第一章課程：知識的兩極─本體與認識

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PHIL 4523: Epistemology

TTh, 3:00-4:15 PM

Spring, 2003

Professor: Wayne D. Riggs

Office: 617 DaHT

Office Hours: Wednesday, 9:30-11:00, and by appointment

Phone: 325-6324 (Philosophy Dept.) 325-5950 (my office)

Email: wriggs@ou.edu

Phil. Dept. WWW Page: http://www.ou.edu/ouphil

Required Texts: Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, edited by Matthias Steup

Knowledge, Belief, and Character, edited by Guy Axtell

Recommended Text: Considered Judgment, By Catherine Z. Elgin

Course Work:

Short Paper #1 (5-7 pages) 20%

Short Paper #2 (8-10 pages) 30%

Homework (total) 15%

Take-home Final Exam 35%

In this course you will be expected to write two papers, one 5-7 pages in length, and the other 8-10 pages. The second paper counts more heavily toward your final grade because I will expect you to have learned a few things about how to write a philosophy essay from your experience writing the first one and, especially, from my comments on that paper. So be sure to read those comments carefully when you get them. In addition, you will have frequent (approximately weekly) homework assignments to complete. These will typically be very short assignments asking you to state concisely the main point of a chapter or section, or to roughly reconstruct an argument in a short passage, and so on. In the last week of class, I will give you a take-home final exam. This exam will consist of several essays, and will be due by 3:00 PM on Thursday, May 8.

PHIL 5523: Epistemology

TTh, 3:00-4:15 PM

Spring, 2003

Professor: Wayne D. Riggs

Office: 617 DaHT

Office Hours: Wednesday, 9:30-11:00, and by appointment

Phone: 325-6324 (Philosophy Dept.) 325-5950 (my office)

Email: wriggs@ou.edu

Phil. Dept. WWW Page: http://www.ou.edu/ouphil

Required Texts: Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, edited by Matthias Steup

Knowledge, Belief, and Character, edited by Guy Axtell

Recommended Text: Considered Judgment, By Catherine Z. Elgin

Course Work:

Paper #1 (8-10 pages) 35%

Paper #2 (15-20 pages) 45%

Homework (total) 20%

In this course you will be expected to write two papers totaling 25-30 pages. Within this guideline and the ones for page length given above, you have some flexibility in how long each of the two papers may be. In addition, there will be frequent (approximately weekly) “homework” assignments you must complete. These will typically be short, tightly focused questions asking you to reconstruct an argument, concisely state the main point of a section or chapter, list the author’s main premises for his conclusion in a given section, etc.

Semester Reading Schedule (Partial)

(Res) = Electronic Reserve, (Steup) = Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, (Axtell) = Knowledge, Belief, and Character

Musgrave, “The Problem of Knowledge,” Ch. 1 of Common Sense, Science and Scepticism (Res)
Musgrave, “Scepticism Regarding the Senses,” Ch. 3 of Common Sense, Science and Scepticism, (Res)
Goldman, “Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences,” (Res)
Sosa, “Reliabilism and Intellectual Virtue,” (Axtell, #2)
James, excerpts from The Will to Believe, (Res)
Riggs, “Beyond Truth and Falsehood…” (Res)
David, “Truth as the Epistemic Goal,” (Steup, #9)
DePaul, “Value Monism in Epistemology,” (Steup, #10)
Haack, “The Ethics of Belief Reconsidered,” (Steup, #1)
Russell, “Epistemic and Moral Duty,” (Steup, #2)
Fumerton, “Epistemic Justification and Epistemic Evaluation,” (Steup, #3)
Ginet, “Deciding to Believe,” (Steup, #4)
Feldman, “Voluntary Belief and Epistemic Evaluation,” (Steup, #5)
Audi, “Doxastic Voluntarism and the Ethics of Belief,” (Steup, #6)
Goldman, “Internalism Exposed,” (Steup, #7)
Steup, “Epistemic Duty, Evidence, and Internality,” (Steup, #8)
Zagzebski, “From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology,” (Axtell, #9)
Riggs, “Reliability and the Value of Knowledge,” (Res)

Homework due January 30^th

James states his thesis in the excerpt from The Will to Believe thusly: “Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds…”

Your assignment is to explain clearly and briefly why James thinks this is true. Write no more than 1 (one) page, and be sure to write in your own words. Extended quotes from James are not appropriate here.

Assignment for Thursday, February 27

On Thursday, we will meet in Bizzell Library Room 149D, on the far northeast wall of the main floor. Dr. Calvin Byre will give a presentation on doing library research in philosophy. After this, you will be given a topic within epistemology to research. You must find each of the following things in Bizzell Library or on the internet as instructed. You must turn this assignment in at the beginning of class on Tuesday.

