We'll be meeting in Churfürststrasse 1, HS 207 (first floor). Those of you who are attending remotely should attend via the Webex link in the course menu panel of our Blackboard page. Classes will be held on Wednesday evenings: 3:15pm to 6:45pm.
Suppose I am highly confident that I'll soon get a promotion at work; I then gain some evidence indicating that I'm prone to wishful thinking in career-related matters. What effect should this evidence have on my confidence that I'll soon get a promotion? Intuitively, it should make me less confident. But this evidence works in an unusual way. It doesn't bear directly on how likely I am to get a promotion -- instead, it is higher-order evidence, evidence that suggests that my own reasoning has up to this point been rationally subpar. Higher-order evidence, it turns out, has a number of features that are puzzling from the perspective of standard models of rational belief revision, and so the assessment of this evidence has been a much-discussed topic in the recent epistemological literature. In this course we'll explore this relatively new area of epistemology and, along the way, will familiarize ourselves with formal methods widely used by epistemologists.
The course will combine lecture and discussion. A typical session will begin with a bit of lecture clarifying material from the week's reading, after which we'll move into either a period of critical discussion (if the week's reading was a philosophical paper) or a problem-solving workshop (if the week's reading was a chapter from the textbook). We'll then close the session with another bit of lecture introducing relevant background material for the following week's reading.
The central aim of the course is to enable students to think analytically about some significant problems in epistemology, to bring formal epistemological resources to bear on their thinking about these problems, and to develop the capacity to present their own views in this area concisely and rigorously. More specifically, by the end of the course you're expected to be able to:
show a deep understanding of what's at issue in the contemporary literature on higher-order evidence;
articulate clearly the relative merits and defects of each of the main approaches to theorizing about higher-order evidence;
develop in a sustained manner your own criticisms of some of these ideas and arguments and initiate original lines of thought;
show a deep understanding of the methods of Bayesian epistemology, including the relationships between these methods and the problems surrounding higher-order evidence; and
show an improved capacity for making complex ideas understandable in your philosophical writing and in your public speaking.
Some of the readings from the course are available in Michael G. Titelbaum's forthoming textbook Fundamentals of Bayesian Epistemology, a draft of which I've sent to you via email. (If you haven't received it, please let me know.) All other readings are available at our Schedule page. Since almost all of these readings are under copyright, the links to them are password-protected. The course password has been sent to you via email.
Attendance is mandatory, though you may attend remotely if you're more comfortable doing so. If you do wish to attend remotely, please let me know as soon as possible.
Critical discussion periods will be student-led. In weeks in which the reading is a philosophical paper, one or more students will be responsible for chairing: directing the discussion based on the week's reading. We'll decide on a chairing rotation early in the semester, and it will be added to our Schedule page.
In order to facilitate discussion (and to clarify to me what points need to be emphasized in lecture), you'll be required, when the week's reading is a philosophical paper rather than a chapter of the textbook, to submit a short reading response: two questions or comments, 150 words at most. These responses should either (i) request clarification about something from the reading you had trouble understanding or (ii) bear on the guiding questions I've posted for that week's reading. You should email your response to me and to that week's chair(s) by the end of the day on the Monday before our class session. (You're also free to submit requests for clarification when the week's reading is a chapter from the textbook, but this is optional.)
The other assignments for the course will be three problem sets, a short midterm paper, and a slightly longer final paper (which may be a newly revised and expanded version of your midterm paper, if you like). See the Assignments page for more details.
Your grade in the course will be calculated as follows:
Chairing and class participation: 10%
Weekly reading responses: 15%
Problem sets: 20%
Midterm paper: 20%
Final paper: 35%
If you have any problems with the course, please do get in touch with me. If you need to talk about any problems affecting your work, please contact the Head of the Department, Alexander Hieke (alexander[dot]hieke[at]sbg[dot]ac[dot]at).