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Added by: Andrea BlomqvistAbstract: This paper argues that there are powerful similarities between cognitive development in children and scientific theory change. These similarities are best explained by postulating an underlying abstract set of rules and representations that underwrite both types of cognitive abilities. In fact, science may be successful largely because it exploits powerful and flexible cognitive devices that were designed by evolution to facilitate learning in young children. Both science and cognitive development involve abstract, coherent systems of entities and rules, theories. In both cases, theories provide predictions, explanations, and interpretations. In both, theories change in characteristic ways in response to counterevidence. These ideas are illustrated by an account of children's developing understanding of the mind.
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser
Abstract: The view that physical objects do not, in fact, possess colour properties is certainly the dominant position amongst scientists working on colour vision. It is also a reasonably popular view amongst philosophers. However, the recent philosophical debate about the metaphysical status of colour properties seems to have taken a more realist turn. In this article, I review the main philosophical views – eliminativism, physicalism, dispositionalism and primitivism – and describe the problems they face. I also examine how these views have been classified and suggest that there may be less disparity between some of these positions than previously thought
Comment: Useful survey article on colour and colour perception.
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Added by: Björn Freter
Abstract: My first aim in this paper is to show that the transparency claim cannot serve the purpose to which it is assigned; that is, the idea that perceptual experience is transparent is no help whatsoever in motivating an externalist account of phenomenal character. My second aim is to show that the internalist qualia theorist's response to the transparency idea has been unnecessarily concessive to the externalist. Surprisingly, internalists seem to allow that much of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience depends essentially (and not just causally) upon externally located properties. They argue that we can also be aware of internal, non-intentional qualia. I present an alternative response the internalist can make to the transparency claim: phenomenal character is wholly internal, and seeming to be aware of externally located properties just is being aware of internally constituted experiential features.
Comment: Clarifies the debate on whether perceptual experience is transparent and what significance this has. Points out some mistaken assumptions that both sides of the debate have made. Suggests how internalists should respond to the claim that perceptual experience is transparent. Easy to read if one has prior knowledge of the transparency idea.
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Added by: Emily PaulSummary: I propose that the meanings of vague expressions render the truth conditions of utterances of sentences containing them sensitive to our interests. For example, 'expensive' is analyzed as meaning 'costs a lot', which in turn is analyzed as meaning 'costs significantly greater than the norm'. Whether a difference is a significant difference depends on what our interests are. Appeal to the proposal is shown to provide an attractive resolution of the sorites paradox that is compatible with classical logic and semantics.
Comment: An important paper to use for an advanced UG Philosophy of Language/Metaphysics course. Would definitely need to be a core reading and be taught in a lecture first, as there are many important things going on here.
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Added by: Giada FratantonioSummary: Survey article on feminist epistemology and its intersection with social epistemology. Includes discussion on topics such as the historical development of feminist epistemology as well as on epistemic injustice and the epistemology of ignorance.
Comment: It can be used as introductory/overview reading for a course on feminism, as well as social epistemology.
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Added by: Emily PaulAbstract: From a theoretical standpoint, the problem of human suffering can be understood as one formulation of the classical problem of evil, which calls into question the compatibility of the existence of a perfect God with the extent to which human beings suffer. Philosophical responses to this problem have traditionally been posed in the form of theodicies, or justifications of the divine. In this article, I argue that the theodical approach in analytic philosophy of religion exhibits both morally and epistemically harmful tendencies and that philosophers would do better to shift their perspective from the hypothetical 'God's-eye view' to the standpoint of those who actually suffer. By focusing less on defending the epistemic rationality of religious belief and more on the therapeutic effectiveness of particular imaginings of God with respect to suffering, we can recover, (re)construct, and/or (re)appropriate more virtuous approaches to the individual and collective struggle with the life of faith in the face of suffering.
Comment: Useful for an introductory or intermediate Philosophy of Religion course - probably following or preceding the study of a 'classical' theodicy. It would be interesting to then have seminar questions in which students are invited to compare the two approaches to theodicy.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: Classic presentation of the prosentential theory of truth: an important, though minority, deflationist account of truth. Prosententialists take 'It is true that' to be a prosentence forming operator that anaphorically picks out content from claims made further back in the anaphoric chain (in the same way that pronouns such as 'he', 'she' and 'it' anaphorically pick out referents from nouns further back in the anaphoric chain).
Comment: Good as a primary reading on a course on truth, philosophy of language, or on deflationism more generally. Any course that treats deflationary accounts of truth in any detail would deal with the prosentential theory of truth, and this is one of the most historically important presentations of that theory. Would be best used in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: Argues against deflationary conceptions of truth. Deflationism provides a descriptive account of the term 'true', but these claims, argues Gupta, are both very strong and problematic.
