DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND LANGUAGE
Tutor: David Efird
Email: de5@york.ac.uk
Phone: 01904 433 250 (office); 01904 433 219 (home)
Learning Outcomes: In this course, students will gain knowledge of central aspects of
contemporary work on the Philosophy of Mind and Language. In particular, students
will be able to explain:
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Quine’s argument against the analytic/synthetic distinction;
Quine’s account of the indeterminacy of translation;
Quine’s argument for the and the inscrutability of reference;
the Quine-Chomsky debate on the objectivity of linguistics;
Davidson’s account of theories of meaning for natural languages;
Davidson’s theory of radical interpretation and its consequences for the
relation between language and reality;
Davidson’s account of subjectivity;
Davidson’s theory of triangulation;
Davidsons’s interpretationist theory of mind; and
Davidson’s account of objectivity.
After mastering the content of these topics, students are expected to engage critically
with them in order that they may develop their own views on language, mind and their
relation to each other. In addition to mastering the content of one of Philosophy’s
perennial subjects, students will develop skills necessary for the study of Philosophy
generally, which include:
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defining key terminology in a central topic in Philosophy;
describing accurately the content of major works of Philosophy;
distinguishing different solutions to philosophical problems;
proposing new solutions to longstanding philosophical problems;
appraising the persuasiveness of arguments concerning core issues in
Philosophy; and
comparing the treatment of central philosophical questions offered by
philosophers working in different traditions.
In general, students will develop their reading comprehension skills, which are
essential not only to the study of Philosophy, but are also essential to many sorts of
careers. Thus, students will also develop generic and transferable skills, including
explaining complex material, analysing arguments, and formulating solutions to
problems.
Assessment: The assessment for this module counts for 12.5% of the total assessment
for the MA in Philosophy, and it is by closed examination, though students may opt to
submit a 3,500-4,500 word essay in lieu of the examination. (Remember that a
student on the MA in Philosophy must take at least one examination.) Should a
student opt to submit an essay in lieu of an examination for this module, she must
submit two copies of the final draft of the essay on Monday 16 January 2006 to the
Departmental Office. Should a student miss this submission date, she may not be
allowed to submit an essay for assessment, in which case, she must take the closed
examination for assessment. The examination for the module (and for the other
components of the MA Seminar) will be held in Week 1 of the Summer Term (24
April – 28 April 2006). The precise time and date of the examinations will be
confirmed at a later date. Students are advised to consult the timetable published by
the University Examinations and Timetabling Office for the precise time of the
examination. It is entirely the student’s responsibility to ensure his or her presence at
the examination. Students are also advised to consult the Department’s Assessment
Policies and Practices as set forth in the MA Handbook. In accordance with this
document, I will be marking the exam using the following descriptors:
Mark
90 – 100
80 – 89
70 – 79
Essays one would advise the student to revise for publication.
Exceptional and outstanding work that presents original ideas and
arguments which are clearly worked out and set in the context of a
well-understood philosophical debate.
Excellent work that shows a capacity for independent thought and clear
evidence of critical reflection on the module material; clear and
accurate presentation of the issues and arguments, and which shows a
sophisticated grasp of the subtleties of the philosophical debate.
MA Distinction (70)
60 – 69
50 – 59
Very good work that is well-structured and which accurately presents
philosophical positions, arguments, and problems, which shows a good
solid grasp of the main elements of the philosophical debate, and
which shows an ability to exercise philosophical judgement.
Solid work that reflects a sound understanding of the central issues and
arguments, as well as a familiarity with a good range of module
material.
MA Pass (50)
40 – 49
Work that coherently presents a limited range of relevant module
material in a structured essay.
Diploma Pass (40)
35 – 39
0 – 34
Work that shows some understanding of a limited range of module
material.
Work that shows some understanding of some of the basic issues
covered in the module material.
