Meetings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 2:30-3:50pm.

In Condon Hall #128B, which is the weird outdoor access room, not 128.

No meetings Monday January 21 (MLK Day) or Monday February 18 (Prez Day).

Welcome to PHIL 350: Topics in Epistemology!

While face to face interactions will be our bread and butter, this course website will be a valuable tool for us too. Here you can find copies of the course syllabus, schedule, paper topics (TBA), midterm and final exam studyguides (TBA), and descriptions of the various course assignments.

There's also nice friendly links to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which provides fantastic overviews on topics we'll be tackling (testimony, skepticism, etc.), and the popular professional epistemology blog Certain Doubts, just in case you get curious about the sorts of people who analyze knowledge fulltime.

Most essential is the "Readings" link, where you will find a bibliography of the texts we'll be engaging this quarter and where to find these texts. About one-third of our readings will be in the Pojman anthology and two-thirds not. Most of those not in the anthology are on the web: either in the public domain or via the University of Washington Libraries' online journal subscriptions, which can be accessed on- or off-campus as long as you have a UW NETID.

(2/7/2008) Midterm exam studyguide, paper topics, guidelines for writing philosophy, and guidelines for peer review have all been posted. Don't forget: midterm is on Monday, February 11.

(2/20/2008) Several readings have been posted. Selections from Locke, Hume, and Reid (already distributed in class) are now available online, attached with a piece by UW epistemologist Laurence BonJour about Other Minds, Testimony, and Memory. The BonJour is optional, though pages 169 thru 177 are strongly recommended for those seeking to understand why someone might be pessimistic about the likely success of Hume's inductive argument for testimonial justification. Also posted is Lackey's "It Takes Two to Tango," which is a required reading for Friday February 22. I'm also posting James van Cleve's essay on Reid on testimony as a supplemental optional reading.

>>> NEW<<< (3/13/2008) The final exam studyguide distributed in class on Monday is now available here on the course website. Further news: the final exam review session will be on Monday March 17, noon to 2pm, in Condon 511E. That's the philosophy department seminar room on the east end of the building.