REQUIRED TEXTS

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego

A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic

All other texts will be available online through Blackboard. See Course Calendar below.

ABOUT THE COURSE: Truth in advertising: this course is impossible! A semester is not enough to cover even the major highlights of 19^th and 20^th Century Philosophy. There is just too much of it. So the course design is necessarily and grossly selective, following only a few central strands of a complex web. Its view is exclusively Western. It concerns the 20^th century more than the 19^th. It stresses method more than doctrines. It emphasizes metaphysics, epistemology, language and mind above ethics (though it does not entirely ignore “existential” issues, which are usually lumped in with ethics). The course’s central theme is how, arising from common post-Kantian idealistic roots in the 19^th century, Anglo-American and Continental philosophy split at the beginning of the 20^th, the Anglo-American side obsessed with language and the Continental side with consciousness, and how nevertheless the two sides traced parallel paths that brought them both by the end of the century to more ambivalent and pragmatic positions. A second (and somewhat contrary) theme is the slow rise and eventual dominance of naturalism over idealism. Many crucial figures are neglected: Hegel, Marx, Mill, Emerson, Kierkegaard, Bergson, Whitehead, Peirce, James, Dewey, Frege, Bradley, Moore, Tolstoy, Heidegger, Camus, Gödel, Tarski, Carnap, Putnam, Kripke, Derrida, Foucault, Singer, Rawls—and others. Some of them I don’t know well enough to teach. But many are omitted simply for lack of time. The course is shaped, too, by my training and biases. It is heavy on analytic philosophy. And it ends with environmental philosophy, because I suspect that our plain citizenship in the biotic community will turn out to be the most far-reaching philosophical lesson of the 20^th century.

GRADES AND POLICIES: Grades will be based on two kinds of work:

Three tests 20% each; 60% total

Two papers 20% each; 40% total

Tests: There will be two during the semester plus a final exam. These will consist of essay questions. The questions will require you to explain and/or criticize some idea, argument or theory that we have discussed in class, or perhaps to compare several different points of view. Dates are listed in the course calendar below. I'll provide study guides for the tests. If you miss a test during the semester, you must contact me within a week to arrange a make-up. Make-ups may be harder than the original test.

Papers: These will provide an opportunity for you to think creatively, to develop your own ideas, and to exercise your reasoning skills. The papers should be 6-8 pages in length. The first is due on March 12, the second on April 14. I'll provide instructions and suggested topics well in advance of these dates. I reduce grades on late papers and do not give incompletes, except in extraordinary circumstances — and even then, only if arrangements are made before the final exam.

OFFICE HOURS: You (or your parents) pay my salary, and part of my job is to be available to talk with you outside of class. Take advantage of what you have paid for! I hold regular office hours and can also see you at other times by appointment. If you are having trouble with the course, ask for help. If you're not having trouble but just want to talk philosophy, you are welcome to stop by my office.

ABOUT ME: I came to UT in 1978 after receiving my Ph.D. from Ohio State with a dissertation in mathematical logic. After the birth of my daughter in 1985, concern about the world in which my children will live led me into environmental activism, and soon thereafter I began working in environmental philosophy. I have published three books in logic and three on environmental ethics and continue to work and write in both areas. My non-professional interests include woodworking with old-fashioned hand tools, collecting wild mushrooms, biking, backpacking, and organic gardening.

COURSE CALENDAR

The calendar for the entire semester is given below. Reading assignments should be completed by the date for which they are listed. Most assignments will be available under Course Documents for this Philosophy 326 section in UT’s blackboard system (Online@UT). The only exceptions are the readings from Ayer and Sartre, whose books you must acquire.

Date	Topic	Assignment
Introduction
1/8	The long shadow of Kant	—
TWO 19^TH CENTURY GIANTS
Arthur Schopenhauer
1/13	Body and will	World as Will and (Re)presentation, §§18-23*
1/15	Art and Idea, Music	World as Will and (Re)presentation, §§30-34, 52
1/20	Denial of life	World as Will and (Re)presentation, §§53-54 and §71
Friedrich Nietzsche
1/22	Nietzsche under the influence of Schopenhauer	Birth of Tragedy secs. 1-5, 15-18, and “Self-Criticism”
1/27	Nietzsche himself: death of God, will to power, eternal recurrence, affirmation of life	Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, Speeches, “On the Hinterweltlern,” “The Bestowing Virtue,” “On the Vision and the Enigma,” “The Seven Seals”
1/29	Christianity and nihilism	Antichrist, Preface and secs. 1-18, 43-46, 62
2/3	Will to truth	Genealogy of Morals, Third Essay, secs. 1, 24-8
2/5	First Test	—
20^TH CENTURY PHENOMENOLOGY
Jean-Paul Sartre
2/10	Wither Husserl’s (and Kant’s) transcendental ego?	Transcendence of the Ego, pp. 32-42
2/12	Reflective consciousness	Transcendence of the Ego, pp. 43-60
2/17	Actions and qualities	Transcendence of the Ego, pp. 60-69
2/19	Empirical ego	Transcendence of the Ego, pp. 70-93
2/24	Transcendence of the empirical ego	Transcendence of the Ego, pp. 93-106
2/26	No class (Nolt at a conference)	—
20^TH CENTURY ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Bertrand Russell
3/3	Mind and matter, acquaintance and description	Problems of Philosophy, Chs. I-V
3/5	Universals, the value of philosophy	Problems of Philosophy, Chs. VI-X and XV First paper due
The Early Ludwig Wittgenstein
3/10	Logic and the world; propositions as pictures of facts	Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, secs. 1 - 3.263
3/12	The mystical as the world sub specie aeternitatis	Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, secs. 5.6 – 5.641, 6.3 - 7
3/17	No class — spring break	—
3/19	No class — spring break	—
3/24	Second Test	—
Logical Empiricism (A. J. Ayer)
3/26	Meaning as verifiability	Language, Truth and Logic, Ch. I
3/31	Philosophy as analysis of language	Language, Truth and Logic, Chs. II-III
4/2	Truth and a priori truth	Language, Truth and Logic, Chs. IV-V
4/7	Self and World	Language, Truth and Logic, Ch. VII (Optional reading: Ayer’s self-critical Introduction)
The Later Ludwig Wittgenstein
4/9	Can there be a private language?	Ray Monk, How to Read Wittgenstein, Ch. 9
W. V. O. Quine
4/14	A stake in the heart of logical empiricism	“Two dogmas of Empiricism” Second paper due
20^TH CENTURY POST-ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
Neo-Pragmatism: Richard Rorty
4/16	Irrelevance of truth	Consequences of Pragmatism, Introduction
Ecofeminism: Val Plumwood
4/21	Feminism and ecofeminism	Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, Ch. 1
Environmental Philosophy: John Nolt
4/23	Goodness naturalized	“The Move from Is to Good in Environmental Ethics”
4/28	Final exam, 10:15 a.m. -12:15 p.m.	—

DISABILITIES: Students who have a disability that requires accommodation should make an appointment with the Office of Disability Services (974-6087) to discuss their specific needs and schedule an appointment with me during my office hours.

* Special thanks to Richard Aquila for making available to this class sections of his recently completed translation of Schopenhauer’s magnum opus.

REQUIRED TEXTS

COURSE CALENDAR

The Later Ludwig Wittgenstein