PHIL 6395 Seminar on Meaning
James Garson, x3205 Office Hours 10-11 MWF and by
appt.
Book:
The following book will be used a fair
amount during weeks 5-8 so you probably want to acquire it.
Cummins, R.
(M&R) Meaning and Mental Representation
Course
Duties:
Readings
and Reaction Papers (20% of grade). Required readings for the following meeting will be assigned
at the end of each seminar. You
are expected to master the readings by the time they are due and to display
your mastery in the form of a 200-300 word paper due at the beginning of the
seminar. I will use these
exercises to evaluate your progress and plan my lectures. They may also help you develop a viable
project for the course. Your paper
must comment on either the readings assigned or optional readings suggested in
class, but make sure your paper shows me that you have a good understanding of
the required readings.
Project
Proposal and Oral Report (30% of grade)
You will be asked to turn in a three-page project proposal
containing a bibliography of at least 2 references that are not required
readings at the beginning of class on Oct. 19. This report will describe your plans for a class project,
including the issues you are exploring and the progress made so far. It is strongly recommended that you
work with me to develop a good project well before this report is due. I reserve the right to reject your
proposal and to require you to resubmit. You will present an oral report on
your project on either Nov 2, 9, 16 or 30. Oral reports will involve a presentation of about 30 minutes
leaving another 20 minutes for questions and class discussion.
Final Paper
(50% of grade) Your final seminar paper (of about 20 pages) is due on
Wednesday, Dec. 14 at 2:00 in my mailbox.
It will be easiest for your seminar paper to carry on with the work of
your project and oral report.
However, if the need arises, in light of further research or feedback
you receive, it will be acceptable for your paper to deviate (both in its
conclusions and topic) from your project proposal and oral report.
Proposal
for the Sequence of Topics
Aug 24 Week 1. Introduction to the Issues
Aug 31 Week 2. Historical Setting
Sep 7 Week 3. Quine on Meaning
Sep 14 Week 4.
Davidson's Program
Sep 21 Week 5. Mental
Content and Covariance Accounts
Sep 28 Week 6.
Information, Misrepresentation and
Belief
Oct 5 Week 7. The
Theory-Theory and Narrow Content
Oct 12 Week 8. Teleosemantics
Oct 19 Week 9. Instrumentalism
Oct 26 Week 10. Meaning
in Neural Nets
Nov 2 Week 11. Eliminativism
Nov 9 Week 12. Student Presentations
(See Below for the Schedule)
Nov 16 Week 13.
Student Presentations
Nov 30 Week 14.
Student Presentations
Below is a list of readings on the topics proposed above. At
the end of each seminar, selections from these readings or other readings may
be assigned. This list is not set
in stone, but serves merely to suggest the kinds of things we might want to
explore under a given topic heading.
In light of class discussion, we may also want to change topics to be
covered in each seminar.
Week
2: Historical Setting: Reference
and Meaning
Frege, G. "On Sense and Nominatum
(Reference)," in Copi, I and Gould, J.
(Eds.) Contemporary Readings in Logical Theory
Russell,
B. "On
Denoting" in Copi, I and Gould, J. (Eds.) Contemporary
Readings in Logical Theory
Ayer, A. Language, Truth and Logic Ch. 1
Kripke "Naming and Necessity" Lectures I and II
Wittgenstein,
L. Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus
Week
3: Quine
on Meaning
Quine, W. "Two
Dogmas of Empiricism", "Meaning in
Linguistics," and "Notes on the
Theory of Reference," in Quine W. From a Logical Point of View
Quine, W. Word and Object,
Ch. 2
Week
4: Davidson's Program
Davidson,
D. "Truth and Meaning," in Davis, J. et
al. (eds.) Philosophical Logic
Soames, S. "Truth Meaning and
Understanding," Philosophical Studies 65 1992
Tarski, A. "The Semantic
Conception of Truth," in Linsky, L. (ed.) Semantics
and the Philosophy of Language
Larson,
R. and Segal, G. Knowledge of
Meaning
Lepore, E. and Ludwig, K. Donald Davidson
Week
5. Mental Content and Covariation Accounts
Churchland, P.
