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PHIL 3013-004/5193-001/6193-002
Weekly Assignments

    • The default is to outline the passage I assign.
    • If you choose a different passage:
      • make sure it contains an argument.
      • you have to tell me what it is. (I'm not a mind reader.)
      • please make it terse -- a paragraph or two, not a chapter, or anything like a chapter.

        (I have to read the passage side by side with your outline, to check that the latter correctly represents the argument in the former.)

        My experience is that attempts to outline longer stretches of text don't generally work out well.

  1. Aug. 21 (for those of you who have already taken a class from me, who know what these outline assignments -- not the same as microcommentary assignments! -- are supposed to look like, and who want to get an early start): In Med. I, three paras. starting "Suppose then that I am dreaming...", up to "...any suspicion of being false" (at CSM II:13-14). (In the Haldane trans., from "Now let us assume that we are asleep..." to "...can be suspected of any falsity [or uncertainty]".)
  2. Aug. 28: In Med. II, para. bridging CSM II:20-21, "Perhaps the answer lies in the thought..."
  3. Sept. 6 (Wed.): In Med. IV, the beginning of para. 8 ("Next, when I look more closely..." up to "...in the proper sense of that term"), together with para. 9 ("From these considerations I perceive...); these are at CSM II:39-40.
  4. Sept. 11: In Med. VI, either para. 9 ("First, I that everything..."; CSM II:54), or in para. 10, on CSM II:55, from "Now there is in me..." to "...that corporeal things exist."
  5. Sept. 18: In Second Replies, either CSM II:95, para. starting "I do not see what you can deny here"; or CSM II:103, para. starting "First of all, as soon as we think..."
  6. Sept. 25: In Frankfurt, Demons..., either on p. 38, para. starting "It is rather easy..." or 3 paras. on pp. 52f, from "Instead he rather abruptly..." through "...in the course of his inquiry".
  7. Oct. 2: Either in Rosenthal, 421f, 2 paras. starting "Descartes' persistent first-person formulations...," through "...understanding is needed" (ignore the textual gestures; go for the argument); or Principles, Part I, art. 39 (CSM I:205f), "The freedom of the will is self-evident".
  8. Oct. 9: Bonus Fall Break Outline Assignment! Principles of Philosophy, Part II, art. 16 (para. bridging CSM I:229-30). (This is your last one-part assignment.)

    9. After this point, it's two-part weekly assignments, as described on the syllabus.

  9. Oct. 16: Principles of Philosophy, Part II, either art. 20 (CSM I:231, up to "...conflict with our knowledge"), or art. 21(CSM I:232).
  10. Oct. 23: Either Passions of the Soul, art. 32 (CSM I:340, "How we know that this gland..."), or, in art. 13 (CSM I:333), from "Besides causing our soul..." to the end of the article.
  11. Oct. 30: Either Principles of Philosophy, Part II, art. 7, from "Finally, it is a complete contradiction..." to the end of the para. (CSM I:226) or, Part IV, art. 205 (CSM I:289f).
  12. Nov. 6: Either Gaukroger, Cartesian Logic, pp. 66-68 (from "God's guarantee means that..." through "...is concerned, he is creating" -- make sure to keep the argument compact!); or Rules of the Direction of the Mind, under Rule 14, from "Indeed, it is by means of one and the same idea..." through "...we have to deal here are magnitudes in general" (CSM I:57f).
  13. Nov. 13: Either in the Fourth Set of Objections and Replies, at CSM II:150, 2 paras., starting "I have one further worry..."; or Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen, ch. 13, p. 211, para. starting "At least two relatively recent developments..."
  14. Nov. 20: Either Williams, Descartes, on pp. 32 and 34, the paragraphs starting "All these are reasons why..." and "The project of seeing things...", taken together (in the Penguin edition, pp. 46f and 48f), or on pp. 42f, two paras. starting "At this point, where we reach..." (in the Penguin edition, this is pp. 57f)
  15. Nov. 27: Either Discourse I, 1st para. ("Good sense is the best distributed..."; CSM I:111) or IV, 3rd para. ("After this I considered..."; CSM I:127).
  16. Dec. 4: Either Discourse III, para. bridging CSM I:124f, which starts "Finally, to conclude this moral code..." -- but only outline from "Lastly, I could not have limited..." to the end of the para.; or V, at CSM I:132-34, from "I therefore supposed that God now created..." to [at the top of 134] "...only in their completed form" (you'll need to peel out most of the detail; this should be no longer than a usual outline).