Assigned Readings

Week 1

Galileo - Corpuscularianism

Bacon - The New Science

Week 2

Descartes - Meditations 1 & 2

Week 3

Locke - Ideas, Perception, and Primary vs. Secondary Qualities

Locke - Against Skepticism

Berkeley - Idealism

Week 4

Hume - The Problem of Induction

Hume - On Skepticism

Reid - Direct Realism

Week 5

Ellis - Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Kant - Transcendental Idealism

Plato - The Allegory of the Cave

Dupre - Plato's Cave

Week 6

Reminder: Readings from Huemer's SVP on Blackboard

Nagel - What Does it All Mean? (excerpt)

Week 7

Moore - Proof of an External World

Moore - Hume's Theory Explained (optional)

Beebe - The Abductivist Reply to Skepticism (read to end of section 4)

Gettier - Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?

Goldman - Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge

Week 8

Baumann - Epistemic Contrastivism

Putnam - Brains in a Vat

Chalmers - The Matrix as Metaphysics

Week 9

Huemer - Direct Realism and the Brain-in-a-Vat Argument

Week 10

Bostrom - You are Living in a Matrix

Rinard - Reasoning One's Way Out of Skepticism

Elgin - Skepticism Aside

Carroll - What the Tortoise Said to Achilles

Goodman - The New Riddle of Induction

Week 11

Christensen - Disagreement as Evidence (read to end of section 2)

(Nguyen: Source article here, audio below)

Listen: Nguyen - Escape the Echo Chamber

Week 12

Mackie - The Subjectivity of Values

Huemer - Ethical Intuitionism (excerpts)

Vavova - Evolutionary Debunking of Moral Realism

Huemer - Evolution and Ethics

Watch: Huemer - The Progress of Liberalism

Plantinga - An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

Week 13

Dupre - The Ship of Theseus

Ney - The Special Composition Question

Van Inwagen - When are Objects Parts? (optional)

Perry - Dialogue on Personal Identity

Week 14

Parfit - Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons

Listen: Adamson - Pyrrho and Skepticism

Sextus Empiricus, Saint Augustine, Hume, and Reid on Skepticism vs. Happiness

Back To PHIL 306 Home Page