Plan for the Fall Quarter

Tonight we met to discuss the plan for the upcoming quarter.

Jason B. and David F. instituted some small, justified changes in the workshop format. These are: (1) Student presentations will take an hour, no more; (2) David and Jason will give short, 10-15 minute presentations at the beginning of each workshop.

Revision (1) met with no opposition, while Tom L. questioned whether (2) was possible given the garrulous character of the workshop participants. David F. and Jason B. responded by observing that they could defer questions until after they had finished lecturing if they felt like it.

In order to accommodate Jay E., we pushed the meeting time of the workshop back to 6pm.

We then discussed what text we should read. The one inviolable ground rule was that we had to read a book. Articles or collections of articles were out of bounds. David F. was in favor of reading the first four chapters of Making It Explicit. Nat H. Suggested Anscombe's Intention and Ryle's Concept of Mind; Chris F. suggested Fodor's Psychosemantics, Putnam's Representation and Reality, Kim's Mind in a Physical World, and Chalmer's Conscious Mind; Rachel G. suggested Quine's Word and Object, which turned out to be the closest competitor with the Brandom.

After a preliminary vote, we narrowed the field to the Brandom and the Quine, with Quine very slightly edging out the Brandom. We then decided to read the first chapter of each and only then decide what to continue with.

Next session we will read the first chapter of Word and Object. I will put a copy on E-Reserve at the library as soon as I can.

It was good to see everyone again.