Douglas F. Stalker
which is
again
the closet
at the back of
your skull?
which is
again
the cantaloupe
crossing
the table
This webpage is for people who not only can read but like to
read. If you are a click-away, bullet-items type, don't go on. If you want to
read, do go on. The following are not bare-bones lists or one liners. The
sections explain, annotate, and try to put things in their context (in their
where, what, and why). Warning: they are opinionated, too, in many places. If
you are a delicate petunia, consider yourself alerted. The first three sections
are about me, and the last two are for you, who are presumably a prospective or
former student, though they are also for anyone who wants to learn a few things
and exercise their brain a bit.
WHAT DO I TEACH?
I have taught the following courses over the
years:
Introduction to Philosophy
Critical
Thinking
Philosophy of Art
Philosophy of Literature
Elementary
Symbolic Logic
Inductive Logic
Science or Pseudoscience
Epistemology
Philosophy of Science
Mentality and Machines
Upper level seminars on
art and expression and on Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art.
I
introduced Critical Thinking, Science or Pseudoscience, and Inductive Logic into
the curriculum at the University of Delaware, and informally co-taught
biostatistics with my late friend, Henry Tingey, a biostatistician.
WHO AM I?
I received my B.A. in philosophy from the University of
Minnesota in 1969; my M.A. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill in 1972; and my Ph.D. in philosophy from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1974.
At Minnesota I studied with Herbert Feigl, who was a member of the Vienna Circle
and a leading figure in logical empiricism. At North Carolina, I studied with,
and did my degrees with, Paul Ziff, who was a major figure in philosophy of
language and aesthetics 1960-1980. My M.A. thesis was on the notion of natural
logic and my doctoral thesis was on Noam Chomsky's notion of deep structure. I
am currently Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of Delaware,
and have held visiting appointments in philosophy at the University of Illinois
at Chicago Circle and North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
I have been a
consultant to the Educational Testing Service in connection with the analytical
section of the GRE Aptitude Test, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation
of Claims of the Paranormal, the Office of Technology Assessment inquiry into
unorthodox cancer treatments, and the Delaware Division of the American Cancer
Society. For a number of years I was a member of the National Committee on
Unproven Methods of Cancer Management of the American Cancer Society, a member
of the American Philosophical Association's Committee on Philosophy and
Medicine, and the Biometry Section of the Medical Research Institute of
Delaware. I have served on the Board of Directors, Professional Education
Committee, and Public Education Committee of the Delaware Division of the
American Cancer Society.
I have given talks at meetings of the American
Philosophical Association, American Society for Aesthetics, American Bar
Association, American Statistical Association, American Cancer Society;
conferences at Carnegie Mellon University, The Medical Center of Delaware, Mt.
Sinai Medical School, Delaware Academy of Medicine, Wilmington Hospital, Lehigh
Valley Association of Independent Colleges; colloquia at the University of
Maryland, University of California at San Diego, the Chicago Art Institute,
Notre Dame, the Fullerton Club, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art,
University of Miami School of Medicine, Medical Center of Delaware, University
of Maryland School of Medicine, Departments of Art History, College of Nursing,
and Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Delaware. From 1979-87 I
gave my popular, satirical presentation "Winning Through Pseudoscience" at more
than 35 colleges, universities, professional meetings, and high school
gatherings. The presentation has been the subject of more than 20 newspaper,
wire service, and magazine articles (e.g., Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago
Tribune, Scientific American, Delaware Today).
WHAT HAVE I PUBLISHED?
My publications are in the areas of philosophy of language, of
art, of mind, of science, as well as in literature and music, even sports. Here
are some annotated selections. My doctoral thesis, suitably revised, came out as
a monograph from Temple University Press in 1976. The monograph was titled
Deep Structure and it was the first, extended examination of Chomsky's
claim that each sentence has a deep structure. Philosophers were interested in
this idea because of their previous interest in the logical form of sentences,
their emphasis on the connection between meaning and many philosophy problems,
and the fact that transformational grammar was all the rage back then--it was
supposed to be the key to understanding all things linguistic. My monograph not
only asks what is a deep structure but also how would you know that a
sentence had a certain one. It is an epistemic inquiry in the philosophy of
linguistics and can be seen as an instance of the theoretical/observation term
issue in the philosophy of science. Both W.V. Quine and Nelson Goodman told me
that they found the monograph a useful work. Indeed, Quine wrote me to discuss
my use of his work on variables explained away in the last chapter.
