Practical Reasoning
>> Readings

Photo: Paula Lerner

Required Textbooks:

• Elijah Millgram (ed.), Varieties of Practical Reasoning (VPR). (Available in the campus bookstore, or from MIT Press; royalties from class sales will be donated to charity.)
• Michael Bratman, Structures of Agency
• Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism
• Michael Thompson, Life and Action
Further readings will be available on-line and on reserve. (Log in, using your uNID and CIS password.)

Weekly Readings:

1. Aug. 27:
   • Introduction. Optional prereading: Practical Reasoning, in Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, or "Practical Reasoning: The Current State of Play" (VPR, ch. 1); Practical Reasoning and the Structure of Actions, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

     (Optional reading really is optional. These are overviews of the subject area, in case you want more of an idea of what the topic is.)

   • Nihilism. (No reading.)
2. Sept. 3:
   • Internalism. Reading: Bernard Williams, "Internal and External Reasons" (VPR, ch. 4)

     Optional reading: Hooker, "Williams' Argument Against External Reasons" (VPR, ch. 5); Williams, "Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame" (online reserve).

   • Korsgaard's Two-Front Argument Against Internalism. Reading: Christine Korsgaard, "Skepticism about Practical Reason" (VPR, ch. 6)

     Optional reading: John Robertson, "Internalism, Practical Reason, and Motivation" (VPR, ch. 7); John McDowell, "Might There Be External Reasons?" (online reserve).

3. Sept. 10:
   • Psychologistic Instrumentalism. Reading: Elizabeth Anscombe, Intention (excerpt -- in VPR, on p. 437); Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism, pp. 29-32; Michael Smith, "The Humean Theory of Motivation".

     Optional reading: Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener" (online reserve).

4. Sept. 17:
   • Antipsychologistic Instrumentalism. Reading: Michael Thompson, Life and Action, Part II ("Naive Action Theory").

     Optional reading: Robert Brandom, "Action, Norms, and Practical Reasoning" (VPR, ch. 20). Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, pp. 90-117.

5. Sept. 24:
   • Prudential Reasons. Reading: Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism, pp. 1-29, 33-76.

     Optional reading: Cei Maslen, "A Defense of Humeanism from Nagel's Persimmon", Erkenntnis 57, 2002, 41-46 (online reserve); Bernard Williams, "The Makropulos Case" (online reserve).

6. Oct. 1:
   • Kantian Reasons. Reading: Onora O'Neill, "Consistency in Action" (VPR, ch. 14)

     Optional reading: Tamar Schapiro, "Three Conceptions of Action in Moral Theory" (online reserve).

   • Kantian Selves. Reading: Christine Korsgaard, "Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant" (online reserve).
7. Oct. 8:
   • Specificationism. Aurel Kolnai, "Deliberation Is of Ends" (VPR, ch. 12)

     Optional: David Wiggins, "Deliberation and Practical Reasoning" (VPR, ch. 13); Millgram, "Specificationism" (online reserve).

   • Planning Agency. Reading: Michael Bratman, "Taking Plans Seriously" (VPR, ch. 9)

     Optional: Gregory Kavka, "The Toxin Puzzle" (on reserve). Bach, excerpt from "Default Reasoning" (online reserve).

   HAVE A GREAT FALL BREAK -- TAKE STRUCTURES OF AGENCY TO THE BEACH!

8. Oct. 22:
   • Author-ized Personnel Only. Reading: Structures of Agency, Introduction (through top p. 12), Ch. 10, Ch. 2 (I recommend reading them in that order).

     Optional: David Enoch, "Agency, Schmagency", Phil Rev 115: 169-198; Luca Ferrero, "Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

     Further followup: Foucault, "What Is an Author?" (online reserve); Slacker (not to be confused with Slackers; available from the Marriott media desk).

9. Oct. 29:
   • Creature Construction and Values. Reading: Structures of Agency, chs. 3-5.

     Optional: Buss, "What Practical Reasoning Must Be If We Act for Our Own Reasons" (online reserve).

     Further optional reading: the Appendix to Structures, ch. 6.

10. Nov. 5:
    • Autonomous Living Through Plans and Policies. Reading: Structures of Agency, chs. 7, 8, 11.

      Optional: Explaining Stability. Ferrero, "What Good Is a Diachronic Will?"; "Three Ways of Spilling Ink Tomorrow" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

11. Nov. 12:
    • Assessing neo-Lockean Agency; Aristotelian Categoricals. Reading: Review Bratman, Structures; Life and Action, pp. 25-82.

      Optional: A Wittgensteinian Alternative. Diamond, "Anything But Argument," "Eating Meat and Eating People," in The Realistic Spirit.

      Further optional reading: Thompson, "Apprehending Human Form" (on his web page).

12. Nov. 19:
    • Three Ways to Argue about Practical Reasoning: Harvard-Penn Fregeanism, the Method of the Nature Documentary, and the Transfer Principle. Reading: Life and Action, Part III; review Part I.

      Optional: Levi, An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (on reserve in Marriott). Andrew Hsu, "On the Natural History of Artifacts" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

13. Nov. 26:
    • Leaps and Bounds. Reading: Simon, Models of Man, chs. 14-15 (online reserve); Cliff Landesman, "When to Terminate a Charitable Trust?" (online reserve); Gerd Gigerenzer, "The Adaptive Toolbox" (online reserve); Borges et al., "Can Ignorance Beat the Stock Market?" (online reserve*).

      Optional: John Conlisk, "Why Bounded Rationality?" (online reserve). Slote, "Moderation and Satisficing" (in VPR). Simon, "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice" (online reserve); Bendor, "A Behavioral Model of Turnout" (online reserve); Michael Bishop, "In Praise of Epistemic Irresponsibility" (online reserve).

      * The first three chapters of Gigerenzer et al., Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart (which includes "Can Ignorance Beat the Stock Market?") are on reserve in the Philosophy Department.

14. Dec. 3:
    • Disasters and Dilemmas. Reading: Morton, Disasters and Dilemmas, pp. 1-50, 52-58 (available in the Philosophy Department).

      Optional: Charles Larmore, "Public Reason" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

15. Dec. 10:
    • Bounded Rationality/How to Argue about Practical Reasoning Reading: Morton, Disasters and Dilemmas, ch. 5; Sterelny, Thought in a Hostile World, excerpts (online reserve); Gabriel Richardson Lear, Happy Lives and the Highest Good, ch. 4 (on reserve in the Philosophy Department)

      Optional: Tooby and Cosmides, "The Psychological Foundations of Culture" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Wimsatt, "Robustness, Reliability and Overdetermination" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).