Doxastic Cartography

Yes I made the phrase up. But it sounds good, and is actually pretty accurate.

Phil 76700: Doxastic Cartography

Tuesdays 6:30-8:30 (in GC: 7395) CHANGED TO 6417

emandelbaum@gc.cuny.edu

Belief is a central concept in philosophical theorizing. Yet even after all the focus doxastic theories have received, it’s unclear to what extent theories of belief are even in conflict with one another. Dispositionalism and representational realism are in some conflict, but are they competitors for analytic, teleological, or psychofunctionalism? Where do principles of charity or the intentional stance or other attributional aspects interact with the metaphysics of belief? Or transparency of belief theories, or theories that belief aims at the True, or Bayesianism (normative and descriptive), or theories focusing on the norms of belief? What does Stalnakerian total belief state theorists have to do with constitutive norm theorists, and what can these theories possibly have to do with the cognitive science of belief? This course will aim to hash out these questions, ultimately serving to give the first mapping of the logical space of theories of belief. Each week will detail a different movement in epistemological theorizing, building towards a mapping of the logical space of theories of belief. You can use this course to both learn about theories of belief you didn't know, and take part in the much needed project of figuring out how these theories interface. 

There are a lot of readings. This course will serve as something like a bibliography course on belief. I have two purposes in this course: first and foremost to map how, if in any way, these different theories of belief interact with one another. Creating the logical space of belief is my number 1 goal. Secondarily, evaluating these theories could also be good, and will be natural.

As there are too many readings for pretty much anyone to do in one week I propose the following: everyone sitting in on the course (whether auditing or taking it for credit) reads the first article listed and one other article listed for the day. We will take volunteers with the idea being that all articles get coverage and discussion during the seminar.

Paper

Paper: here are the options as I see them

Option 1: I care about the paper and want something to serve as a QP or dissertation proposal or to get published!

Option 2: I don’t really care about the paper

Note: both options are fine and reasonable! You don’t have to want to work in this topic. But if you take option 2 my very strong advice is don’t turn in a late paper. If you don’t care about the course content, I highly recommend turning in a paper early, but more or less demand you not turn it in late. There’s nothing like receiving a paper two years from now that’s a throwaway bs grad seminar essay. If you can write it in a weekend two years from now, you can write it in a weekend now! Do that, and then spend your time focusing on the seminars that are in your AOS.

Either way you can write two short papers or one long one. If you write two short ones, you probably are taking option 2, but not necessarily.

How long should the papers be? Who cares! Make them long enough to be good, and no longer. Remember: no one likes reading long papers. (Pro-tip: don’t write papers that are longer than the length of papers you like to read). Don’t write a paper longer than 8k words. They are almost certainly unpublishable (we can discuss this if you want). And note: I have been known to ask for drafts just to turn around and require you to cut 25% of it.

If you take option 1, then being late is understandable. But don’t delay forever! And please remember that if you get me papers (say) in two years from now—I won’t necessarily be able to grade it right away!

 Readings:

These are suggestions, to be used as a bibliography. I don’t expect anyone to read all of these. So, what should you read? This isn’t a dumb question! It’s about what you want to learn. Do you want to publish? Work in phil mind/epistemology? Do you want to work with me? Publish with me? Do you just want to learn a bit and get a feel for the field? Do you just want to meet some dastardly requirement? All these answers dictate different strategies. I’m not here to tell you how to spend your time. It’s your graduate career! I would suggest not wasting time during grad school (yours or mine!). So, if this interests you take it seriously, use this as a bibliography to try to make it through. Setting the goal of reading 1 article a day is a solid goal anyway. You will need to do this and keep doing this for more like decades than years. If that sounds like torture…why do you want to be a professor?

Tl;dr: everyone is expected to read the top article, and then read one other one. That should give us a strong foundation of understanding as a class.

Remember: We are doing cutting edge stuff. Want to be on the bleeding edge? Try to understand as many of these as possible. Just want to be a passerby on a moving train? Read the top one.

Lastly: even the most hermetic scholar monk among us will have life intrude. People die, hearts and internets get broken, pestilence and the ravages of time and hangovers and lost loves—sooner or later, they’re all coming for you. It’s hard to plan for them. But we will get waylaid. I’ll do my best to roll with the punches, and you should do your best to get shit done early. Best to act like we’re on borrowed time, because we are.