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Procedural Requirements: Students are required to attend at least two thirds of
seminars. Students should contact the course tutor in advance of missing a seminar so
that an alternative tutorial can be arranged, or if it proves impossible to contact the
tutor in advance, students should contact him as soon as possible after the seminar.
Additionally, students are required to come prepared to seminars, which includes
having read carefully the reading set for the seminar. Finally, students are required to
write either
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three answers, each of which should be 750 words in length, to questions
taken from a practice exam, or
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an essay of 3,500-4,500 words in length on a topic previously approved by the
course tutor.
Clearly, students who intend to take the examination for assessment should choose the
former option, while those students who intend to write an essay should choose the
latter option. Whichever option the student chooses, it is due on Tuesday of Week 8,
which is 29 November 2005.
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READING SCHEDULE
Week 1
Quine on Analyticity
Required Reading:
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Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, in Quine, From a Logical Point of View
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953).
Recommended Reading:
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Quine, ‘Truth by Convention’, in Quine, The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays:
Revised and Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976).
Quine, ‘Carnap and Logical Truth’, in Quine 1976.
Quine, ‘Two Dogmas in Retrospect’, The Canadian Journal of Philosophy (1991):
265-74.
Week 2
Quine on the Indeterminacy of Translation
Required Reading:
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Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960), chs. 1 and 2.
Recommended Reading:
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Quine, ‘On the Reasons for the Indeterminacy of Translation’, The Journal of
Philosophy 67 (1970): 178-83.
Quine, The Roots of Reference (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974), chs. 1 and 2.
Quine, ‘Indeterminacy of Translation Again’, The Journal of Philosophy 84 (1987):
5-10.
Quine, ‘Progress on Two Fronts’, The Journal of Philosophy 93 (1996): 159-63.
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Week 3
Quine on the Inscrutability of Reference
Required Reading:
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Quine, ‘Speaking of Objects’, in Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other
Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).
Quine, ‘Ontological Relativity’, in Quine 1969.
Recommended Reading:
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Quine, ‘On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World’, Erkenntnis 9 (1975): 31328.
Quine, ‘Things and Their Place in Theories’, in Quine, Theories and Things
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).
Quine, ‘Empirical Content’, in Quine 1981.
Quine, ‘Five Milestones of Empiricism’, in Quine 1981.
Quine, ‘Facts of the Matter’ in Shahan and Swoyer (eds), Essays on the Philosophy of
W.V. Quine (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979).
Quine, ‘Three Indeterminacies’ in Barrett and Gibson (eds), Perspectives on Quine
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
Quine, Pursuit of Truth, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992),
chs. 1-3.
Week 4
The Quine-Chomsky Debate on the Objectivity of Semantics
Required Reading:
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Quine 1960, ch. 3.
Chomsky, ‘Quine’s Empirical Assumptions’, in Davidson and Hintikka (eds),
Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W.V. Quine (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1969).
Quine, ‘Reply to Chomsky’, in Davidson and Hintikka (eds) 1969.
Quine, ‘Mind and Verbal Dispositions’, in Guttenplan (ed), Mind and
Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
Recommended Reading:
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Quine, ‘The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics’, in Quine 1953.
Quine, ‘Linguistics and Philosophy’, in Quine 1976.
Quine 1974, ch. 3.
Quine, ‘Methodological Reflections on Current Linguistic Theory’, in Harman (ed),
On Noam Chomsky: Critical Essays (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1974).
Chomsky, Reflections on Language (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), pp. 179204.
Chomsky, Rules and Representations (NY: Columbia University Press, 1982), pp.
12-24.
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Week 5
Davidson on Truth and Meaning
Required Reading:
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Davidson, ‘Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages’, in Davidson,
Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1984).
Davidson, ‘Truth and Meaning’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘True to the Facts’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘Semantics for Natural Languages’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘In Defence of Convention T’, in Davidson 1984.
