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Arché Summer School: Courses
 
 
 

The Summer School will be dedicated to contemporary issues in Arché's main research areas, language, epistemology, methodology and logical consequence.

Courses will be coordinated and partly tutored by Arché Professors and Professorial Fellows, Jessica Brown, Herman Cappelen, Stephen Read, Brian Weatherson and Crispin Wright. Each Arché Professor will also give a special research seminar on related Arché projects.

The courses are organised as four independent streams of seminars: language, epistemology, methodology and logical consequence. Every participant is free to attend all streams of seminars.

Contextualism & Relativism

Co-ordinators: Dr Dilip Ninan and Dr Derek Ball.
Tutors: Dr Dilip Ninan and Dr Derek Ball.
Research Presentation: Prof. Herman Cappelen.

This course is linked with Arché's Contextualism and Relativism Project.

Course Themes

Context, the Epistemic, and the De Se.

Course Description

The module will offer a critical overview of some crucial foundational issues in the semantics of context dependent expressions intertwined with a discussion of some recent applications of various models of context dependence to traditional philosophical problems. The issues covered are within the remit of the Arché Project on Contextualism & Relativism. Topics will include epistemic modality, the de se, Kaplanian monsters, and linguistic tests for context sensitivity.

Course Plan

Monday (28/6): Varieties of Context Sensitivity (Dilip Ninan).
Tuesday (29/6): Epistemic Modals (Derek Ball).
Wednesday (30/6): Tests for Context Sensitivity? (Herman Cappelen).
Thursday (1/7): De Se Attitudes (Dilip Ninan).
Friday (2/7): Monsters (Derek Ball).

Readings

  • Gennaro Chierchia and Sally McConnell-Ginet, Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics, 2nd ed., pp. 329-349.
  • Kai von Fintel and Anthony Gillies, "'Might' Made Right".
  • David Kaplan, "Demonstratives", In Themes from Kaplan, 1989. pp. 489-512, 520-524, 529-557.
  • David Lewis, "Attitudes De Dicto and De Se", The Philosophical Review, 1979.
  • Paul Portner, Modality (OUP 2009), pp. 177-184.
  • Philippe Schlenker, "Indexicals and De Se Reports".


Basic Knowledge

Co-ordinators: Dr Dylan Dodd, Dr Elia Zardini and Prof. Crispin Wright.
Tutors: Dr Dylan Dodd, Dr Elia Zardini and Prof. Crispin Wright.
Research Presentation: Prof. Jessica Brown.

This course is linked with Arché's Basic Knowledge Project.

Course Themes

Closure, Transmission and Epistemic Circularity

Course Description

The course will look at different ways in which epistemic properties such as knowledge and justification relate to validity and inference, touching on the main issues that are being investigated this year in the AHRC-funded Basic Knowledge Project. We will first tackle the issue whether knowledge and justification are closed under some form or other of entailment. We will then discuss the conditions for the validity of an argument (whose premises are known or justified) to generate new knowledge or justification for its conclusion. We will close by examining the related question of what epistemic circularity in one’s structure of knowledge or justification is, and if there are cases in which such circularity is benign rather than vicious. In this connection, we will look at recent attempts to forge a certain reconciliation between foundationalism and coherentism. Throughout, we will relate our discussions to the sceptical problematic.

Readings

  • W. P. Alston (1986), Epistemic circularity, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47, pp. 1-30.
  • M. Bergmann (2004), Epistemic circularity: malignant and benign. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69, pp. 709-27.
  • J. van Cleve (1979), Foundationalism, epistemic principles, and the Cartesian circle, Philosophical Review 88, pp. 55-91.
  • J. van Cleve (1984), Reliability, justification and induction, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4, pp. 555-67.
  • S. Cohen (2002), Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65, pp. 309-329.
  • F. Dretske (1970), Epistemic operators, Journal of Philosophy 67, pp. 1007-1023.
  • F. Dretske (2005), The Case Against Closure, in M. Steup & E. Sosa (Eds.), Contemporary Debates In Epistemology, pp. 13-26.
  • J. Hawthorne (2005), The Case for Closure, in M. Steup & E. Sosa (Eds.), Contemporary Debates In Epistemology, pp. 26-43.
  • M. Lasonen-Aarnio (2008), Single Premise Deduction and Risk, Philosophical Studies 141, pp. 157-173.
  • D. Makinson (1965), The Paradox of the Preface, Analysis 25, pp. 205-207
  • R. Nozick (1981), Philosophical Explanations, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 167-288.
  • J. Pryor (2004), What's Wrong with Moore's Argument, Philosophical Issues 14, pp. 349-378.
  • J. Pryor (2008), When Warrant Transmits, in A. Coliva (Ed.), Wittgenstein, Epistemology and Mind: Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright.
  • E. Sosa (1997), Reflective knowledge in the best circles. Journal of Philosophy 94, pp. 410-30.
  • C. Wright (2000), Cogency and Question-Begging: Some Reflections on McKinsey's Paradox and Putnam's Proof" Philosophical Issues 10, pp. 140-16.3


