Now that all on-ground classes at MTSU have been moved to remote learning contexts, this page and its links will serve as our primary vehicle for conducting our scholarship in the weeks ahead. As you are doubtless aware, we are aiming at a moving target at the same time that the sands are shifting beneath our feet. Unlike the attention we are all able to give one another during a regular class period, our foci may be distracted occasionally by the exigencies of daily life in a time of pandemic plague. Even so, it is worth remembering that even in the best of times, the vast bulk of our learning happens outside the meagre fifty-five minutes we share on any given day. Class lectures are like bread recipes: they specify ingredients and provide some direction for mixing, kneeding, and baking; but you are, and have always been, your own bakers. The modules to which you will be directed as we proceed will simply approximate the lists of ingredients and specific instructions you would have otherwise encountered in class. Of course, this is less than ideal, but let us remember that every idea, every text, every insight we will be studying throughout the rest of this term was created, polished, and disseminated long before the advent of video conferencing and the instant karma we collect on cell phones; we'll be fine without the bells and whistles; after all, most learning since the dawn of the written word was remote.

The syllabus for this class, then, will remain essentially unaltered; only the methods of intellectual exchange will have changed. To consult the original main syllabus page and its links, direct your browser here: Original Course Syllabus

(2)  Applied Analysis. Various arguments are presented in the texts for the second part of the course (Soul Searching), many purporting to have solved or dissolved some classical philosophical problem or other (e.g., memory & personality, sense & reference, knowledge & perception, etc.); examine and evaluate one such argument.

(3)  Experimental Analysis. Devise a thought-experiment to test an hypothesis derived or derivable from a specific (biological, computational, mechanical, etc.) model of mentality.

   (a)  Theoretical Analysis:      30 pts.
   (b)  Applied Analysis:           30 pts.
   (c)  Experimental Analysis:   30 pts.

(1) Spelling error here.

(2) Noncritical weakness in sentence structure.

(3) Critical weakness in sentence structure. (meaning lost).

(4) Punctuation not clear.

(5) Term or phrase unclear or unexplained.

(6) Term or phrase ambiguous.

(7) New paragraph warranted here.

(8) Circumlocution here; simpler expression available.

(9) General structure of this argument unclear.

(10) Conclusion does not follow without unstated assumptions.

(11) Relevance of this point to your argument is not clear.

(12) This assertion is questionable and requires further support.

(13) Further consequences of this claim are unmentioned but relevant.

(14) This inference is formally invalid.