When
I taught in Chicago, my office was next to Clark Glymour's office, and we became
good friends and have worked together on some publications, typically on things
that struck us as anywhere between intellectually irritating and irrational. We
wrote a paper on holistic medicine that was published in The New England
Journal of Medicine (title: "Engineers, Cranks, Magicians, Physicians").
This paper has been anthologized in a volume on crises in health and in our own
anthology Examining Holistic Medicine (1985, Prometheus Books). Our
anthology covers the "philosophical", methodological, and therapeutic views of
holism: its history, claims about responsibility, intrusion into nursing,
quality of its journal, and therapies from acupuncture to vitamin C for cancer.
The review in The Journal of the American Medical Association called the
volume "dynamite" and "an absolute smash," and said all health care
professionals should buy a copy. It was the first serious, critical look at the
medical fringe, and still is the standard work on the topic.
My edited
volume Grue! The New Riddle of Induction (Open Court) came out in 1994.
Nelson Goodman's grue problem has been around for more than half a century and
articles discuss it each year in the top journals. My volume has 15 essays from
over the years, and half of them were written for the volume, while many
previously published essays have postscripts written for the volume. The volume
also includes a 180-page, reduced-type, annotated bibliography (annotations
running from 5 lines to a page). In typescript, my bibliography was closed to
500 pages in all. The volume has name-brand contributers such as Frank Jackson,
W.V. Quine, John Earman, Patrick Suppes, Gilbert Harman, Clark Glymour,
Elliott Sober, and John Pollock. Nelson Goodman wrote that "this is a monumental
document in the history of twentieth-century philosophy."
My articles
that have attracted the most attention (judged by their being anthologized)
include "Why Machines Can't Think: A Reply To James Moor," which is about
explaining the results of Turing's test; "The Malignant Object: Thoughts on
Public Sculpture" (with Clark Glymour), which examines rationales for placing
modern sculpture in public places; "B.F. Skinner's Theorizing" (with Paul Ziff),
which discusses Skinner's fascination with behaviorism as philosophy vs.
technology, and to which Skinner himself replied; "How to Duck Out Of Teaching,"
which is a satirical look at fashionable approaches to teaching in higher
education circles. For those who enjoy German lieder and French chansons, I have
120 CD reviews (1998-2002) in the American Record Guide, and an interview
with one of the top classical singers around, Austrian Wolfgang
Holzmair.
WHAT ARE MY INTERESTS?
Here are some of my vocational and avocational interests that
may not be apparent or indicated in more than a passing way in other sections of
this webpage.
Philosophy in general. I am a card-carrying analytic
philosopher who has always been interested in the greats of 20th century
analytic philosophy, most of the basic problems of philosophy you would cover in
Intro., and I can be found reading everything from the history of logic to
ethics (from Boole on syllogistic to Harman on relativism). Analytic philosophy
may not be everything, but is the sine qua non. The music of my people, you
might say, starts with Russell and goes through the positivists, ordinary
language folks, Quine and Goodman, and the like. Lately, I have been haunted by
the free will problem, especially when it gets over to fatalism (e.g., Richard
Taylor and my old teacher Steven Cahn).
Philosophy of art in particular.
The standard big three topics here have been defining art, evaluating art, and
the value of art. I am more interested in the second and third, as well as the
role of notation in the arts (e.g., Goodman's theory of notation), and
understanding aesthetic properties (from the beautiful to the dainty and dumpy,
as Austin put it). On a more practical day, I am interested in rules of thumb
that would help art fans make sensible decisions about these things, and lifting
things from other fields, such as signal detection theory, to get a new angle on
old aesthetic problems. Of necessity, you might say, I am always on the lookout
for hooey about the arts. Beautyville isn't populated with all that many sober
types, unfortunately, and it is too easy to find lots of fluffy types writing in
and around it. If you take the arts seriously, you should want sense and not
nonsense, serious arguments and not handwaving, and the usual standards of
clarity and precision in philosophical writing about the arts. Too many people
seem to let their brains fall out when the topic becomes art, even philosophers,
who suddenly tolerate babble they would not in other areas of philosophy. (Some
of my articles and reviews spank, as it were, such writing about the arts: e.g.,
"Rhyme Without Reason" in the festschrift for Paul Ziff; a reply to critics of
my article on public sculpture (Public Interest, 1982), my review of a
volume titled Esthetics Contemporary (JAAC, 1979) and of one titled Looking
Critically (JAAC, 1986).)
