| Course: | LPS/Phil 215 |
| Name: | History of Analytic Philosophy |
| Description: | The seminar will be devoted to problems and ideas associated
with the articulation of logicism. My plan is to use Michael
Potter’s book, Reason’s nearest kin, as an entry point for
a variety of topics mainly associated with Russell’s
philosophical logic and philosophy of mathematics. I’ve written a very favorable review of Potter’s book which appeared in BJPS (2001) 599 – 612, but I have since come to view the work more critically. I think the emergence of points on which the book can be criticized only enhances its value as an introduction to many of the topics with which it deals. Some of my points of disagreement are elaborated in my paper (with Peter Clark) for Stewart Shapiro’s Oxford Handbook which will be out very soon, but there are others I will be raising in the seminar. My own principal interest is not , however, developing a critique of Potter, but an interpretation of Russell, as noted above. The seminar will be a more or less equal combination of lectures and seminar presentations. Students taking the course for credit are expected to write a term paper. |