Week 1	Topic	Reading
T 08/29	Introduction to the class Descartes	Meditations I, II & III
Th 08/31	More Descartes	Meditations IV, V & VI Bernard Williams' & John Cottingham's introduction, introduction
Week 2		Problem of the External World
T 09/05	The Problem	Christopher Grau, "Dream Skepticism" and "Brain in Vats and the Evil Demon" Barry Stroud, "The Problem of the External World"
Th 09/07	A Solution	Robert Nozick, selection from Philosophical Explanations Gail Stine, "Scepticism, Relevant Alternatives and Deductive Closure"
Week 3
T 09/12	Does it Matter?	Christopher Grau, "The Value of Reality: Cypher and the Experience Machine" Iakovos Vasiliou, "Reality, What Matters, and The Matrix"
Th 09/14	Further discussion	None
Week 4		Proofs of the Existence of God
T 09/19	The Ontological Argument	Pojman, St. Anselm & Gaunilo Palmer, "St. Anselm"
Th 09/21	More critiques of the arg.	Kant, "Critique of the Ontological Argument" Haight & Haight, "Ontological Argument for the Existence of the Devil"
Week 5
T 09/26	Design/Teleological Arguments	William Paley, "The Watchmaker" Phillip Johnson, "Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism" Robert Pennock, "Naturalism, Evidence, and Creationism: The Case of Phillip Johnson"
Th 09/28		Roger White, "Does Life's Existence Call for an Explanation?"
Week 6
T 10/03	Continuing discussion	None
Th 10/05	In-Class Midterm	None
Week 7		Freedom of the Will
T 10/10	Bugbears, Bogeymen & Bizarreness	Dennett, "Don't feed the bugbears" Wegner, "The Illusion"
Th 10/12	Determinism	Baron D'Holbach, "Are we cogs in the universe?" B.F. Skinner, "Behaviorism" Peter Van Inwagen, TBA
Week 8
T 10/17	FALL BREAK
Th 10/19	Libertarianism	Jean-Paul Sartre, "Existentialism" Jean-Paul Sartre, "Freedom & Responsibility" William James, "The Dilemma of Determinism"
Week 9
T 10/24	Compatibilism	R. E. Hobart, "Free will as involving determination and inconceivable without it" Stace, "Resolving a Semantic Problem"
Th 10/26	Compatibilism (cont.)	Harry Frankfurt, "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" John Martin Fischer, "Frankfurt-type Compatibilism and Semi-Compatibilism"
Week 10		Alternative Views of Epistemology
T 10/31	Feminist...	Helen Longino, "Can there be a Feminist Science?"
Th 11/02	... and Postcolonialist Epistemologies	Wiredu, "How not to compare African thought with Western thought"
Week 11
T 11/07	The Strange Case of Conspiracy Theories	Brian Keeley, "Of Conspiracy Theories" Lee Basham, "Malevolent Global Conspiracy"
Th 11/09	Continuing discussion	None (term papers due)
Week 12		The Problem of Consciousness
T 11/14	What is it Like?	Thomas Nagel, "What is it Like to be a Bat?"
Th 11/16	What is it like? (cont)	Kathleen Akins, "A Bat Without Qualities?" Oliver Sacks, "Stereo Sue: Why two eyes are better than one"
Week 13
T 11/21		Frank Jackson, "What Mary didn't know" Philip Pettit, "Motion Blindness and the Knowledge Argument"
Th 11/23	THANKSGIVING
Week 14		Conceivability & Mind
T 11/28	Conceivability Arguments	Kripke, Lecture 3 of Naming and Necessity (return term papers)
Th 11/30	Conceivability (cont)	Peter Kung, "Imaginability as a Guide to Possibility"
Week 15
T 12/05	Continuing discussion	None
Th 12/07	READING DAY	None (Review session for final)