This is the material from the B section of the course.

For the later material, see here.

For the material from the A section of the course, see here.

Assignment B
due by email Wed Oct 18th midnight (when Oct 19th starts)
(not Oct 15th noon as previously announced)
For this one please use the same Mini-CD hierarchy as for assignment A,
      except that there is a more restricted range of acceptable topics for the Mini-Cds.
The topics must be recognizably drawn from the (written or spoken) course material
      (excluding obvious jokes/asides), rather than about just any old topic at all. 
"Drawn from" is loose--best in choosing a topic to take some claim in the material and:
      dispute it (in some way not already in the material) or
      defend it (in some way not already in the material) or
      apply it (in some nonroutine way not already in the material) or
      consider whether it could be extended (to a bolder claim not already ...) or
      consider an alternative (not already in the material) and test it against some rival.
In short, try to use the (still-changing) epistemological methods to think about epistemology
      (or at least about something else in philosophy we've hit on in class).
If you doubt your topic will be deemed acceptably course-related,
      feel free to ask your grader in advance.
Also, you can reach back to the beginning of term;
      you're not restricted to the material in the B section.
Please title attachments (or subject lines) "383-00x-B-uniqname..."
      and send to phil383cds@...

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Happy Afternoon Siesta Theater Notes

Some relevant background from Sept 14 and Sep 19

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Oct 3   Relativism

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Oct 5   Truth = Correspondence

2/3rd of the way down the slide above, someone in class -- Matt? -- asked whether a subjectiist could deny the existence of facts like f2 and f3 etc. and so avoid a regress in the "things required by Px+Rx w/ self-rep'n" line. I said fact-like things "come for free" because for instance if snow is white, then trivially it is a fact that snow is white (which in turn, I suppose, trivially means that there is a fact that snow is white). But this might be suspicious and it would've been more direct for me to say that if snow is white, then trivially snow's being white exists. Snow's being white would be a thing (in addition to snow and whiteness). It doesn't matter whether snow's being white is a fact, or (as some would say) an event, or whatever else. The only important point is that it exists if snow is white.

Then the line should read:
Things required by Px+Rx w/ self-rep'n: e1; e1's representing e1; e1's representing e1's representing e1; ... infinitely.

 

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Oct 10   Rational Contradictions?

In the slide above, Dave (if I understood him right, and among other things) expressed doubt that Nozick's assumption of "no very next/prev instants" was compatible with the existence of instants at all. I tried to reformulate the argument without instants, but that was confusing and and an unnecessary concession. In a variety of ways time dimensions seem analogous to spatial dimensions. Think of space as high-school geometry teachers (and Euclid) think of it. A line has infinitesimal points, even though there is no next/prev point from any other. Or think of the "number line". A real number has no next/prev real number, but that doesn't mean there aren't real numbers. So there doesn't seem to be any reason to block Nozick from talking about instants ("points" in time) just because of his assumption of (what he calls) continuity.

You might think of the considerations in the slide above as yielding some preference for noncontradiction over contradiction--having noncontradiction as an ideal won't lose you the dispute, but having contradiction as an ideal will lose Whitman the dispute--even if it isn't an inviolable requirement. Alternatively, you might think of a preference (even a violable one) against contradiction as increasing epistemic happiness, because without it there would be little or no reason to avoid any beliefs without it, so little to feel proud of if you avoid falsity or reach truth.

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Oct 12   A Priori Certainty?

We didn't finish the last slide so I'll probably resume with it on the 19th, but I wanted it to be up here in full for anyone who wants to write about the topic.

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