Logic & Philosophy of Science

Course Description


Course:  LPS/PHIL 200
Name:  Philosophies of Common Sense
Description: 

This course will focus on a series of philosophers whose work can be loosely characterized as philosophy of common sense, namely, Hume, Reid, Moore, Austin, and among contemporaries, Mark Wilson. Our goal will be to trace a number of inter-related meta-philosophical themes: naturalism, the nature and viability of conceptual analysis, and the role of ordinary language. (The naturalism in question will often be the specific form I call Second Philosophy, so some grasp of that approach -- as in Second Philosophy or 'Naturalism, transcendentalism and therapy' -- would be useful as background.) Skepticism, and particularly the Argument from Illusion, will feature as a recurring case study for comparing and contrasting these various approaches to philosophical inquiry.

Syllabus