Comment: This would be very useful in a course on the nature of truth, or any course in which deflationary conceptions of truth are relevant. The paper is not technical and provides a good account of deflationism about truth. This would be suitable for undergraduates or graduates.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: The Liar and other semantic paradoxes pose a difficult problem for all theories of truth. Any theory that aims to improve our understanding of the concept of truth must, when fully stated, include an account of the paradoxes. Not only deflationism but also its competitors - for instance, correspondence and coherence - must ultimately address the paradoxes. The question that concerns me in this essay is whether it is especially urgent for deflationism to do so. Are the paradoxes a special threat, a special problem, for deflationism? I will argue that they are not.1 Deflationists can leave the paradoxes to the specialists to puzzle over. It is the specialists who will be well served if they keep some insights of deflationism firmly in view.
Comment: This would be useful in a course on the nature of truth, or on paradoxes. This is slightly more specialised than 'A Critique of Deflationism' but still good reading material for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course. The paper is not easy, but clear and not very technical.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
The concept of truth serves in logic not only as an instrument but also as an object of study. Eubulides of Miletus (fl. fourth century BCE), a Megarian logician, discovered the paradox known as ‘the Liar,’ and, ever since his discovery, logicians down the ages - Aristotle and Chrysippus, John Buridan and William Heytesbury, and Alfred Tarski and Saul Kripke, to mention just a few - have tried to understand the puzzling behavior of the concept of truth.
Comment: Can be used in an advanced course on (formal approaches to) truth or the Liar paradox. Familiarity with the semantics of first-order classical logic and transfinite induction is assumed (for the latter, Ch.3 of the Blackwell Guide might be of help - using the Blackwell Guide as a blueprint may also be a way to incorporate this reading in a general advanced course on philosophical logic).
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Added by: Sara Peppe and Björn FreterPublisher’s Note: In this sustained and nuanced attempt to define a genuinely African philosophy, Kwame Gyekye rejects the idea that an African philosophy consists simply of the work of Africans writing on philosophy. It must, Gyekye argues, arise from African thought itself, relate to the culture out of which it grows, and provide the possibility of a continuation of a philosophy linked to culture. Offering a philosophical clarification and interpretation of the concepts in the ontology, philosophical psychology, theology, and ethics of the Akan of Ghana, Gyekye argues that critical analyses of specific traditional African modes of thought are necessary to develop a distinctively African philosophy as well as cultural values in the modern world.
Comment (from this Blueprint): A classical work of modern African philosophy and, because of its analysis of the conceptual scheme, highly relevant for the context of African philosophy and language.
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Added by: Giada FratantonioSummary: In the debate over the structure of epistemic justification, epistemologists have opposed foundationalism to coherentism. In this paper, the author argues for "Foundherentism".
Comment: Great as a further reading in an undergraduate epistemology course on the topic of the structure of the epistemic justification.
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Added by: Jie GaoPublisher's Note: In this important work, Haack develops an original theory of empirical evidence or justification, and argues its appropriateness to the goals of inquiry. In so doing, Haack provides detailed critical case studies of Lewis's foundationalism; Davidson's and Bonjour's coherentism; Popper's 'epistemology without a knowing subject'; Quine's naturalism; Goldman's reliabilism; and Rorty's, Stich's, and the Churchlands' recent obituaries of epistemology.
Comment: This book includes excellent critique of pure coherentist and pure foundationalist theories of knowledge, with defense of Hacck's integrated doctrine of "foundherentism". As it is highly recommended by Putnam, this book is a fine introduction and a significant contribution to contemporary epistemology. It includes powerful and highly detailed criticism to a range of contemporary philosophers - Sir Karl Popper, W. V. O. Quine, Richard Rorty, Alvin Goldman, and Paul and Patricia Churchland among others - that can be used when views of those philosophers are examined in teaching.
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Added by: Jie GaoPublisher's Note: The first systematic exposition of all the central topics in the philosophy of logic, Susan Haack's book has established an international reputation (translated into five languages) for its accessibility, clarity, conciseness, orderliness, and range as well as for its thorough scholarship and careful analyses. Haack discusses the scope and purpose of logic, validity, truth-functions, quantification and ontology, names, descriptions, truth, truth-bearers, the set-theoretical and semantic paradoxes, and modality. She also explores the motivations for a whole range of nonclassical systems of logic, including many-valued logics, fuzzy logic, modal and tense logics, and relevance logics.
Comment: This textbook is intended particularly for philosophy students who have completed a first course in elementary logic. But, though the book is clearly written, such students still may find the content difficult, as it addresses difficult topics in the foundations of logic the primary literature for which is very technical. That said, it has been a widely used textbook for courses on philosophy of logic. Chapters of it can be used individually in accordance with the arrangements of the course.
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Added by: Jie GaoAbstract: It is often taken for granted by writers who propose - and, for that matter, by writers who oppose - 'justifications' of inductions, that deduction either does not need, or can readily be provided with, justification. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, contrary to this common opinion, problems analogous to those which, notoriously, arise in the attempt to justify induction, also arise in the attempt to justify deduction.
Comment: This paper argues that justification for deduction, like justification for induction, also has the problem of circularity. It is suitable for teachings on topic of justification for inference in a course on philosophy of logic.
Comment: In the mindreading debate, this is one of the main papers arguing for Theory Theory. It offers a good introduction of the theory as well as empirical support. It is suitable in a second or third year module on social cognition.