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PHIL 5400/6400
Weekly assignments:

  1. Aug. 24 (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): Strawson, Individuals, para. bridging pp. 95-96, starting "The second of these views I call the 'no-ownership' or 'no-subject' doctrine..."
  2. Aug. 31: Either Parfit, Reasons and Persons, sec. 83; or Williams, "Imagination and the Self," near the top of Problems of the Self, p. 40, from "Schlick famously claimed..." to the end of the paragraph.
  3. Sept. 7: Either Parfit, Reasons and Persons, sec. 86 ("The Combined Spectrum"), up to the second break on p. 239 ("...a strong argument for this view"); or Williams, "Persons, Character and Morality," from "many moral notions show" (on p. 7) to "what Parfit calls the Simple View" (on p. 8).
  4. Sept. 14: Either Parfit, Reasons and Persons, sec. 67 ("Why We Should Not Be Biased Toward The Future"; you'll want to strip out some of the back and forth around Epicurus), or sec. 64 ("Past and Future Suffering").
  5. Sept. 21: Either Nagel, Possibility of Altruism, p. 42, the para. starting "Thirdly...", or the first three paras. of ch. VIII, sec. 5 (pp. 68f, starting "It should be possible..." through "...from one's temporally extended self").
  6. Sept. 28: Either Strawson, Individuals, pp. 27f, para. starting "But one who makes this objection...", up to "...items in the spatio-temporal framework," or p. 32, para. starting "Why are criteria...".
  7. Oct. 5: Either Strawson, Individuals, p. 104, top, from "Let me rehearse briefly..." up to "...and corporeal characteristics," or pp. 105f, para. starting "What then are the consequences...".


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

  9. Oct. 12: Extra bonus assignment! Lear, Love and Its Place in Nature, either p. 7, from "How could we recognize..." to "...a form of mental functioning", or pp. 9f, from "if the task of psychoanalysis is..." to "...rendering it into that form."
  10. Oct. 19: Lear, Love and Its Place in Nature, either p. 34, from "Indeed, if one asks ..." to "...alternative to the discharge model", or p. 44, first full para., from "There was, however..." to "...stability of a symptom."
  11. Oct. 26: Lear, Love and Its Place in Nature, either pp. 169-170, from "In its most general terms..." to "...identify with the love-object" and then on the next page, from "So the process of psychic organization..." to "...organization is achieved," or p. 177, first full para. of sec IV, from "For Freud..." to "...complexity and refinement."
  12. Nov. 2: Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves, either pp. 131-132, from "The narrative self-constitution view can, however, speak..." to "...some of the most basic features of personhood" or pp. 133-134, from "The narrative self-constitution view, on the other hand..." to "...emphasized by bodily continuity theorists."
  13. Nov. 9: Schechtman, Staying Alive, either pp. 12f, para. starting "There is no ambiguity..." or Williams, "The Makropulos Case," pick out one of the (overlapping) arguments in the three-paragraph stretch starting on p. 96 with "We can see better into that illusion..."
  14. Nov. 16: Schechtman, Staying Alive, pp. 149f, from "This difference in attitude..." to "...in philosophical reflection on them," or Bratman, "Taking Plans Seriously," pp. 205f, two paras. starting "The difference in motivational roles..."
  15. Nov. 23: Extra bonus assignment! Bratman, Shared Agency, para. bridging pp. 100-101 ("Well, in intending..."). (You'll need to keep the previous para. in mind as you reconstruct this argument; bear in mind that the Philosophy Department office will be closed on the due date.)
  16. Nov. 30: Bratman, Shared Agency, p. 63, from "So let me turn..." to the end of the para., or from p. 65, "A basic step in response to this challenge..." to the end of the first full para. on 66, "...violate the own-action condition".
  17. Dec. 7: Bratman, Shared Agency, pp. 145f, from "That said, the theory also leaves room..." to "...this potential contribution to conflict resolution," or p. 127, the two paragraphs starting with "I think that this is not in general true."