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Causality&Determinism
Philosophy 610
Fall 2005, Tu 2:45-5:35, Education 0021
http://www.fecundity.edu/courses
Professor: P.D. Magnus
Campus phone x2-4251
Office hours: W 2:00-3:00, Th 1:15-2:15, and by appointment
Texts:
[S&T] Sosa and Tooley, eds. Causation. ISBN: 0198750943
[QNL] Tim Maudlin. Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity
(2nd edition)
ISBN: 0631232214
Other readings will be made available in the mail room and via e-reserves. These will include selections from:
[DW] Nancy Cartwright. The Dappled World.
ISBN: 0521644119
Requirements
Students should come to class prepared to discuss assigned material and are required to present material at one class meeting.
Students will write two short (5ish page) papers on assigned topics and a final (15ish page) paper on a topic of their choice.
15% 1st short paper
15% 2nd short paper
50% Final paper
10% Class presentation
10% Participation
Schedule
This is an approximate schedule of topics.
- Tu 8/30
- Introduction, Hume on causation
- Tu 9/6
- Mackie and INUS conditions (S&T I-III)
- Tu 9/13
- Anscombe, Ducasse, von Wright (S&T V-VII)
- Tu 9/20
- Lewis and counterfactuals (S&T XI-XIV)
- Tu 9/27
- probabilism, realism, and pluralism (S&T VIII, X, XV)
1st PAPER DUE
- Tu 10/4
- * needs to be rescheduled *
Cartwright and capacities (DW 2-4)
- Tu 10/11
- Replies to the Dappled World (Sklar, Teller)
- Tu 10/18
- Determinism (Hoefer, Earman)
- Tu 10/25
- Causes play no rôle in physics (Hoefer, Norton)
- Tu 11/1
- Bell's theorem and QM (QNL 1)
2nd PAPER DUE
- Tu 11/8
- Relativity and spacetime (QNL 2)
- Tu 11/15
- QNL 3-4
- Tu 11/22
- QNL 5-6
- Tu 11/29
- QNL 7, 9
- Tu 12/6
- presentation of papers
FINAL PAPER DUE