Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

COURSE DETAILS:

Selected Topics: Aristotle’s Logical Works

 [Note: this course is to be taught concurrently with PHIL 451W E200.]

Important note regarding enrollment: All seats are reserved for Philosophy Graduate students. Enrollments from other departments will be considered only upon submission of the Graduate Course Add Form, and with instructor's permission. All such enrollments will be done in or after the first week of classes.

Among his many remarkable philosophical accomplishments, Aristotle is the father of logic. His works on logic are among the very most impactful philosophical treatises ever written. Perhaps more than any other philosophical works, the interpretation and misinterpretation of his logical works have shaped the philosophical landscape. In this seminar, we will do a close reading, discussion, and reconstruction of the six treatises that have traditionally been referred to collectively as The Organon: the short but extremely dense and intricate Categories, the more voluminous dialectical treatises Topics and the Sophistical Refutations, the consolidating grammatico-philosophical On Interpretation, the revered Prior Analytics in which Aristotle developed the famous theory of syllogistic figures and moods, among other things, and the sometimes clear and sometimes baffling Posterior Analytics, in which Aristotle articulates the demonstrative method that would become a cornerstone of mathematical and scientific methodology for millennia. Students taking this seminar should be prepared to read those texts very closely and understand that, while it will sometimes lead to exciting insights, it will also occasionally lead to frustration. In addition, students taking this seminar should be prepared to use contemporary formal tools to examine interpretive theses concerning Aristotle’s logical doctrines.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Successful completion of this course will satisfy the “History of Philosophy” distribution requirement toward the MA degree for Philosophy graduate students.

The educational goal of this course is to develop a deeper understanding of the core concepts of logical methodology, including:

- To appreciate the complexity of the core concepts of logical methodology.

- To reflect an understanding of the way in which logicians have both disagreed with each other and built upon each other’s work across the traditions.

- To establish connections between various writers’ views about logic and their views about philosophy and science broadly construed.

-To improve one’s assessment of the way in which some works in traditional logic can inform our understanding of logical methodology.

- To become familiar with the logical doctrines that philosophers have reflected upon for millennia.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: