Required textbooks:

• Michael Lynch, ed., The Nature of Truth
• Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith, eds., Vagueness: A Reader
• J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words
• Scott Soames, Understanding Truth
• Roy Sorensen, Vagueness and Contradiction

Further readings will be made available over the course of the semester.

1. Aug. 24. Introduction: Why Do We Need a Theory of Truth? Optional pre-reading: Michael Dummett, "Truth" (in Lynch, The Nature of Truth), pp. 229 up to the paragraph break on p. 232. Jonathan Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, pp. 38-43 (online reserve).

   Further optional reading: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (hypertext version).

2. Aug. 31. The Coherence Theory of Truth. Blanshard, "Coherence as the Nature of Truth" (ch. 5 in Lynch); Walker, "The Coherence Theory" (ch. 6 in Lynch).

   Optional: Donald Davidson, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" (online reserve).

3. Sept. 7. Is Truth All It's Cracked Up To Be? Austin, How to Do Things with Words.

   Optional: Alice Crary, "The Happy Truth" (online reserve).

4. Sept. 14. How Does Pragmatism Work Out? C. S. Peirce, "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (ch. 8 in Lynch); William James, "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth" (ch. 9 in Lynch). Stephen Stich, "A Pragmatic Account of Cognitive Evaluation" (online reserve).

   Optional: William James, "What Pragmatism Means" (online reserve); Bertrand Russell, "William James's Conception of Truth" (online reserve).

5. Sept. 21. The Received View. Soames, Understanding Truth, chs. 1-2.

   Optional readings:

   Meet the Sorites Paradox. Peter Unger, "There Are No Ordinary Things"; Sam Wheeler, "On That Which Is Not" (chs. 1 and 2 in Graff and Williamson, Vagueness, on reserve in Marriott, and in the Philosophy Department).

6. Sept. 28. Tarski's Theory of Truth. Tarski, "The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics", ch. 15 in Lynch. Soames, ch. 3 (thru p. 81), ch. 4 (up to p. 107).

   Optional: Tarski, "The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages"; "Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den Formalisierten Sprachen" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Lynch, pp. 323-329.

7. Oct. 5. How Well Does Tarski Fit Deflationism? Soames, ch. 4, pp. 107-116; Field, "Tarski's Theory of Truth", ch. 16 in Lynch; Gupta, "A Critique of Deflationism" (ch. 23 in Lynch).

   Optional: Soames, "What Is a Theory of Truth?" (ch. 17 in Lynch); Field, "Correspondence Truth, Disquotational Truth, and Deflationism" (ch. 21 in Lynch).

   Further optional reading: Field, "Disquotational Truth and Factually Defective Discourse" (JSTOR link).

8. Oct. 12. Liars and Feature Creep. Soames, chs. 5-6; reread p. 51. Reread pp. 339-40 in Lynch.

   Optional: Kripke, "Outline of a Theory of Truth" (JSTOR link).

   Pragmatism Followup: Thomas Kelly, "The Rationality of Belief and Some Other Propositional Attitudes" (online reserve); Bernard Williams, "Deciding to Believe" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department; online reserve). Brandom, Making It Explicit, pp. 121-123 (online reserve).

   Further optional reading on the Liar: Mariam Thalos, "From Paradox to Judgment"; Keith Simmons, Universality and the Liar, (ch. 1); Nick Smith, "Semantic Regularity and the Liar Paradox"; Dorothy Grover, "How Significant Is the Liar?" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

9. Oct. 19. Realism and Internalism. Dummett, "Truth" (ch. 10 in Lynch); Bernard Williams, "Consistency and Realism" (online reserve); Putnam, "Two Philosophical Perspectives" (ch. 11 in Lynch).

   Optional: Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, chs. 1-3 (on reserve in the Philosophy Department and in Marriott Library).

   Further optional reading (background for the Williams piece): R. M. Hare, The Language of Morals (excerpt; online reserve).

10. Oct. 26. Correspondence and Truthlikeness. David Lewis, "Forget about the 'Correspondence Theory of Truth'" (Blackwell link); Stathis Psillos, "Truth-likeness" (online reserve); Max Black, "Vagueness: An Exercise in Logical Analysis" (ch. 4 in Keefe and Smith).

    Optional: Graham Oddie, "Verisimilitude Reviewed" (JSTOR); "Truthlikeness" (SEP); Chris Brink, "Verisimilitude" (online reserve).

    Further optional reading: "Introduction: Theories of Vagueness" (in Keefe and Smith).

11. Nov. 2. Machinery for Vagueness: Degree, Supervaluation and Many-Value Theories. Kit Fine, "Vagueness, Truth and Logic," up to p. 140 (Keefe and Smith, ch. 9); Dorothy Edgington, "Vagueness by Degrees" (Keefe and Smith, ch. 16); Roy Sorensen, Vagueness and Contradiction, Introduction.

    Optional: Keefe, Theories of Vagueness, ch. 4 (focus on sec. 2, pp. 96-97, 102 [last para.], sec. 8, and sec. 9iv [on pp. 121-123]); Tye, "Sorites Paradoxes and the Semantics of Vagueness" (Keefe and Smith, ch. 15).

12. Nov. 9. Is Vagueness Out In the World? Keefe and Smith, p. 62, first para.; Evans, "Can There Be Vague Objects?" (Keefe and Smith, ch. 17); Lewis, "Vague Identity: Evans Misunderstood" (Keefe and Smith, ch. 18); Roy Sorensen, Vagueness and Contradiction, chs. 1-2 (thru sec. 4 [p. 49]).

    Optional: Simmons, Universality and the Liar, chs. 1-2 (ch. 1 is on reserve in Marriott; ch. 2 only on reserve in the Philosophy Department). Parsons and Woodruff, "Worldly Indeterminacy of Identity" (Keefe and Smith, ch. 19).

    Further optional reading: Williamson, Vagueness, ch. 5 ("Supervaluations").

13. Nov. 16. Epistemicism. Sorensen, chs. 2 (secs. 5-6), 3-5; Williamson, "Vagueness and Ignorance" (ch. 14 in Keefe and Smith); Dummett, "Wang's Paradox" (ch. 8 in Keefe and Smith).

    Optional: Williamson, Vagueness, sec. 7.3 ("Omniscient Speakers", pp. 198-201);

14. Nov. 23. Higher-Order Vagueness; Reassessing the A Priori. Sainsbury, "Concepts without Boundaries" (ch. 13 in Keefe and Smith). Sorensen, though ch. 6.

    Optional: Barwise and Etchemendy, The Liar, Introduction (pp. 1-44); Kit Fine, "Vagueness, Truth and Logic," pp. 140 to end (Keefe and Smith, ch. 9); Keefe, Theories of Vagueness, pp. 112-121; Richmond Thomason, "Identity and Vagueness" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department).

OUTLINES FOR THE FINAL PAPER DUE TUE NOV 29TH

15. Nov. 30. Contextualism; Payoffs from Believing the Impossible. Sorensen, ch. 8; Soames, ch. 7.

    David Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game" (on reserve in the Philosophy Department and online); Sorensen, chs. 7,9.

16. Dec. 7. What Do We Want in a Theory of Truth? Sorensen, chs. 10-11; Davidson, "The Folly of Trying to Define Truth" (Lynch, ch. 26).

    Optional: Soames, ch. 8.

    FINAL PAPER DUE TODAY