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CS92PROD
Mind, Body, and World: Conceptual Spontaneity and Worldly Constraint
PHIL 383
Spring 2010 not offered

This advanced seminar critically assesses some influential contemporary treatments of a perennial philosophical question: How is the spontaneity of thought and talk accountable to and/or constrained by perceptual and practical interaction with the world? With a brief introduction to Quine's and Davidson's criticisms of semantic empiricism as background, we will examine John McDowell's attempt to develop a post-Davidsonian empiricism, Robert Brandom's social inferentialism, Hubert Dreyfus/Samuel Todes's phenomenological dualism of bodily coping and linguistic articulation, and John Haugeland's account of embodied "existential commitment." The course will conclude with some reflections on how language use might itself be understood as practical and perceptual.

Essential Capabilities: None
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA PHIL
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus)(STS)

Last Updated on MAR-29-2024
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