Medical Topics. From laetrile to vitamin C to
spinal fusion to NSAIDs to cholesterol tests to chemotherapy to controlled
trials and surrogate endpoints etc.-- they all come down to one big idea:
medical evidence. (Medical people would say I am concerned with methodology,
which is just finding rules that take you to good evidence.) My concern with
alternative (complementary, even crank) medicine is a concern with diagnostic
tests and therapies that are not supported by good evidence, and, even worse,
the people promoting them do not appreciate what counts as good evidence here.
Ditto for the evidential status of mainline medical claims, theories, and
therapies, and that is an on ramp to improving how physicians and other health
care professionals reason and make decisions (and thus, to put it more
generally, with critical thinking in medicine). Patients (and I'm one -- who
isn't?) also need to be better at weighing evidence and reasoning through
medical things; thus my interest in topics on that side as
well.
Debunking/Critical Thinking. Spotting fallacies, debunking goofy
views, and reasoning better have always been high on my list. If you can't think
straight, you should feel a panic attack coming on each time you contemplate
this sad state of affairs. I do, and so started a critical thinking course here
in the late 70s --as much to improve my noggin as well as those of the students. I am
especially interested in inductive reasoning, and think that reasoning with
numbers (probabilities and statistical whatnots) should be the main item in an
ideal critical thinking class. Thus I am always trying to learn more about this
end of logic/reasoning, often from my friend at George Mason University, David
Schum, who is a probability expert (see his books in our library), and my friend
at Carnegie-Mellon University, Clark Glymour, who is a causal reasoning expert
(yes, see his books in our library). Some colleagues have said that everything I
do is critical thinking in one way or another--that is my area. Fine by
me.
Other Academic Fields/Topics. I need an intellectual girdle. My
interests range over too many disciplines in the curriculum: physical and social
science, languages and literature, music, physical education, you name it. For
example, I have audited classes on microbiology, biostatistics, and Beethoven's
string quartets. Currently I am trying to learn some microeconomics (e.g., Gary
Becker, David Friedman, and Steven Landsburg). There is more to being educated
than philosophy, and more philosophy majors should realize that there are
philosophically interesting things in other fields if you look for them. Those
microeconomists are descendants of Bentham and Mill, to cite one
case.
The Arts. My main interests have been poetry, painting, and
classical music. To be more specific: collecting contemporary American poetry
(people like Ammons, Ashbery, Tate); writing/publishing poetry (e.g.,in
Poetry Northwest, Poetry Texas, The South Dakota Review);
discussing poetry with poet friends (e.g., Jonathan Williams, William Harmon,
the late A.R. Ammons). With painting: hundreds of works on paper (pencil, conte,
charcoal, watercolor, mixed media) and on canvas (acrylic, oil, mixed media) in
a raw, expressionistic style, often of human faces and figure studies. With
classical music: six years of voice training in lieder and opera, thus an
interest in performance practice; reviewing, mainly lieder (e.g., Schubert's
song cycles); of course collecting CDs, attending concerts and
recitals.
Athletics. Yes, fuddy duddy professors (admittedly few) are
interested in sports, but I tend to favor the individual sports and their whys
and wherefores. While young I competed in various sports (football, field, ice
hockey, wrestling) but chose to concentrate on an odd, minor, underground sport:
Olympic style weightlifting. I had the opportunity to train at Bob Hoffman's
York Barbell Club in York, PA in the 60s, when Americans were still winning
medals and championships in world competition--when we had lifters such as Tommy
Kono, Norbert Schemansky, Ike Berger, Bill March, and Gary Cleveland. I
continued in college (training with Gary Cleveland) until I realized that I was not going to be a champion.
In the past ten years I have dabbled in the training and thinking
end of the sport (especially the biomechanics of form and, as the headlines
dictate, the hoopla over "performance enhancing" drugs); and I remain in
contact with some the greats and near greats of the 60s and discuss lifting fine
points with a former Olympic and world champion on an almost daily (email)
basis. Unlike most professors, you may see me down at the athletic complex
watching the shot put events or in the stands at the softball games (at one time
half the team had taken my Intro. course). Not surprisingly, I continued to
exercise with weights for many years and would compete in one offbeat thing or
another from time to time: e.g., I have done the Empire State Building run-up
and gone to a professional wrestling camp in KY and had one pro match in TN.
Those days are over (sports injuries accumulate) but I still enjoy helping
athletes train and learning about the technical side of their sports.
