Lecture Notes

Week 1

Corpuscularianism (Galileo)

The New Science (Bacon)

Week 2

Descartes: Meditations 1 & 2

Week 3

Locke: Ideas, Qualities, Perception, Skepticism

Berkeley: Idealism

Week 4

Hume: The Problem of Induction

Hume: Skepticism

Reid: Direct Realism

Week 5

Kant: Transcendental Idealism

Plato: The Allegory of the Cave

Week 6

Global Skepticism

The Brain in a Vat

Week 7

The G.E. Moore Shift

Inference to the Best Explanation

The Gettier Problem

Week 8

Contrastivism

Semantic Externalism (Putnam)

The Matrix as Metaphysics (Chalmers)

Week 9

Huemer's Direct Realism

Huemer's Phenomenal Conservatism

Week 10

The Simulation Argument

Skepticism is Self-Defeating (Rinard & Elgin)

New Problems for Induction (Grue and Ravens)

Week 11

Peer Disagreement

Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles

Week 12

Moral Skepticism (Ethical Nihilism)

Evolutionary Debunking of Moral Realism

Evolutionary Debunking of Naturalism

Week 13

Material Identity (The Ship of Theseus)

Material Composition

Personal Identity

Week 14

Split-Brain Cases

Skepticism & Happiness

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