Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introductory Class (no readings)
2 Plato

Plato's Meno, especially 80d-100b.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Discourse on Metaphysics. Sections XXVI-XXVII.

Fine, Gail. "Inquiry in the Meno." In Cambridge Companion to Plato. Edited by Richard Kraut. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 0521436109.
3 Descartes

Descartes, Rene. Meditations I-II.

Williams, Bernard. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. Revised ed. London, UK: Routledge, 2005. ISBN: 041535627X.

Hatfield, Gary. "The Senses and the Fleshless Eye: The Meditations as Cognitive Exercises." In Essays on Descartes' Meditations. Edited by Amélie O. Rorty. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 45-79. ISBN: 0520055098.
4 Locke/Leibniz

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1994, book I, chapter 1. ISBN: 0879759178.

Leibniz, G. W. "Leibniz's commentary on Locke (or to the character Philalethes who stands for Locke)." Chapters i-iii in New Essays Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Jonathan Bennett and Peter Remnant. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, book I, preface pp. 48-53. ISBN: 0521576601.

Mackie, J. L. Problems from Locke. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005, chapter 7. ISBN: 0198750366.
5 Hume and the Positivists

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000, book 1, part 1. ISBN: 0198751729. Also available at Project Gutenberg, 2003.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999, sections 2 and 4. ISBN: 0198752482. Also available at Project Gutenberg, 2006.

Ayer, Alfred J. "The A Priori." Chapter 4 in Language, Truth and Logic. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1952. ISBN: 0486200108.

Hahn, Hans. "Logic, Mathematics, and Knowledge of Nature." In Logical Positivism. Edited by Alfred J. Ayer. New York, NY: Free Press, 2002. ISBN: 0029011302.
6 Kant

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. 2nd Revised ed. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, introduction, sections I-II and IV-VI. ISBN: 1403911959.

Ewing, A. C. A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Reissue ed. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 16-24. ISBN: 0226227782.

Van Cleve, James. Problems from Kant. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007, chapter 2. ISBN: 0195083229.

Recommended Readings

Kemp, John. The Philosophy of Kant. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1968, chapter 1.

Bennett, Jonathan. Kant's Analytic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999, chapter 1, especially pp. 8-11. ISBN: 0521093899.
7 Quine's Critique

Quine, W. V. O. "Two Dogmas of Empiricism." In From a Logical Point of View. 2nd Revised ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN: 0674323513.

Putnam, Hilary. "The analytic and the synthetic." In Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2. 2 Sub ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN: 0521295513. Originally published in 1962; reprinted in Putnam, Hilary.

Recommended Reading

Putnam, Hilary. "There is at least one a priori truth." In Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers. Vol. 3. Reprint ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 0521313945. Originally published in 1978; reprinted in Putnam, Hilary.
8 New Rationalisms

Kitcher, Philip. "A Priori Knowledge." Philosophical Review 89 (1980): 3-23.

———. "A Priori Knowledge revisited." In New Essays on the A Priori. Edited by Paul. Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0199241279.

Recommended Readings

Edidin, Aron. "A priori knowledge for fallibilists." Philosophical Studies 46 (1984): 189-197.

Casullo, Albert. "Revisability, reliabilism and a priori knowledge." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1988): 187-213.