HOW DO YOU THINK?
This section is both pre and post. That is, it gives you a
sample of what you may encounter in one of my classes, and also a way to see if
you got something out of one of my classes.
Philosophy Puzzles. Here are
two famous philosophy puzzles to think about and that I have discussed, at one
time or another, in Intro. And then two problems that could show up in my
philosophy of art course. The first two come from an old course manual I used
for Intro., A Conceptual Zoo, and the second pair come from a manual I used for
aesthetics, Welcome To The Beauty Parlor.
1. The statement "Maine
has many lakes" is about Maine. Since Aroostook County is in Maine, the
statement "Aroostook County grows potatoes" seems also to be about Maine. So
also, since Maine is in New England, do the two statements "New England is north
of Pennsylvania" and "New England States are small." Apparently we speak about
Maine whenever we speak about anything contained in (whether as a part, member,
member of a member, etc.) Maine, and whenever we speak about anything that
contains Maine. But to accept this principle is to be saddled with the
conclusion that any statement about anything is a statement about Maine.
Consider the statement "Florida is Democratic." According to the principle
stated, this is about the United States and therefore about Maine. The statement
"Satellites are planets," since it is about the universe and thus about whatever
is in the universe, would also be about Maine. Our dilemma is this. Given any
statement, we can argue plausibly that it is about Maine. On the other hand, to
admit that every statement is about Maine is to make utterly pointless any
assertion that a given statement is or is not about anything in particular. Just
where did we go wrong? (Nelson Goodman first stated this problem and pursued it
in a series of articles with his student Joseph Ullian).
2.
Consider this claim: All polar bears are white. Is it true? What would tend to
confirm it? Presumably every white polar bear you run across. Each would count
as evidence for the truth of the claim. The general principle involved here
seems to be that everything that is both an A and a B stands as a confirming
instance of the claim "All As are Bs." Now it clearly must be true that whatever
is evidence for a given claim is evidence for any logically equivalent claim;
for a logically equivalent claim is merely another way of saying the same thing.
Well, the claim "All non-white things are non-polar bears" and the claim "All
polar bears are white" are logically equivalent claims. By our general principle
concerning evidence, anything that is not white and not a polar bear--for
example, an old black shoe--confirms the former claim that all non-white things
are non-polar bears. This old black shoe must therefore also be confirming
evidence for the equivalent claim that all polar bears are white. We are to
conclude, then, that we can confirm the claim that all polar bears are white by
assembling old black shoes and such objects. Or are we to conclude this? (Carl
Hempel first stated this problem and wrote on it.)
3. Consider an
original painting by Rembrandt and a recent forgery of it--a forgery so
deceptive that at present you can't see any difference between the forgery and
the original. To be sure, the results of microchemical, microscopic, and kindred
analyses bespeak which is which: to the left is the original, and on the right
is the imposter. But save for such indicators, you're adrift here. You can't
tell the paintings apart, at least for now, by merely looking at them. And there
are no guarantees: you may never be able to tell them apart by merely looking at
them. Confessing the present and perhaps permanent inability, can there be any
aesthetic difference between the two paintings for you now? Why not hang a
perfect fake in the living room? (Nelson Goodman first wrote on this
problem.)
4. Many old timey (early 20th century) aestheticians
thought there was something ineffable about a work of art. Here is what John
Dewey said: "If all meanings could be adequately expressed by words, the arts of
painting and music would not exist. There are values and meanings that can be
expressed only by immediately visible and audible qualities, and to ask what
they mean in the sense of something that can be put into words is to deny their
distinctive existence." Can you pin down what Dewey is saying here, and then do
you believe any of it? (This sort of view can also be found in D.W. Prall,
Suzanne Langer and others, when aesthetics hadn't been retooled by analytic
types, back pre 1950.)
Here are three Analysis problems. The journal
Analysis used to have a contest: here is a problem, send in your entries,
the best will be printed in the journal. The journal hasn't done this in
decades, alas.
1. In April 1958, John Austin reported on the
submissions for this problem about generalizations. Consider "All swans are
white or black." Does this refer to possible swans on canals of Mars? (This is
1958, so pre space probes and all that NASA stuff.)
2. Another
oldie but goodie from their contests: Is it possible that one and the same
individual object should cease to exist and, later on, start to
exist?
