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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

[pmagnus at fecundity dot com]