By now, you should each have received two sets of comments on your draft for your first paper. You should incorporate these into the final version of the paper, which should be between 5 and 7 pages long. Your grade for the final version on the paper will depend, in part, on how well you incorporate your peers feedback on your paper.

This coming week our focus will be Chapter Two of Quine’s Word and Object. For Monday, read §§7-11. Read the rest of the chapter for Wednesday. A good secondary resource is Chapter 10 of Soames’ Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, vol. 2.

For background reading, you can look at Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’.

I’ve placed electronic copies of the Quine readings in the course Dropbox folder.

We will finish our discussion of Grice. Read ‘Further notes on Logic and Conversation’ and come ready to work through a few more examples. A PDF of the text is also available in the Dropbox folder.

Remember that the draft of your first paper is due on Wednesday.

I posted a new set of reading questions.

Next week we will begin discussion of Paul Grice’s ‘Logic and Conversation’. This is the second one of Grice’s William James lectures, delivered at Harvard in 1967. I’ve posted the first and third lectures in the Dropbox folder.

For next Wednesday, you should read the second lecture, as well as Chapter 9 of Soames’ Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, vol. 2.

As stated in the syllabus:

All assignments must be submitted electronically. Please name the files using the following convention: <your USC username>.<ext>

So if your USC email address is tomato@usc.edu and you turn in your paper as a .pdf, the file you send me should simply be named: tomato.pdf. Only include the name of the assignment (‘Paper 1’, etc.) in the subject of the email.

Please keep this in mind in the future.

Next week we will discuss chapters 1-3 and 5 from J. L. Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia. An electronic version of chapters 1-5 is available in the Dropbox folder. You may also want to look at chapter 8 of Soames’ Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, vol. 2.

Next week we will continue our discussion of chapters 5 and 6 of Hare’s The Language of Morals, and move on to discuss chapters 7 and 8. After reading chapters 7 and 8, you may want to look at P. T. Geach, ‘Ascriptivism’, Philosophical Review, 69(2), 1960, pp. 221-225.

Remember that your first assignment is due on Monday.

As stated in the syllabus:

Reading, writing, and engaging with the material in discussion are all important aspects of philosophy. As such, attendance is mandatory, except in the case of a legitimate documented excuse.

Keep in mind that 10% of your grade will be based on attendance and participation.

As I mentioned earlier, next week we will finish the discussion of the Private Language Argument—remember to prepare answers to the questions posted here. We will then move on to talk about R. M. Hare’s The Language of Morals. For next week, read chapters 5 and 6. You may also want to look at chapter 6 of the Soames’.