Time: WF 1-3
Room: HSS 7077
Instructor: Rick Grush (rick@mind.ucsd.edu)
Office Hours: TBA
Office Phone: 822-4440
[ Schedule
]
[ Requirements and Grading ]
[ Email list ]
Short Description:
Texts: The required text is Robert Brandom's Making it explicit (ME). I will also order as a recommended but not required Brandom's Articulating Reasons, which is a shorter, more accessible, but less detailed presentation of many of the same ideas.
Structure. We will work through ME in its entirety, at a pace of about 60 pages per week. The motivation is clear: Brandom's book is emerging as one of the most important Philosophy of Language and M&E works in recent decades, but the subtlety and complexity of his position and exposition has meant that it is more often cited and endorsed (or criticized) than well-understood. The goal will be to arrive at a solid grasp of the position defended in the text as well as the details of the defense.
NOTE that the seminar is scheduled to meet twice a week for 2 hours per session (4 hours per week). It might work out so that we can spend one of the sessions each week with me lecturing, and the second day on discussion and (later on) student presentations. But at least for the first few weeks we will be mostly lecture-with-discussion format on both days.
NOTE that we will meet during finals week as well as the 10 weeks of the quarter proper, for a total of 22 sessions.
NOTE also that in order to make sure that all seminar participants are prepared before our discussion, I will be giving short, multiple-chioce in-class quizzes on the readings. The dates of the quizzes are listed on the schedule.
This is a long and often dense book, and so getting through it all in one quarter will require focus and dedication. In other words, this will be a difficult seminar.
I don't mean to scare anyone off. I am sure that a first year student with no prior familiarity with Brandom-mania will still be able to do well in the course, provided the student is prepared to work and think. By the same token, I am also sure that an advanced student with familiarity with Brandom will not do well if elbow grease is not abundant.
If you think you might like to enroll, but are unsure about the extent to which you will have the time to exercise the required dedication during the spring quarter, you might start reading the text and writing short summaries of the chapters over the summer. (This in part is why I am making this preliminary sylabus available so far in advance.)
Other details: There will be an email discussion list for the seminar. And I am leaning towards offering students the choice of one long seminar paper, or a number of shorter papers. For long papers a proposal of at least 2 pages (at least 500 words) is required, and a draft is highly recommended. For the short papers, a proposal of at least 1 page (at least 250 words) is required, and drafts are OK, even recommended, but not required. [I should also point out that it is my practice to provide substantial feedback on proposals and drafts, as opposed to final papers --the reason being that at the proposal/draft stage the feedback serves a much more useful purpose. So if you want a lot of feedback, make sure you turn in drafts of your papers. I will read and provide feedback on multiple drafts if there are such. I will, of course, provide feedback on final papers if it is specifically requested.]
Schedule:
[Remarks relevant to students writing short papers are in blue, remarks relevant to students writing one long paper are in red.]
Session 01 (04.07):
ME: pp. xi-29. (Preface; Chapter 1.1-1.3)
Session 02 (04.09):
Quiz on Chapter One
ME: pp. 30-66. (Chapter 1.4-1.A)
Session 03 (04.14):
Quiz on Chapter Two
ME: pp. 67-115. (Chapter 2.1-2.4)
Session 04 (04.16):
ME: pp. 116-140. (Chapter 2.5-2.5)
Session 05 (04.18):
Bob Brandom will join the seminar today.
Session 06 (04.21):
Quiz on Chapter Three
ME: pp. 141-179. (Chapter 3.1-3.3)
Session 07 (04.23):
ME: pp. 180-198. (Chapter 3.4)
Session 08 (04.28):
Quiz on Chapter Four
ME: pp. 199-242. (Chapter 4.1-4.4)
Session 09 (04.30):
ME: pp. 243-274. (Chapter 4.5-4.6)
Proposal for first short paper due.
Session 10 (05.05):
Quiz on Chapter Five
ME: pp. 275-304. (Chapter 5.1-5.3)
First short paper due.
Session 11 (05.07):
ME: pp. 305-333. (Chapter 5.4-5.5)
Session 12 (05.12):
Quiz on Chapter Six
ME: pp. 334-359. (Chapter 6.1-6.2)
Session 13 (05.14):
ME: pp. 360-383. (Chapter 6.3-6.5)
Session 14 (05.19):
Proposal for second short paper due.
Proposals for long papers due.
ME: pp. 384-412. (Chapter 6.6-6.A)
Session 15 (05.21):
Quiz on Chapter Seven
ME: pp. 413-458. (Chapter 7.1-7.3)
Second short paper due.
Session 16 (05.28):
ME: pp. 459-494. (Chapter 7.4-7.A)
Session 17 (06.02):
Quiz on Chapter Eight
ME: pp. 495-519. (Chapter 8.1-8.2)
Drafts of long papers given to me by today will be returned with comments within one week.
Session 18 (06.04):
ME: pp. 520-546. (Chapter 8.3-8.4)
Proposal for third short paper due.
Session 19 (06.09):
ME: pp. 547-583. (Chapter 8.5)
Session 20 (06.11):
ME: pp. 584-613. (Chapter 8.6-8.A)
Session 21 (06.13):
Quiz on Chapter Nine
ME: pp. 614-652. (Chapter 9.1-9.3)
Long paper due. Third short paper due.
Requirements:
There are 3 requirements for this course. I will go through each in more detail below.
1. Read all the assignments.
2. Take all nine quizzes on the readings. I had originally planned to require summaries of the readings to be turned in before the eclass session, but I think that the quizzes will be better in every way. They won't require the odd and subjective process of writing and assessing such a summary, and they should interfere less with each student's individual mode of reading and preparing. Each quiz will have 5 multiple chioce questions, and will be such that anyine who has read the material and put even a little effort into understanding it should be able to easily and quickly answer the five questions. That is, they will be testing not for a grasp of all the deep subtleties, but for having read the material and arrived at at least a rough grasp of what the points and structure of the arguments are. Quizzes will be given during the first five minutes of the schedules sessioin, so don't be late. There wil be no make-up quizzes. (I will, however, replace your worst quiz score with your best score, so as long as you don't miss or tank more than one, you should be OK.)
2. Participate in discussion, both verbal (in seminar) and/or written (email list). The expectation is difficult to quantify, but qualitatively you should contribute to the ongoing discussion. It is such discussion, after all, that distinguishes seminars from lectures.
3. Write either three short papers or one long paper, along with proposal(s) and draft(s), according to the above schedule. The proposals and any drafts will not be graded, though they are required. And as mentioned above, I will provide a good deal of feedback on the proposals and drafts, with the intent of being as much help as possible to you in writing good papers. But unless specifically requested, I will not provide a lot of feeedback on final papers.
Final grades will be based on all three factors, with the quizzes and papers being somewhat more important than participation in discussion.
[Note: This email list will not be active until March of 2003]
There will be an email distribution list for this course -- phil-270@mind.ucsd.edu -- and subscribing to it will be required. The two purposes of the list are i) to allow me to distribute information regarding changes of schedule, etc., and ii) to provide a means for students to ask questions and continue discussion outside of class time. The list is set up so that all and only people subscribed can post to the list.
To subscribe: send an email FROM THE ACCOUNT THAT YOU WANT TO BE SUBSCRIBED to phil-270-sub@mind.ucsd.edu. The subject line and the body of the email can be blank. They will be ignored by the software that subscribes you.
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