Methodology

Co-ordinators: Prof. Jessica Brown, Prof. Herman Cappelen, Dr Yuri Cath, and Dr Jonathan Ichikawa.
Tutors: Prof. Jessica Brown, Prof. Herman Cappelen, Dr Yuri Cath, and Dr Jonathan Ichikawa.
Research Presentations: Prof. Brian Weatherson.

This course is linked with Arché's Philosophical Methodology Project.

Course Theme

The Epistemology of Philosophy

Course Description

This course will deal with epistemological issues in philosophical methodology. The course will examine questions like: What is the nature of the evidence that philosophers rely on? Do philosophers treat their intuitions as evidence for philosophical claims? Is knowledge gained from the philosopher’s armchair a priori knowledge? Is philosophy particularly concerned with conceptual or analytic truths? Are the armchair methods of philosophical inquiry a good way of acquiring knowledge?

Course Plan

Monday (28/6): Thought Experiments (Jonathan Ichikawa).
Tuesday (29/6): Scepticism about Philosophy (Jessica Brown).
Wednesday (30/6): Evidence Neutrality (Brian Weatherson).
Thursday (1/7): Epistemic Analyticity (Yuri Cath).
Friday (2/7): Intuitions and Philosophy (Herman Cappelen).

Readings

The most important readings are Weinberg's paper and Chapters 4, 6 and 7 of The Philosophy of Philosophy.
  • Bealer, George. (1998). Intuition and the autonomy of philosophy. In Michael DePaul and William Ramsey (Ed.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry (pp. 201-239). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
  • Cummins, R. (1998). Reflections on Reflective Equilibrium. In M. DePaul & W. Ramsey (Eds.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield: 113-128.
  • Goldman, Alvin. (2007). Philosophical Intuitions: Their Target, Their Source, and Their Epistemic Status. Grazer Philosophische Studien 74.
  • Jackson, Frank. (1998). From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Knobe, Joshua and Nichols, Shaun. (eds.) (2008). Experimental Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
  • Kornblith, Hilary. (2007). Naturalism and Intuitions. Grazer Philosophische Studien 74.
  • Weinberg, Jonathan. (2007). How to Challenge Intuitions Empirically Without Risking Skepticism. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 31: 318-343.
  • Williamson, Timothy. (2007). The Philosophy of Philosophy. Blackwell.


Foundations of Logical Consequence

Co-ordinators: Ole Hjortland and Prof. Stephen Read.
Tutors: Colin Caret, Dr Roy Dyckhoff, Ole Hjortland, Prof. Graham Priest and Prof. Stewart Shapiro.
Research Presentation: Prof. Stephen Read.

This course is linked with Arché's Foundations of Logical Consequence Project.

Course Theme

Philosophical Logic.

Course Description

The course in Philosophical Logic will cover both formal and philosophical aspects of non-classical logic. There will be discussion of the philosophical motivation for developing alternatives to and extensions of classical logic, and of the technical machinery needed to give a full articulation of these developments and their interpretations. The course will attempt to cover many-valued logics including the logic of paradox, non-normal modal logics, intuitionistic and intermediate logics, and sub-structural logics including relevance logic and linear logic.

Course Plan

Monday (28/6): Many-valued Logics (Graham Priest).
Tuesday (29/6): Non-Normal Modal Logics (Colin Caret).
Wednesday (30/6): Inferentialism: Harmony and Autonomy (Stephen Read).
Thursday (1/7): Intuitionistic Logic (Stewart Shapiro).
Friday (2/7): Sub-Structural Logics (Roy Dyckhoff and Ole Hjortland).

Readings

  • G. Priest, An Introduction to Non-Classical Logic.
  • S. Read, Thinking about Logic.




For further information, please contact the .