Friday, November 18, 2016

The target article for your final paper is "The Pragmatic Metaphysics of Belief," by Eric Schwitzgebel. This article is in draft form and has not yet been published. You will find the topic familiar.

We will not meet on Tuesday so that people can attend the Ethics Symposium. The thought question below must be turned in to me at the Symposium during the session that corresponds to our classes. I'll hang around outside of the room until it starts. Note that you can get extra credit for this class for attending and writing on the content of any particular session in the designated place in your journal. Study the syllabus carefully for the correct way to do this and for the due dates. If you do it incorrectly or submit it after the due date you won't get credit.

There are two weeks left in the semester after Thanksgiving. We will only cover two more of the essays on our list. The first one will be "Rationalization in moral and philosophical thought," by E. Schwitzgebel and J. Ellis. The second one will be  "Bundles of contradiction," by T. Lombrozo & A. Shtulman.

In the syllabus I guaranteed 15 tests but we are only doing 13 articles. My view  is that what is essential is the number of points available, rather than the number of tests, so the final two tests will be worth 20 points rather than 10. If anyone finds this to be an unreasonable solution, please let me know right away and we can discuss it.

I will have the study questions, test and the discussion questions link available by this Sunday, but nothing will be due until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Thought question
Do you think it can ever be to one's benefit to behave in a way that is unequivocally irrational? Why or why not? Be clear about the sense of irrationality you are employing.

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