Below you’ll find our course schedule along with links to the readings for each week.
The week’s readings are to be completed before that week’s Tuesday session. You’re not expected to complete the optional readings, but you can take a look at them if you’re interested – they’ll provide additional context for the week’s topic of discussion. You may also find them useful if you decide to write a paper on that topic.
(Note: in order to access any of the linked readings on this page, you must be (i) logged in to your University account and (ii) enrolled in this course (or otherwise explicitly granted access by me). You can log in here.)
The schedule is subject to revision as the semester progresses, but I’ll keep this version current. I’ll also post lecture notes after each Tuesday session.
Week 1: Course introduction
Tuesday 4 October
Optional reading:
- C. S. Jenkins, “A priori knowledge: Debates and developments”, 2008
Resources:
Wednesday 5 October
No class.
Week 2: What is apriority?
Tuesday 11 October
Reading:
- Philip Kitcher, “A priori knowledge”, 1980
Optional reading:
- Albert Casullo, A Priori Justification, chapters 1–2, 2003
Resources:
Wednesday 12 October
Discussion chair: Brett Topey
Week 3: Rationalism and rational insight
Tuesday 18 October
Reading:
- Laurence BonJour, In Defense of Pure Reason, chapter 6, 1998
- You should read sections 6.1–6.4 and section 6.7. The rest of the chapter is optional.
Optional reading:
- Charles Parsons, “Mathematical intuition”, 1980
Resources:
Wednesday 19 October
Discussion chairs: Ines Golubovic and Tara Monie
Week 4: Skepticism
Tuesday 25 October
Readings:
- Section VI of W. V. O. Quine, “Two dogmas of empiricism”, 1951
- Michael Devitt, “There is no a priori“, 2005
- Gilbert Harman, “General foundations versus rational insight”, 2001
Optional readings:
- Penelope Maddy, “Naturalism and the a priori”, 2000
- Jack Arnold and Stewart Shapiro, “Where in the (world wide) web of belief is the law of non-contradiction?”, 2007
Resources:
Wednesday 26 October
No class.
Week 5: Analyticity and conventionalism
Tuesday 8 November
Reading:
- A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, chapter 4, 1936
Optional readings:
- Rudolf Carnap, “Empiricism, semantics and ontology”, 1950
- Norman Malcolm, “Are necessary propositions really verbal?”, 1940
Resources:
Wednesday 9 November
Discussion chairs: Joey Pexa and Jakob Hinterholzer
Week 6: Problems for conventionalism
Tuesday 15 November
Readings:
- A. N. Prior, “The runabout inference-ticket”, 1960
- J. T. Stevenson, “Roundabout the runabout inference-ticket”, 1961
- A. N. Prior, “Conjunction and contonktion revisited”, 1964
Optional readings:
- Nuel D. Belnap, “Tonk, plonk and plink”, 1962
- Section 6.5 of Theodore Sider, Writing the Book of the World, chapter 6, 2011
- Iris Einheuser, “Counterconventional conditionals”, 2006
Resources:
Wednesday 16 November
Discussion chairs: James McDaniel and Michael Mocanu
Week 7: Problems for analyticity
Tuesday 22 November
Readings:
- Lewis Carroll, “What the tortoise said to Achilles”, 1895
- W. V. O. Quine, “Truth by convention”, 1936
- You should read pages 103–114 and pages 120–124. The rest of the paper is optional.
Optional readings:
- W. V. O. Quine, “Carnap and logical truth”, 1960
- Jared Warren, “Revisiting Quine on truth by convention”, 2017
Resources:
Wednesday 23 November
Discussion chairs: Allison Sullivan and Costanza Saettoni
Week 8: Analyticity reconsidered – Epistemic analyticity
Tuesday 29 November
Reading:
- Paul A. Boghossian, “Analyticity reconsidered”, 1996
Optional readings:
- Kathrin Glüer, “Analyticity and implicit definition”, 2003
- Eric Margolis and Stephen Laurence, “Boghossian on analyticity”, 2001
Resources:
Wednesday 30 November
Discussion chair: Diego Silvani
Week 9: Epistemic analyticity and moderate rationalism
Tuesday 6 December
Reading:
- George Bealer, “A theory of the a priori”, 1999
Optional reading:
- Christopher Peacocke, “Explaining the a priori: The programme of moderate rationalism”, 2000
Resources:
Wednesday 7 December
Discussion chairs: Marcin Skotniczny and Antonio Enrico Lazzara
Week 10: Epistemic analyticity and pragmatism
Tuesday 13 December
Readings:
- Paul A. Boghossian, “Epistemic analyticity: A defense”, 2003
- You should read pages 20–34. The rest of the paper is optional.
- Amie L. Thomasson, Ontology Made Easy, chapter 7, 2015
- You should read sections 7.2–7.3. The rest of the chapter is optional.
Optional readings:
- Joshua Schechter and David Enoch, “Meaning and justification: The case of Modus Ponens”, 2006
- Timothy Williamson, “Understanding and inference”, 2003
Resources:
Wednesday 14 December
Discussion chairs: Valentine Amih and Gabriele Scotto
No class on Tuesday 20 December or Wednesday 21 December.
Week 11: The Benacerraf–Field problem
Tuesday 10 January
Readings:
- Hartry Field, Realism, Mathematics and Modality, chapter 1, section 1.4.B, 1989
- Hartry Field, Realism, Mathematics and Modality, chapter 7, section 2, 1989
Optional readings:
- Sharon Berry, “Coincidence avoidance and formulating the access problem”, 2020
- Sharon Street, “Reply to Copp: Naturalism, normativity, and the varieties of realism worth worrying about”, 2008
- Joshua Schechter, “The reliability challenge and the epistemology of logic”, 2010
Resources:
Wednesday 11 January
Discussion chair: Teresa Lindner
Week 12: Replies to the Benacerraf–Field problem
Tuesday 17 January
Reading:
- Justin Clarke-Doane, “What is the Benacerraf Problem?”, 2016
Optional readings:
- Mark Balaguer, “A platonist epistemology”, 1995
- Tomas Bogardus, “Only all naturalists should worry about only one evolutionary debunking argument”, 2016
Resources:
Wednesday 18 January
Discussion chairs: Costanza Saettoni and Tara Monie
Week 13: Course wrap-up
Tuesday 24 January
Reading:
- Timothy Williamson, “How deep is the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge?”, 2013
Resources:
Wednesday 25 January
Discussion chairs: James McDaniel and Michael Mocanu