3. One of my favorites, and one of the last Analysis
problems, this time from the 70s. There exist just 100 tablets in a certain
script, as yet undeciphered. Scholar A considers all of the tablets and works
out a decipherment which makes sense of them. Independently, scholar B selects
50 of the tablets and from them works out a decipherment which he or she then
tries out, successfully, on the other 50. Is one of these scholars behaving more
rationally than the other? If so, which and why? If their decipherments differ,
does the difference in procedure give any reason to accept one rather than the
other?
Assorted Problems. Here are three problems I hand out the first
day of my critical thinking class.
1. Back in 1995 on a talk show
on CNBC, the host was talking with a former L.A. district attorney about the
O.J. Simpson trial. A caller phoned in to say: Harvard law professor Alan
Dershowitz is one of the Simpson defense team, and Dershowitz said that he would
not put a lying witness on the stand, so if Simpson doesn't take the stand, then
we know he's guilty. Neither Grodin nor his guest said a thing about this
comment; they simply ducked. Do you agree with the caller?
2. I
sent away for the literature on a back exercise machine that is supposed to
relieve back pain. The literature includes a summary of a test of the machine's
worth. Over a period of six years, 1,400 male and female patients aged 15 to 71
years with acute and chronic lumbar and cervical pain used the machine three
times a week for three to eight weeks. Of the 1,400 patients, 85% (1,224)
experienced satisfactory relief from their pain with equal frequency in acute
and chronic cases, male and female patients, as well as lumbar and cervical
cases. There were no instances in which the machine increased the pain or
worsened the underlying cause. Less than 1% (seven patients) did not benefit
from the therapy. Should I buy this machine?
3. A 1998 episode of
the tv show "Law And Order" was about a serial murderer who liked to watch tv.
He was being defended by a Harvard law professor who admitted that his client
committed the murders, but argued that there were mitigating circumstances:
viz., his client's tv viewing led to his sociopathic behavior. The law professor
put an expert witness on the stand--the head of the National Advisory Committee
on Television Violence. The expert claimed that violent tv shows are causing an
epidemic of violent behavior among today's youth. In support of his claim, the
expert cited the fact that, among young people who have been convicted of
violent acts, an alarmingly high percentage of them--close to 80%--spent most of
their leisure time watching violent tv. Assistant D.A. Jack McCoy responded to
this (in his cross-examination) by noting that 80% of juvenile offenders
probably chewed gum, too. There is a much better response--indeed, a fallacy
worth noting. What is it?
WHAT SHOULD YOU READ?
If you took my Introduction to Philosophy course and want more
reading that is easy, accessible, and short, try these ten. 1. What Does It
All Mean? by Thomas Nagel. Compact discussions of standard and not so
standard problems (skepticism to death). 2. Paradoxes by R.M. Sainsbury.
For example: Zeno's paradoxes, Sorites arguments, Newcomb's problem, grue
paradox, Prisoner's dilemma, the Surprise Exam, the Liar, Russell's paradoxes.
3. The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. A classic introduction
from one of the greats of 20th century philosophy. Concentrates on big questions
from epistemology and metaphysics. 4.Wittgenstein's Poker by David
Edmonds and John Eidinow. Two British journalists introduce famous people and
debates in the history of 20th century philosophy--founders of the analytical
school. 5. Dilemmas by Gilbert Ryle of Oxford University. Major figure in
ordinary language philosophy shows how to dissolve philosophy problems through
linguistic analysis; explains how many problems result from category mistakes.
6. Logic by Wesley Salmon. A useful survey of basic points in logic and
well-known forms of argument, both deductive and inductive. Also covers
definitions. 7. Morality: An Introduction to Ethics by Bernard Williams.
Chapters on amoralism, subjectivism relativism, defining morality, meaning of
"good," God and ethics, human nature and ethics, utilitarianism. 8.
Metaphysics by Richard Taylor. Chapters on mind-body problem, free will,
fatalism, causation, God's existence, space and time, and more. Well worth it.
9. The Practice of Philosophy by Jay F. Rosenberg. A how-to book.
Chapters on arguing, criticizing, writing about, and reading
philosophers/philosophy books and articles. Just the thing for essay exams and
term papers. 10. Why Does Language Matter To Philosophy? by Ian Hacking.
Explains why so much of contemporary philosophy is concerned with the meanings
of words. Surveys the views of people such as Russell, Wittgenstein, Ayer,
Chomsky, Davidson.
If you took my Critical Thinking course and want to
read more, here are ten short, snappy, and accessible books to look at: 1.