Recommended Reading:
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Tarksi, ‘The Semantic Conception of Truth’, Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research 4 (1944): 341-75.
Quine, Philosophy of Logic, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1970), ch. 3.
Foster, ‘Meaning and Truth Theory’, in Evans and McDowell (eds), Truth and
Meaning (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).
Week 6
Davidson on Radical Interpretation
Required Reading:
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Davidson, ‘Radical Interpretation’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘Belief and the Basis of Meaning’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘Thought and Talk’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘Reply to Foster’, in Davidson 1984.
Recommended Reading:
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Lewis, ‘Radical Interpretation’ and ‘Postscripts to “Radical Interpretation”’, in Lewis,
Philosophical Papers, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
Quine, ‘Comments on Donald Davidson’, Synthese 27 (1974): 325-29.
Davidson, ‘Replies to Lewis and Quine’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’, in Davidson, Truth, Language and
History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Fodor and Lepore, ‘Is Radical Translation Possible?’, in Tomberlin (ed),
Philosophical Perspectives 8: Logic and Language (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview
Press, 1994).
Davidson, ‘Radical Translation Interpreted’, in Tomberlin (ed), 1994.
Chomsky, ‘Language and Interpretation: Philosophical Reflections and Empirical
Inquiry’, in Chomsky, New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
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Week 7
Davidson on Language and Reality
Required Reading:
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Davidson, ‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘The Method of Truth in Metaphysics’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘Reality Without Reference’, in Davidson 1984.
Davidson, ‘The Inscrutability of Reference’, in Davidson 1984.
Recommended Reading:
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Quine, ‘On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma’, in Quine 1981.
Quine, ‘Where do We Disagree?’, in Hahn (ed), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson
(Peru, IL: Open Court, 1999).
Davidson, ‘Reply to Quine’, in Hahn 1999.
Week 8
Davidson on the Subjective
Required Reading:
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Davidson, ‘First Person Authority’, in Davidson, Subjective, Intersubjective,
Objective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Davidson, ‘Knowing One’s Own Mind’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘The Myth of the Subjective’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘What is Present to the Mind?’, in Davidson 2001.
Recommended Reading:
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Quine, ‘Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes’, in Quine 1976.
Quine 1960, ch. 6, §§42-45.
Davidson, ‘On Saying That’, in Davidson 1984.
Putnam, ‘The Meaning of ‘Meaning’’, in Putnam, Philosophical Papers: Mind,
Language, and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
Burge, ‘Individualism and the Mental’, in French, Uehling and Wettstein (eds),
Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979).
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Week 9
Davidson on the Intersubjective
Required Reading:
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Davidson, ‘Rational Animals’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘The Second Person’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘The Emergence of Thought’, in Davidson 2001.
Recommended Reading:
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Davidson, ‘Turing’s Test’ in Davidson, Problems of Rationality (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004).
Davidson, ‘Representation and Interpretation’, in Davidson 2004.
Davidson, ‘Could There Be a Science of Rationality?’, in Davidson 2004.
Davidson, ‘What Thought Requires’, in Davidson 2004.
Week 10
Davidson on the Objective
Required Reading:
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Davidson, ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘Afterthoughts’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘Three Varieties of Knowledge’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘The Problem of Objectivity’, in Davidson 2004.
Recommended Reading:
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Davidson, ‘Empirical Content’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘Epistemology and Truth’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘Epistemology Externalized’, in Davidson 2001.
Davidson, ‘Externalisms’ in Kotatko, Pagin and Segal (eds), Interpreting Davidson
(Stanford: CSLI Publications, 2001).
Davidson, ‘Quine’s Externalism’, Grazer Philosophische Studien 66 (2003): 281-97.
Davidson, ‘Expressing Evaluations’, in Davidson 2004.
Davidson, ‘The Objectivity of Values’, in Davidson 2004.
Davidson, ‘The Interpersonal Comparison of Values’ in Davidson 2004.
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