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Philosophy 375

What Can (and What Can't) Evolution Explain?

Introduction to Philosophy of Biology

 Bence Nanay

Fall 2007

  

Announcements and paper topics

 

 

 

Announcements

11/16/07: The paper topics for the final paper are here.

 

11/15/07: Readings for next week: Chapter 4 and 5 of the Dennett book. And the Hull paper on science and selection.

 

11/08/07: Readings for next week: Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 of Sperber’s Explaining Culture.

 

11/04/07: New handouts, this time on function, intentionality and the teleological theory of mental content. We’ll rush through these topics next time, so do take a look. They are on the Lecture Notes & Handouts page

 

11/01/07: Readings for next week: Chapter 13.6 of Sex and Death and Chapter 3 as well as Appendix A of the Dennett book.

 

10/26/07: I posted a handout on the evolution explanation of emotions. See the Lecture Notes & Handouts page.

 

10/25/07: Readings for next week: Chapter 14 of the Sober volume

 

10/18/07: Readings for next week: Chapter 10 of the Sober volume and chapter 13.1-13.5 of Sex and Death.

 

10/15/07: Some extra readings that you may find useful for the midterm paper:

 

            For the first question about origin essentialism, you may want to check out Sober’s 1980 paper.

 

            For the second question about altruism, you may want to check out Wilson’s 1992 paper.

 

Good luck

 

10/11/07: The paper topics for the midterm paper are here.

 

10/06/07: The midterm paper will be due on the 18th of October. The paper topics will be announced a week before. 

 

10/05/07: Readings for next week: chapter 10.1-10.4 of Sex and Death and chapter 5 of the Sober volume.

 

09/25/07: I posted a handout on the units of selection debate. See the Lecture Notes & Handouts page.

 

09/20/07: Readings for next week: chapter 8 of Sex and Death and chapter 4 of the Sober volume. You don’t have to read the technical stuff in the latter.

 

04/13/07: The (more or less) final syllabus is above.

 

 

 

 

 

You may want to take a look at my guidelines for writing a philosophy paper, which is posted on the Lecture Notes and Handouts website.