second year course outlines 2012-2013 - School of Social Sciences ...

Required Readings
1. Russell, ‘Descriptions’, ch 16 of Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy; on the
course website; repr in Martinich, POL
2. Bertrand Russell, ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description’, on the
course
website; originally ch 5 of Russell’s Problems of Philosophy
Further Primary Reading
Ayer, A. J. Russell and Moore. The Analytical Heritage, chs. 1-5
Donnellan, Keith. ‘Reference and Definite Descriptions’, on course website; originally in
Philosophical Review 75 (1966): 281-304; repr in Martinich, PL; also in Donnellan’s
Essays on Reference, Language and Mind, J. Almog and P. Leonardi (eds.) [famous
paper introducing the “referential” and “attributive” uses of definite descriptions]
Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity, Lectures I & II; on course website [the most influential
attack
on the part of Russell’s theory that claims proper names are equivalent to definite
descriptions]
Neale, Stephen. Descriptions [technical but not unduly so; defends a Russellian view]
Bertrand Russell, ‘On Denoting’, on the course website; repr in Martinich, POL; Feigl and
Sellars, RPA; Martinich and Sosa, AP; Russell, Logic and Knowledge, ed. Robert Marsh;
and at http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Russell/denoting/ [This is the canonical
presentation of Russell’s theory of descriptions, technically and philosophically more
advanced than ‘descriptions’ but also much more famous and referred to]
Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Lectures V & VI, on the course website; also
available on the web at HA: http://www.hist-analytic.org/
Russell, ‘Propositional Functions’, ch 15 of Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical
Philosophy;
on the course website
Russell, ‘Mr. Strawson on Referring’, [this is a response to Strawson’s ‘On Referring’ – see
below];
on course website
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