Logic & Philosophy of Science

Course Description


Course:  LPS/Phil 115/215
Name:  History of Analytic Philosophy
Description:  The philosophical tradition called "analytic philosophy" arose from diverse sources in turn of the century Cambridge and Germany to become the dominant tradition in 20th and 21st century Anglo-American philosophy.  We will discuss some of the most important works of analytic philosophy from the 1870s to the 1950s, focusing, though not exclusively, on issues in the philosophy of language, logic, mathematics, and perception.  Authors include Helmholtz, Frege, Moore, Russell, Early Wittgenstein, Carnap, Late Wittgenstein, Quine, and Sellars.   

Prerequisites: PHIL/LPS 30 or 104 and at least one other philosophy course.  A willingness to read a goodly number of elegant but difficult texts.  

Texts: Frege, Foundations of Arithmetic; Russell, Problems of Philosophy; Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations.  Also selected papers made available by the instructor.