Matter and Consciousness, 2.3-2.5, 3.4
Week
6. Information, Misrepresentation
and Belief
Dretske,
F. "From Experience to Belief"
Dretske, F. Explaining Belief Ch. 4
Fodor, J. Psychosemantics
Ch. 4
Week
7. The Theory-Theory and Narrow
Content
Fodor, J. Psychosemantics,
Ch. 2
Rudder Baker, L. Explaining Attitudes Ch. 2
Putnam,
H. "The Meaning of
Meaning" Language Mind and Knowledge, K. Gunderson (ed.)
Burge,
T. "Individualism and
Psychology," Philosophical Review (95) 1979, 3-45
Millikan,
R. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice Ch. 7, 8, 9
Heil, J. The Nature of True Minds, Ch. 2
Churchland, P. Neurophilosophy Ch. 1, 2
Week 8. Teleosemantics
Millikan, R. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for
Alice Ch. 6, Ch. 4,
Ch. 7
Millikan,
R. "Speaking Up for
Darwin" in B. Loewer and G. Rey, Fodor and
His Critics
Week 9. Instrumentalism
Dennett The
Intentional Stance Ch. 2, Ch. 8
Dennett,
D. "Real Patterns," Journal
of Philosophy 1991
Week 10. Meaning in Neural Nets
Fodor,
J. and Pylyshyn, Z. "Connectionism and Cognitive
Architecture," Part 1 Part 2 Cognition, 1988
Chalmers,
D. ³Why
Fodor and Pylyshyn Were Wrong: The Simplest
Refutation,² Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conferecne of the Cognitive Science Society, pp.
340-347.
Garson,
J. "Connectionism" Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Ramsey,
B. et. al. "Connectionism, Eliminativism and the Future of Folk Psychology" in Tomberlin, J. (ed.) Action Theory and the Phil. of Mind
Van
Gelder, T.
"What Might Cognition Be if Not Computation?" Journal of
Philosophy 1995
Week
11. Nov. 2 Class Presentations
Garson: Eliminativism. Churchland ³Eliminative
Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes²
Langley:
Teleosemantics Papineau ³The Status of Teleosemantics²
Week
12. Nov. 9 Class Presentations
Olaguer:
Meaning and Speech Perception, selections
from Dretske
Arnold: The Explanatory Role of Belief, Reply to Baker, Baker on Dretske
Robertson: Searle
on the Chinese Room
Week
13. Nov. 16 Class Presentations
Merritt: Fictional Names, Thomasson,
Fictional Entities
Powell: Frege and
Mill on Names, readings on Millianism
Safford: Connectionism and Folk
Psychology, Lepore
and Fodor, All at Sea in Semantic Space
Week
14. Nov. 30 Class Presentations
McCann: NeoGricean
Theories of Meaning, Grice, Meaning; Cummins on Grice
Schumaker: Kirpke¹s Puzzle A Puzzle about Belief
Tinklenberg: Kripke/Millikan on Normativity.
Millikan, Truth Rules Hoverflies... READ pp. 323-343
..
Alternative
Topics
Here is a list of topics that could serve as alternatives to
those given above. They could be topics
for seminars or starting pints for your course project.
Descriptions
and Reference
Strawson, P. "On Referring" Mind 1950
Donnellan, K.
³Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions² in Davidson, M. On Sense and
Direct Reference
Kaplan,
D. "The Logic of Demonstratives?" Journal of Philosophical Logic 1978
Private
Language
Wittgenstein,
L. Philosophical Investigations
especially 141-145 183-299
Kripke, S. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private
Language
Pragmatics
and Meaning
Grice,
P. "Logic
and Conversation" in Grice, P. The Way of Words
Stainaker, R. "Pragmatics," in Davidson, D. and
Harman, G. (eds.) Semantics of
Natural Language
Intensional Semantics
Carnap, R. Meaning and Necessity
Hintikka, J. Knowledge and Relief
Lewis,
D. "General Semantics," in Davidson, D. and Harman, G. (eds.) Semantics
of Natural Language,
Montague,
R. Formal Philosophy (see R. Thomason's Introduction)
Creswell,
M. Structured Meanings
Perry,
J and Barwise, J. Situations and Attitudes
Meaning
of Logical Connectives
Belnap, N. "Tonk, Plonk and Plink" Analysis 1962
Garson,
J. "Natural Semantics² Theoria, 2001
The Language of
Thought
Fodor,
J. Psychosemantcs Ch. 1
Stich, S.
From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science Ch. 3
The Merits of Folk Psychology
Churchland, P.