Innumeracy by John Paulos. Subtitle: mathematical illiteracy and its
consequences. Covers gaffs involving numbers in the real world: e.g.,
statistical fallacies. Actually was a best-seller, got the author on the Tonight
Show. 2. The Web Of Belief, 2nd edition, by W.V. Quine and J.S. Ullian.
Learn how to do hypothesis reasoning by looking for the virtues of a plausible
hypothesis. A useful way of looking at your beliefs and trying to keep them
rational. 3. Irrationality In Everyday Life by Robyn Dawes. Subtitled:
how pseudo-scientists, lunatics, and the rest of us systematically fail to think
rationally. Very practical look at common fallacies in reasoning with
probabilities. 4. Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. A self-help book
on reasoning with probabilities. Subtitle: how to know when numbers deceive you.
Claims to present a sure-fire way to estimate probabilities accurately, and
painlessly. 5. Learning To Philosophize by E.R. Emmet, or Thinking With
Concepts by John Wilson. Either will do. Both teach you to think like an
analytic philosopher about any idea problem or claim--how to do conceptual
anaylsis. Lots of examples and exercises. 6. Logic by Wesley Salmon. Also
in the list for those who took my Intro. A solid survey of the basics to cope
with common types of arguments. 7. Thinking Straight by Antony Flew.
Jam-packed with good things: distinctions, errors to avoid, discussions of this
and that which will add to your mental tool kit. 8. Decision Traps by
Edward Russo and Paul Schoemaker. Subtitle: the ten barriers to brilliant
decision-making and how to overcome them. Uses realistic business examples to
cover points from the work of Tversky and Kahneman. Used most in business
schools. 9. Elementary Logic by Willard Van Orman Quine. Elegant
introduction to deductive logic in symbols, develops a test for validity of
truth functional arguments and a procedure for proving, if you can, that a
quantifier argument is valid. 10. Reason And Argument by Peter Geach.
Very short chapters on consistency, inference, definitions, explanations,
conditionals, practical reasoning, testing plurative arguments with Lewis
Carroll diagrams.
If you took my Philosophy of Art Course and want to
read more in that area, here are ten things to look at: 1. Languages of
Art by Nelson Goodman. The best book in aesthetics in the past 50 years,
though not easy in the main chapters. 2. Philosophic Turnings by Paul
Ziff. Includes some of his well-known essays on defining and evaluating art.
"Reasons in Art Criticism" is a tour de force. 3. Meaning and Truth in the
Arts by John Hospers. A clear and sober look at typical claims in the arts
that involve these ideas. Good for sobering up. 4. Aesthetics: Problems in
the Philosophy of Criticism by Monroe Beardsley. Surveys no end of topics
and argues for his own view on each. 5. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
Criticism by Jerome Stolnitz. Another good survey of standard topics by a
cultured philosopher. 6. Aesthetics and Language edited by William Elton.
Collects the essays that put aesthetics on notice that the analytic philosophers
had come to the beauty parlor. 7. Philosophy Looks at the Arts edited by
Joseph Margolis. Only the 1962, first edition. Contains many classic essays.
Later editions do not. 8. Art and Philosophy edited by William Kennick.
One of the last anthologies to have mainly top essays by top people (two thirds;
the other third are obvious within a page of each). 9. Approach to
Aesthetics: Collected Papers on Philosophical Aesthetics by Frank Sibley
(edited by Benson, Redfern, and Cox). Sixteen essays by a well-known figure.
Topics include defining art, defining aesthetic terms, reasons in art criticism,
objectivity. 10. Antiaesthetics by Paul Ziff. Nine essays on antiart,
dance, art and soiciobiology, aesthetics of sport, the identity of a piece of
music, Wiitgenstein's writings on aesthetics, the limits of analysis.
Iconoclastic, engaging.
Other Readings: If you are a philosophy major,
then try to read as many of these ten classics of analytic philosophy as you can
before you graduate: 1. Word and Object, W.V. Quine. 2. From A Logical
Point of View, W.V. Quine. 3. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, Nelson
Goodman. 4. Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein. 5.
Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein. 6. Logic and
Language, 1st and 2nd series, edited by Antony Flew. 7. Collected
Papers, J.L. Austin. 8. Logical Positivism, edited by A.J. Ayer. 9.
The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle. 10. Sense and Sensibilia, J.
L. Austin. Certainly there are other books to read, but these will get you with
the program--the dominant school of thought in philosophy since 1900 at least.
HOW ABOUT SOME LINKS?