Syllabus
(for a general course description, click here)
Date |
Topic |
Reading orange=optional |
Handouts & assignments |
| Tuesday, January 15 | Introduction to the course | none | |
| Thursday, January 17 | What are paradoxes? | none | An introduction to paradoxes Some examples of solved paradoxes |
| Paradoxes of space & time | |||
Tuesday, January 22 |
Zeno's paradoxes of motion & the possibility of infinite tasks | Sainsbury, Paradoxes ch. 1 |
Zeno's paradoxes |
| Thursday, January 24 | McTaggart's proof of the unreality of time | McTaggart, "Time" (from The Nature of Existence) |
McTaggart's proof |
| Tuesday, January 29 | Time travel and the paradoxes of special relativity | Einstein, Relativity: The Special & General Theory (excerpt) |
Special relativity & associated paradoxes Paradoxes of time travel |
| Thursday, January 31 | Class cancelled | ||
Tuesday, February 5 |
Paradoxes of quantum mechanics | Albert, "Superposition" Feynman, "Quantum behavior" Maudlin, "Distillling metaphysics from quantum physics" |
Superposition & the paradoxes of quantum mechanics |
Thursday, February 7 |
The doomsday argument & living in a computer simulation | Leslie, The End of the World (excerpt) |
The end of the world and life in a computer simulation |
| Metaphysical paradoxes | |||
| Tuesday, February 12 | Material objects: composition & coincidence. | Sider, "Constitution" |
Puzzles of composition and coincidence |
| Thursday, February 14 | Paradoxes of personal identity | Parfit, "Divided minds and the nature of persons" Nagel, "Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness" |
Teletransportation, split brains, and personal identity |
| Tuesday, February 19 | Free will, determinism, indeterminism | Sider, "Free will and determinism" | Is free will possible? |
| Theological paradoxes | |||
| Thursday, February 21 |
The problem of evil and the problem of heaven & hell |
Mackie, "Evil and omnpotence" |
The problem of evil Heaven, hell, and vagueness |
| Tuesday, February 26 | Midterm exam: covers paradoxes of space and time & metaphysical paradoxes |
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| Thursday, February 28 |
Paradoxes of omniscience & omnipotence | Aquinas, "The power of God" (Summa Ia q25) |
The paradox of the stone |
| March 4 & 6: spring break | |||
| Tuesday, March 11 | Free will and divine foreknowledge; fatalism | van Inwagen, "Fatalism" |
Foreknowledge and fatalism |
| Paradoxes about what we ought to do | |||
| Tuesday, March 18 | Newcomb's problem | Sainsbury, Paradoxes, pp. 53-65 | Dominance, expected utiliy, and Newcombe's problem |
| Thursday, March 20 | Class cancelled | ||
| Tuesday, March 25 | The prisoner's dilemma | Sainsbury, Paradoxes, pp. 66-72 | The prisoner's dilemma |
| Thursday, March 27 |
The two-envelope paradox, the St. Petersburg paradox, the paradox of heaven and hell, and the Cable Guy paradox | Clark, "The St. Petersburg Paradox" |
The two-envelope paradox |
| Paradoxes of belief and knowledge | |||
| Tuesday, April 1 | Paradoxes of confirmation | Sainsbury, Paradoxes, pp. 73-81 | The paradox of the ravens |
| Tuesday, April 3 | The new riddle of induction | Goodman, "The new riddle of induction" Sainsbury, Paradoxes, pp. 81-91 |
Grue |
| Tuesday, April 8 | The surprise exam | Sainsbury, Paradoxes, pp. 91-98 | The surprise exam paradox |
| Thursday, April 10 | Sleeping beauty | Elga, "Self-locating belief and the sleeping beauty problem" |
Sleeping beauty |
| Tuesday, April 15 | The lottery paradox | Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries (excerpt) | The lottery paradox |
| Logical paradoxes | |||
| Thursday, April 17 Tuesday, April 22 |
The sorites paradox | Sainsbury, Paradoxes, ch. 2 | The sorites paradox "Is red" and "looks the same" Solutions to the sorites paradox |
| Thursday, April 24 Tuesday, April 29 |
Russell's paradox & the liar | Sainsbury, Paradoxes, ch. 5 | The liar |
| Friday, May 9, 10:30 am, in normal classroom |
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