Philosophy 417: Seminar on Belief and Assertion
Spring 2011
Dennis Whitcomb
Texts
Numerous papers and handouts on Blackboard
Without Justification by Jonathan Sutton (MIT Press)
Grading
The grade is determined by three things:
1. Microessays. These are very short papers, less than 500 words long. You will write
fourteen of them, each worth 5% of the course grade.
2. Presentations. These consist in teaching one session of the course. You will do so
once, and it is worth 20% of the course grade.
3. Participation. You should participate productively every session of the class. This is
worth 10% of the course grade.
For detailed instructions, see the handout on microessays, presentations, and participation.
Office Hours
Tuesday and Wednesday 8:30-10:00, and by appointment.
Schedule
March 29th: Introductory overview
Part 1: Speech act theory
March 31: Peter Unger, “Where Ignorance Enjoins Silence” (from Ignorance, OUP 1975).
Presenter: Dennis Whitcomb
April 5: Timothy Williamson, “Assertion” (from Knowledge and Its Limits, OUP 2000).
Presenter: Joe Fraley
April 7: Jon Kvanvig, “Assertion, Knowledge, and Lotteries” (from Williamson on Knowledge,
OUP 2009). Presenter: Sarah Cullen
April 12: Matt Weiner, “Must We Know What We Say?” (Phil Review 2005). Presenter:
Nathan Cathersal
April 14: Jennifer Lackey, “Norms of Assertion” (Nous, 2007). Presenter: Andrew Glebe
April 19: Jason Stanley, “Knowledge and Certainty” (Phil Issues, 2008). Presenter: Io BlairFreese
April 21: No Class
April 26: John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley, “Knowledge and Action” (J Phil, 2008).
Presenter: Ben Corey
April 28: Discussion; no new readings.
Part 2: Applying speech act theory to epistemology
May 3: Richard Feldman, “Epistemological Duties” (from Oxford Handbook of Epistemology,
2002). Presenter: Dylan Kochta
May 5: Pascal Engel, “Epistemic Norms” (from Routledge Companion to Epistemology, 2011).
Presenter: Mel Cafe
May 10: Jonathan Sutton, Without Justification, Chapters 1-2 (MIT Press 2007). Not available
on Blackboard; must be purchased. Presenter: Gharrett Favinger
May 12: Mike Huemer, “Moore’s Paradox and the Norm of Belief”. (from Themes from G.E.
Moore, OUP 2007) Presenter: Dash McIntyre
May 17: Clayton Littlejohn, “Moore’s paradox and epistemic norms”. (AJP, 2011). Presenter:
Jackson Johnson
May 19: Linda Zagzebski, “The Definition of Deontic Concepts” (from Virtues of the Mind,
CUP 1996). Presenter: Corey Wolden
May 24: Discussion; no new readings.
May 26: Jon Kvanvig, “Knowledge as Irreducibly Valuable”. (from The Value of Knowledge
and the Pursuit of Understanding, CUP 2003). Presenter: Frank Flammini
May 31: Dennis Whitcomb, “Curiosity was Framed”. (PPR, 2010). Presenter: Ryan Wilson
June 2: Jon Kvanvig, “Curiosity and the Response-Dependent Special Value of Understanding”.
In Progress. Presenter: Sheldon Lessard