| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | No required readings. Just show up. |
| 2-3 | Zeno | Sainsbury. Chapter 1. If you're up for a fun (and very short) philosophy read, you can check out: Parsons, Josh. "The Eleatic hangover cure." Revised in 2006. Originally published in Analysis 64, no. 4 (2004). (PDF)# |
| 4-6 | Infinity | Required Reading Rucker. Chapter 1. (No need to feel guilty if you skip the last three sections: Infinity in the Mindscape, The Absolute Infinite, and Connections.) Recommended Reading For those of you who want to go through the proofs, I also recommend: Fraenkel, A. Set Theory and Logic. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1966, section 3. |
| 7-9 | The Higher Infinite | Required Reading Rucker. Chapter 2. Recommended Reading Rucker. Excursion I. |
| 10-11 | Set Theory | Required Reading Sainsbury. Section 5.1. Recommended Reading Rucker. Chapter 5. |
| 12-13 | Vagueness | Required Reading Wright, Crispin. "Language-mastery and the sorites paradox." In Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics. Edited by Gareth Evans and John Henry McDowell. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1976, pp. 223-247. ISBN: 0198245173. Reprinted in Vagueness: A Reader. Reprint ed. Edited by Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, pp. 151-173. ISBN: 0262611457. |
| 14-15 | Newcomb's Puzzle | Required Reading Sainsbury. Chapter 3. Recommended Reading Lewis, David. "Prisonsers' Dilemma Is a Newcomb Problem." Philosophy and Public Affairs 8, no. 3 (Spring 1979): 235-240. ———. "Causal Decision Theory." Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN: 0195036468. (difficult reading) |
| 16-17 | The Liar Paradox | Required Reading Sainsbury. Sections 5.2 through 5.9. Recommended Reading Tarski, Alfred. "The Semantic Conception of Truth: and the Foundations of Semantics." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4, no. 3 (March 1944): 341-376. |
| 18-19 | Computability | Recommended Reading Boolos, George S., John P. Burgess, and Richard C. Jeffrey. Computability and Logic. 4th ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002, chapters 3 and 4, pp. 23-44. |
| 20-21 | Backward Induction and Common Knowledge | Required Reading Carroll, John. "The Backward Induction Argument." Theory and Decision: An International Journal for Methods and Models in the Social and Decision Sciences 48, no. 1 (February 200): 61-84. |
| 22-23 | Godel's Theorem | Required Reading Rucker. Excursion II. Recommended Reading For those who want to have a look at the proofs (very difficult - but this is, after all, MIT): Mendelson, Elliott. Introduction to Mathematical Logic. 4th ed. London, UK: Chapman & Hall, 1997, Chapter 3. ISBN: 0412808307. |
| 24-27 | Godel's Theorem (cont.) | Required Reading Sainsbury. Chapter 3. Recommended Reading Lewis, David. "Prisonsers' Dilemma Is a Newcomb Problem." Philosophy and Public Affairs 8, no. 3 (Spring 1979): 235-240. ———. "Causal Decision Theory." Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986. ISBN: 0195036468. (difficult reading) |
Table of Contents
Study Materials
Readings
 When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more. |
This section contains documents that could not be made accessible to screen reader software. A "#" symbol is used to denote such documents.
This section includes both the required and recommended readings for the course. Available below are readings by topic.
Required Texts
Sainsbury, R. M. Paradoxes. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1995. ISBN: 0521483476.
Rucker, R. Infinity and the Mind. New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press, 2004 or 2005. ISBN: 0691121273.