The Philosophy of Experience: Getting at What's Real

In Critique of Pure Reason (1787), Kant observed, “Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects.” Having found this had become a blind alley, he suggested, “Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition.” Kant’s experiment shook Western philosophy to its core. The instabilities it led to have shaped subsequent discussion in many ways.

Is “reality” ultimately only our own subjective construct? Should we trust what is manifestly obvious or turn to science for a better measure of what is truly real? These rough questions lie at the center of important ongoing philosophical discussion.

Fall Quarter: We will begin with David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature and examine his attempts to build a foundation for all of science through a "science of man." By his own account, this effort resulted in grave skepticism about the possibility of any science at all. Immanuel Kant recognized the power of Hume's critique of philosophical Rationalism and responded with fundamental reconsideration of human cognition. Kant's efforts to re-navigate the waters between Empiricism and Rationalism lie at the center of our work.

Hume's profound skepticism and Kant's "Copernican Revolution," his rejection of perception as representation of mind-independent reality inspired 20th century philosophers in a host of ways. Both Bertand Russell and G. E. Moore offered resolutions to Hume that embraced an "empiricist" program, and we will study Russell's The Problems of Philosophy and Moore's "Defense of Common Sense." The quarter will conclude with W. V. O. Quine's attack on both Hume and Kant, among others, in his essay "Two Dogmas of Empiricism."

Winter Quarter (new): Winter quarter will offer studies in contemporary Western philosophy. It has been designed for students with background in the history of philosophy, but success will depend primarily on willingness to read difficult works slowly and carefully. Students will have time to learn the background presupposed by our studies.

Study of seminal works by three 20th c. philosophers will be the crux of the curriculum: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty), Wilfrid Sellars (Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind) and Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature). These have been central in the development of contemporary philosophical thought. They have inspired rich, insightful controversy both within the philosophy of mind and about the nature of philosophical inquiry itself. As time permits, we will pursue such controversies in works by Quine, Donald Davidson, John McDowell, Richard Bramdon, Rebecca Kukla and others.

Neo-Kantian developments in 20th and 21st century philosophy have had wide influence in the humanities, particularly in contributing to "post-modernist" themes: claims that ultimately the world in which we find ourselves is one of our own devising, that the "real" world actually is a construct based on our dispositions and habits of language. We will consider these claims critically and assess whether they are better than philosophical slogans.