyticphilosophy.blogspot.
  com/
• Turnitin.com Info Turnitin.com class ID 4739566
  enrollment password analytic
• Office Hours Thu Thu 1215 215 pm Wed 115
  215 and by appointment.
• Class Meetings Tue Thu 230 350 Serra 312

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Syllabus

• Readings There are no hard-copy textbooks for
  this class! All readings, handouts and
  powerpoints are linked to the class website.
• Grade Your grade for the semester will be based
  upon two tests and a term paper. In addition, you
  must submit a written proposal for your term
  paper to be discussed in class and approved by
  your instructor.
• Test I Thu Mar 15 30 of final grade
• Test II Thu May 3 30 of final grade
• Proposal due Tue Apr 26 must be approved
• Presentations May 8, May 10 required
• Term Paper due Tue May 20 40 of final grade

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Term Papers Turnitin

• Legal Notification of Policy
• USD subscribes to Turnitin.com, a web-based
  application that compares the content of
  submitted papers to the Turnitin.com database and
  checks for textual similarities. All required
  papers for this course will be subject to
  submission to Turnitin.com for textual similarity
  review and to verify originality. All submitted
  papers will be included as source documents in
  the Turnitin.com reference database solely for
  the purpose of detecting textual similarities and
  verifying originality. Each student is
  responsible for submitting his or her papers in
  such a way that no identifying information about
  the student is included. A student may not have
  anyone else submit papers on the students behalf
  to Turnitin.com. A student may request in writing
  that his or her papers not be submitted to
  Turnitin.com. However, if a student chooses this
  option, the student may be required to provide
  documentation in a form required by the faculty
  member to substantiate that the papers are the
  students original work.

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Schedule Topics Readings

• A schedule of topics and readings, subject to
  revision, is available at the class website at
• http//home.sandiego.edu/baber/analytic/schedule
  .htm
• Class Website http//home.sandiego.edu/baber/an
  alytic

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Analytic Philosophy

• Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style
  of philosophy that came to dominate
  English-speaking countries in the 20th century.
  In the United States the overwhelming majority of
  university philosophy departments self-identify
  as "analytic" departments. This situation is
  mirrored in the United Kingdom, Canada, and
  Australia. Wikipediabut if you dont trust
  Wikipedia
• Brian Leiter, the philosophical gourmet, notes
  "All the Ivy League universities, all the leading
  state research universities, all the University
  of California campuses, most of the top liberal
  arts colleges, most of the flagship campuses of
  the second-tier state research universities boast
  philosophy departments that overwhelmingly
  self-identify as "analytic" it is hard to
  imagine a "movement" that is more academically
  and professionally entrenched than analytic
  philosophy.
• See also John Searle's judgment (in Bunnin
  Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to
  Philosophy (Blackwell, 2003), p. 1) "Without
  exception, the best philosophy departments in the
  United States are dominated by analytic
  philosophy, and among the leading philosophers in
  the United States, all but a tiny handful would
  be classified as analytic philosophers."

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A History of Philosophy

• The Analytic Philosophers Version

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Western Philosophy Timeline
Continental Philosophy
Hellenistic/ Medieval
Rationalists
Empiricists
Kant
Ancient
Plotinus Augustine Anselm Abelard Aquinas Ockham
Descartes Leibniz Spinoza
Locke Berkeley Hume
Kant
Plato Aristotle
Analytic Philosophy
Our Esteemed Ancestors
Our esteemed ancestors
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Anglo-American Philosophy
Continental Philosophy
British Idealists
Empiricists
Locke Berkeley Hume
Analytic Philosophy
Early 20th Century Rejection of Idealism (Defense
of Commonsense) Logical Atomism
Logical Positivism
Ordinary Language Philosophy
Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
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Subfields of Philosophy

• Traditional Subfields
• Logic
• Ethics
• Metaphysics
• Epistemology
• History of Philosophy
• Additional Special Fields
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Science
• Applied Ethics specialties
• Aesthetics
• Philosophy of Language

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Our Philosophical Issues

• Skepticism and the External World
• Meaning and Reference
• The Logical Positivist Program
• The Mind-Body Problem
• The Problem of Universals
• Externalism and the mental
• Identity (including personal identity)
• Time and time-travel

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The External World

• Epistemological, metaphysical questions and
  philosophy of language issues.
• Do we know theres an external world? If so, how?
• What are the constituents of this external world?
• How should we analyze talk about these things?

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The Epistemological Question

• External world mind-independent objects
• Immediate experience and inference (I hear a
  screeching when I step on the brakes and infer
  that the pads are worn and metal is grinding on
  metal. Sight is no different.
• Veridical and non-veridical experience
• Do we have any good reason to believe that any of
  our experiences are veridical? How could we know?

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Representative Theory of Perception
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The Veil of Perception
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Thought Experiments

• We want to know what is logically (or
  metaphysically) possible
• E.g. Is it possible for persons to exchange
  bodies? Survive bodily death? Reappear in
  resurrection worlds? Be reincarnated?
• Conceivability is (roughly) a criterion for
  logical possibility so
• We produce and consider thought experiments to
  ascertain what is conceivable.
• These thought experimentsstories about zombies,
  transport via Startrek Machine, Brains in Vats
  and life in the Matrix, apparent cases of
  body-exchange, etc. are fictions intended to pump
  our intuitions.

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The Mind-Body Problem

• Zombies physical duplicates of normal humans
  who do not have qualia.
• Qualia contents of immediate experience, raw
  feels or sense-data
• The Mind-Body Problem (crude version) is the
  mind the brain? (or, are mental states just brain
  states?)
• Conceivability as a criterion for (logical)
  possibility

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Zombies Argument for Mind-Body Dualism

• Zombies are logically possible (we can conceive
  of them, right?)
• A zombies brain states are perfect duplicates of
  the brain states of normal individuals
  experiencing qualia
• There must be something more then that brain
  state when an individual has qualia
• The mind is not just the brain (mental states are
  not just brain states)

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More Mind-Body Problem

• The Knowledge Argument, Reversed Spectrum, etc.
• Can machines think? The Turing Test and Searles
  Chinese Room
• Are meanings in the head? Hilary Putnam and the
  Twin Earth problem

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The Problem of Universals

• Statements of the form x is P can be true or
  false.
• Intuitively, what makes them true or false is an
  objects having a property
• Intuitively, when objects are similar it is
  because they share properties
• But are there properties and, if so, what are
  they? And how can they be shared?

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All standard solutions are unintuitive!

• Nominalism makes it difficult to account for the
  fact that some ways of grouping are correct while
  others incorrect.
• Conceptualism begs the question What is it in
  the object that corresponds to my idea and what
  is that correspondance? What makes my idea of red
  the same as your idea?
• Realism posits crazy, immaterial objects

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Reference

• Platos question how can I think the thing that
  is not?
• Fictional entities What makes it true that
  Pegasus is a flying horse--and not a unicorn or
  magic mushroom? What makes it true that Pegasus
  doesnt exist?
• Again, construing Pegasus, et. al. as ideas
  doesnt help so we seem stuck with the existence
  of crazy, non-existant objects.
• Russells theory of descriptions the
  Russell-Strawson debate.

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Logical Positivism

• Metaphilosophical issues Humes Fork and the
  rejection of metaphysics
• Humes Fork and the Analytic/Synthetic
  distinction
• Phenomenalism objects as permanent
  possibilities of sensation
• Quines Two Dogmas of Empiricism

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Identity

• An equivalence relation
• Reflexivity x x
• Symmetry if x y then y x
• Transitivity if x y and y z then x z
• An indiscernibility relation if x y then they
  have all the same properties
• Is the converse true also, i.e. if x and y have
  all the same properties does x y?

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Identity Puzzles

• Indiscernibility of Identicals and Freges puzzle
• Identity of Indiscernibles, symmetrical worlds
  (Blacks Balls) and Eternal Return
• Branching Cases the Ship of Theseus, etc.
• Personal identity Lockes identity problem,
  survival, fission, etc.

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And now for some solutions

• none of which are conclusive!