Your term is:____________________________

1. Find a definition of your term in two appropriate philosophical reference sources. One must be a print resource and the other must be an internet resource. Write down both definitions as well as the bibliographic information on the print resource and the URL of the internet resource.

2. Find a book in the Bizzell Library Collections written primarily about issues involving the term you’ve been assigned. Write down the bibliographic information as well as the library Call Number.

3. Find a book that is not held in the Bizzell Library Collections written primarily about issues involving the term you’ve been assigned. Write down the bibliographic information.

4. Find three articles published in philosophical journals on the topic represented by your term. Give the bibliographic information on each one. Also determine if Bizzell receives those journals and indicate this on your work.

Default Homework Assignment Name___________

Due Date: Tuesday, April 29

Title of reading: Ch. 1 of Considered Judgment

Author: Elgin, Catherine

1) In one sentence, state the thesis of the assigned reading. In other words, what is the proposition being argued for, what is the author making a case for? One sentence, I said!

2) Summarize the argument given by the author for the thesis. Try to capture all the main points, and how they work together to support the thesis. But do not write more than a longish paragraph! I will take points off if your answer is too long.

Epistemology Take-Home Final Exam

For each of the numbered items below, answer one of the two lettered options.

Question 1:

(a) Make the strongest case you can for “doxastic voluntarism,” then critique your argument.

(b) Clearly and carefully explain why the issue of “doxastic voluntarism” is important to some epistemologists. In other words, what difference does it make? Then, argue either for or against it (“doxastic voluntarism”).

Question 2:

(a) Synthesize and recapitulate the arguments given by Zagzebski and Riggs that simple reliabilism cannot account for the full value of knowledge.

(b) Explain the reliabilist theory of justification, and then give the best objection to it that you can.

Question 3:

(a) Clearly and fully explain how Greco’s account of “relevant possibility” disarms at least one skeptical argument. How successful is this argument against skepticism generally?

(b) Give the best argument you can for the view that having true beliefs is not the only epistemic value. What are the best candidates for additional epistemic values? Defend your answer.

Epistemology Undergraduate Paper #1

This handout is to explain a bit about what I expect from the short paper (5-7 pages) that is due on Tuesday, 3/4.

Your paper should defend a thesis that takes a position on some argument(s) to be found in the paper I handed out to you, “The Dialectic of Foundationalism and Coherentism.” You need not seek out additional sources in order to write this paper, though you certainly may if you like. An excellent paper will take a position on some small issue within the paper, and will present the case for it. This will require explicating the issue itself, presenting any arguments for alternative positions, providing criticisms of alternative positions, etc. For this first paper, I am grading you primarily on the following things:

§ your ability to read a text critically and get the philosophy presented there right

§ your ability to recapitulate and/or reconstruct relevant arguments

§ picking out the arguments and passages relevant to your thesis

§ the clarity and perspicuity (look it up!) of your presentation

The emphasis here is on being careful, getting it right, and being clear. You should keep in mind that 5-7 pages is really not a lot of space in which to do these things. That’s why I emphasized the need to choose a small issue on which to write.
　

Epistemology Paper #2

This handout is to explain a bit about what I expect from the second paper (8-10 pages or 15-20 pages) that is due on Tuesday, 4/22, by the beginning of class (undergrads) or Thursday, 5/8 by 5:00 pm (grads).

This paper should be a bit more ambitious than your first, though most of the advice for the first paper still applies. This paper, like the last, must present and defend a philosophical thesis. If you are not arguing for a position on some issue or question, you are not writing a philosophy paper. You may write on any topic you choose, though I strongly recommend that you discuss your topic with me before you begin writing.

For this paper, I want you to get a slightly wider familiarity with the literature on your topic (whatever it is) than we have been able to get in class readings and discussion. Therefore, I want you to find at least three articles in philosophy journals that bear on your topic and take them into consideration in your paper. That does not mean you have to cite or even mention every one of them. But I do expect your paper to reflect your familiarity with them (i.e., if one of them mentions a big objection to a view you are defending, you can’t just ignore it). Your final paper should have a “works consulted” page that gives full bibliographic info on each paper, even if you do not explicitly cite it. You may still discuss and even focus your paper on a reading from one of our textbooks, but you must find three additional relevant articles as well.

Despite my comment about this paper being more ambitious, I still caution you to write on a relatively small topic. This especially goes for the undergrads. 8-10 pages is still not a ton of space, and you can’t expect to solve some major philosophical problem in your paper. Focus on an argument or principle of view from a particular article or author, and don’t let yourself stray into broader topics.