Kevin Davey

The workshop involves discussion of general issues in writing the essay and student presentations of their work. Although students do not register for the Summer quarter, they are expected to make significant progress on their preliminary essay over the summer.

This course will be a reading of Merleau-Ponty's 'Structure of Behavior'. In this book, Merleau-Ponty critiques many of the scientific paradigms of the time concerning the nature of perception and behavior, proposing his own anti-Cartesian paradigm. Where appropriate, we will read some of the scientific texts to which Merleau-Ponty was responding, such as the work of the Gestalt Psychologists, Goldstein, Pavlov, and Peiron, as well as older texts such as Descartes' Optics. At stake in Merleau-Ponty's book is the question of the extent to which our conception of ourselves as mere biological creatures responding to environmental stimuli in accordance with the laws of physiology, and our conception of ourselves as thinking, feeling creatures experiencing the world are at odds with one another, and this question will loom large in our reading. The course will touch on important issues in general philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and phenomenology. (II)

The goal of this course is to have MAPH students explore the historical origins of analytic philosophy. Beginning with Frege, we will look at the development of analytic philosophy through the work of figures such as Russell, Wittgenstein, looking also at the rise and fall of positivism and the philosophical traditions that emerged afterwards with figures such as Quine, Kripke, Putnam and beyond. At the end of the course, MAPH students should have a more solid understanding of the central issues that have shaped modern American-European analytic philosophy, and some of the important ways in which this tradition diverges from contemporary continental philosophy.

The workshop involves discussion of general issues in writing the essay and student presentations of their work. Although students do not register for the Summer quarter, they are expected to make significant progress on their preliminary essay over the summer.