"Folk Psychology and the Explanation of Human
Behavior", Ch. 6 of Churchland, P. A Neurocomputational
Perspective
Horgan, T.
"Folk Psychology is Here to Stay" in Lycan
(ed.)
Mind
and Cognition
Horgan, T. and Tienson, J. "Connectionism and the Commitments
of Folk Psychology" Philosophical Perspectives
Computational
Accounts of Meaning and the Chinese Room
Searle,
J. "Minds
Brains and Programs" in Hofstadter, D. and Dennett, D. The
Mind's I
Chalmers,
D. "Subsymbolic
Computation and the Chinese Room" in J. Dinsmore
(ed.) Closing
the Gap
Eliminativism
Churchland, P. "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional
Attitudes" Journal
of Philosophy 1981
Stich, S.
From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science Ch. 2-4
Causal Efficacy of
Content
Allen,
C. "The Causal Relevance of
Mental Properties"
Van
Gulick, R.
³Who¹s in Charge Here? And Who¹s Doing All the Work?² Lepore,E. and Loewer,
B. ³More on Making Mind Matter² Philosophical Topics 19898
Heil, J. The Nature of True Minds, Ch. 2
Meaning as Use
Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations,
especially 1-220
Horwich, P. Meaning (1998) Reflections
on Meaning (2005)
.
Discourse Representation Theory
Kamp,
H. "A Theory of Truth and Semantic Representation," in Groenendijk, Janssen and Stokhof,
(eds.) Formal Methods in the Study of Language.
Webber, B. A Formal Approach to Discourse Anaphora
Game
Theoretic Semantics
Hintikka, J. and Carlson, L. "Conditionals, Generic
Quantifiers and Other Applications of Subgames,"
in Margalit, A. (ed.) Meaning and Use
Saarinen,
Esa, "Game Theoretic Semantics," Monist
1977
Procedural
Semantics
Johnson-Laird,
"Procedural Semantics," Cognition 1977
Winograd, T. "A Procedural Model of Language
Understanding," in Schank, R. and Colby (eds.) Computer
Models of Thought and Language,
Scenes
and Frames
Fillmore,
C. Scenes-and-Frames Semantics," in Zampoli, A.
(ed.) Linguistic Structures Processing,
Minsky, M. "Frame-System Theory," in Schank, R. et al. (eds.)
Theoretical
Issues in Natural Language Processing,
Schank, R. "Identification of Conceptualizations
Underlying Natural Language," in Schank, R. and
Colby (eds.) Computer Models of Thought and Language,
Failure of the
Functionalist Program in AI
Dreyfus,
H. What Computers (Still) Can't
Do
Dennett,
D. "Cognitive Wheels: The Frame Problem of AI" in C. Hookway
(ed.) Minds, Machines & Evolution
Propositional
Attitudes
Churchland, P.
"Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes" Journal
of Philosophy (78) (1981)
Kripke, S. "A Puzzle about Belief," in Margalit, A. (ed.) Meaning and Use
Quine, W. ³Quantifiers and Propositional
Attitudes², Journal of Philosophy 1956
Quantification
in Intensional Contexts
Quine, W. "Reference and Modality"
in Quine,
W. From a Logical Point of View
Kaplan,
D. "Quantifying In" in The
Philosophy of Language, Martinich, A. (ed.)
Thomason,
R. "Modality and
Reference," Nous 1968)
Quine,
W. "Quantifiers and Propositional
Attitudes," in
Martinich, A (ed.) The
Philosophy of Language,
Garson,
J "Intensional
Logic" entry in the Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Connectionism
McClelland,
J., Rumelhart, D., and Hinton, G, "The Appeal of
Parallel Distributed Processing", Ch. 1 of Rummelhart,
D. and McClelland, J. (eds.) Parallel Distributed Processing
Hinton,
G. "Distributed Representations," Ch. 3 of Rummelhart,
D. and McClelland, J. (eds.) Parallel Distributed Processing,
Churchland, P.
Engine of Reason, Seat of the Soul
Horgan, T. and Tienson, J. Connectionism
and the Philosophy of Psychology Chs. 4, 7
Chalmers, D.,³Why
Fodor and Pylyshyn Were Wrong: The Simplest
Refutation,² Philosophical
Psychology 1993
Johnson, K., ³On the Systematicity
of Language and Thought² Journal of Philosophy 2004