Diversity Reading List

Comment: An excellent paper that could serve as further or specialized reading for postgraduate courses in philosophy of science, in particular, for modules related to the study of the laws of nature. The paper offers an in-depth discussion of essentialist arguments, but also touches upon many other fundamental concepts such as grounding, natural kinds, dispositions and necessity.

Comment: This accessible 18th century text lays out a hedonistic theory of happiness with interesting parallels to Epicureanism.

Comment: This is an English translation of Emilie Du Châtelet's "Sur la liberté." This 18th century text discusses freedom of the will, determinism, and divine foreknowledge.

Comment: Duflo, of the MIT Poverty Action Lab and recent Nobel Prize Winner, summarizes some of the successes of randomized field evaluations in development economics. She then argues that the way forward for development economics should indeed involve some theorizing, but theorizing on the basis of our new empirical evidence - which might end up looking quite different from standard economic theory. This is a very useful (opinionated) introduction to field experiments for a week on field experiments in a philosophy of economics or philosophy of the social sciences course.

Comment: This book addresses important questions about formal languages: why formalization works and the limitations of formalization. The questions are answered from cognitive, historical and logical points of view. It is a good introductory material for teaching on formal language and psychology of reasoning.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This book by Dutilh Novaes recently won the coveted Lakatos Award. In it, she develops a dialogical account of deduction, where she argues that deduction is implicitly dialogical. Proofs represent dialogues between Prover, who is aiming to establish the theorem, and Skeptic, who is trying to block the theorem. However, the dialogue is both partially adversarial (the two characters have opposite goals) and partially cooperative: the Skeptic’s objections make sure that the Prover must make their proof clear, convincing, and correct. In this chapter, Dutilh Novaes applies her model to mathematical practice, and looks at the way social features of maths embody the Prover-Skeptic dialogical model.

Comment: Great core text as there are many important discussion points here, and Edginton uses lots of helpful examples. Could set students the task of coming up with their own conditionals, and analysing these in the would/will sense. This definitely requires a background in beginner's logic.

Comment: This page can be used in a course focused on the philosophy of conditionals, as an introduction/overview of the basic logical issues; or in any logic course wishing to spend more time on this particular notion.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This news item discusses the controversy surrounding a 2021 advert for the high-end jewelry brand Tiffany, featuring Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and, in the background, a rarely seen painting by Basquiat owned by Tiffany. This controversy serves to illustrate both the disappointment that hooks and others feel in how Basquiat's work has been consumed in a emotionally superficial and Eurocentric manner, as well as how his work has come to be a luxury object to be conspicuously consumed primarily by the elite and used for the sake of propagating such consumption of other luxury items to the elite (in this particular instance, a 128.54-carat yellow diamond previously worn by Audrey Hepburn and Lady Gaga). The aesthetic appreciation of the painting, when used as a prop for elite interests, is under scrutiny - and, equally, whether Basquiat's intentions and what he is trying to express through his work are respected in such use and whether should be. Moreover, many of Basquiat's works are privately owned and are not displayed to the public, only to elites. So, using this ad as a case study, we should note that aspects of specific class and status affiliations and interests can affect how appropriately or inappropriately an aesthetic object is consumed, if at all.

Comment: This chapter could be used in a history of philosophy course covering Descartes as one week's reading, covering Elisabeth's questions to Descartes about mind/body interaction. Note that the selections in Atherton's collection are adequate for a Philosophy of Mind course, but students wishing to explore the issues in more detail might benefit from reading the full text.

Complimentary Texts/Resources:

Lisa Shapiro, “Princess Elizabeth and Descartes: The Union of Soul and Body and the Practice of Philosophy” - Shapiro explicates Elizabeth’s underlying view and objections and shows how to frame the issues in the correspondence as feminist issues and issues about philosophy and its culture.

Andrea Nye, “Polity and Prudence: the Ethics of Elisabeth, Princess Palatine” - Nye explores Elisabeth’s ethical views, as discovered via the correspondence.