Contact info: My office is 353 Bartlett. My office phone is 545-5784. My office hours are Tuesdays 3-4pm, Thursdays 2pm-3pm and by appointment. Feel free to drop by any time I’m in my office. You may also e-mail me at klement (at) philos (dot) umass (dot) edu.

Our course webpage is . . . http://courses.umass.edu/phil701r-klement

Required texts: I shall endeavor to make all required readings for this course available electronically. However, if possible, it would be advisable for you to own your own copy of Russell’s The Principles of Mathematics and Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, and if possible Principia Mathematica to *56 and collections such as Essays in Analysis (out of print) and Logic and Knowledge. I also recommend The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell, edited by N. Griffin.

Course requirements: Your final grade is based on the following: (1) in-class participation (20%), (2) weekly reading assignments (30%), and (3) a final term paper or book reviews (50%).

Weekly reading assignments: You are expected to carefully read the selected texts for each session before the seminar meeting and come prepared to discuss them. To facilitate this, each week you are expected to write a 1-3 page essay in which you (1) summarize the required reading, (2) identify any criticisms or points of discussion (including points in need of clarification). These essays are due at the start of class on the day we will be discussing the relevant readings. You will be graded on a 1-5 scale, with 1 representing a barely acceptable essay, 2 representing a deeply problematic essay that misrepresents Russell’s views or commits other abuses of philosophical method, 3 representing an essay that is slightly lacking in some area, but generally acceptable, 4 representing a good essay that performs the desired tasks as expected, and 5 representing an essay with substantial and original insight. (You should never expect to receive anything above 4. A student receiving a 4 on every assignment should still expect a good grade for this portion. I will only award a 5 to an essay that surpasses my expectations.) In determining your grade, I will take into account only your 11 highest scores of 13 possible essays. This means you may either drop your two lowest scores, or simply not write two essays (or combine the two options).

You are also to choose between the following two options:
1. Term paper (15-25 pages): The paper should constitute critical and original discussion either of the interpretation of Russell’s works or the philosophical issues they raise. The amount of outside research done for the paper is left to your discretion, but a careful search of the relevant secondary material is strongly recommended. — OR —
2. Book reviews: Read TWO books written on or about Russell's philosophy during the relevant period and, for each, prepare a lengthy academic-style book review (6-10 pages each) in which you first summarize the book, and evaluate it in terms of both the accuracy of its interpretation of Russell, and its other philosophical merits.

Incompletes: Per departmental policy, graduate students in philosophy taking incompletes must complete all course requirements by the first day of classes for Spring semester.

Possible Tentative Reading Schedule (this will change)

REQ    =  Required reading                              REC =  Recommended reading           
CPBRv# = Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell volume #  EA  = Essays in Analysis           
L&K    = Logic and Knowledge                            M&L = Mysticism and Logic                      
PE     = Philosophical Essays                           RoM = Russell on Metaphysics                 
CC     = Relevant Cambridge Companion pieces            † = on JSTOR

Week 1 -- Course introduction / Lecture on the history of logic

Week 2 -- REQ: The Principles of Mathematics, chaps. I – III (pp. 3-41).
REC: “Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics” (in CPBRv3), also known as “Mathematics and the Metaphysicians” (in M&L)
CC: Grattan-Guinness, Godwyn and Irvine
Online: PoM | MathAndMeta.pdf

Week 3 -- REQ: The Principles of Mathematics, chaps. IV – V and §427 (pp. 42-65, 449-451)
REC: G. E. Moore, “The Nature of Judgment”† (from Mind n.s. 8 (1899): 176-93)
CC: Griffin, Cartwright
Online: PoM | Moore

Week 4 -- REQ: The Principles of Mathematics, chaps. VI – X, §§348-349, and appendices A-B (pp. 66-107; 367-368; 501-528)
REC: Gottlob Frege, “Function and Concept” and “On Sense and Reference”† (from, e.g., The Frege Reader)
CC: Beaney
Online: PoM | FunctionAndConcept |SenseAndReference

Week 5 -- REQ: “The Existential Import of Propositions”† (in CPBRv4 or EA or RoM), and “On Denoting”† (in CPBRv4 or EA or LK)
REC: “Meinong’s Theory of Complexes and Assumptions”† (in CPBRv4, or EA)”, “On the Meaning and Denotation of Phrases” (in CPBRv4), “Necessity and Possibility” (in CPBRv4), letters to Meinong 1904-1907 (in RoM)
CC: Hylton
Online: OnDenoting | ExistentialImportOfPropositions (JSTOR) | Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions (JSTOR): Part One, Part Two, and Part Three | MeaningAndDenotionOfPhrases | NecessityAndPossibility | MeinongLetters

Week 6 -- REQ: “On Some Difficulties in the Theory of Transfinite Numbers and Order Types”, “On the Substitutional Theory of Classes and Relations” and “On ‘Insolubilia’ and their Solution by Symbolic Logic” (all in EA)
REC: “The Theory of Implication”† (in American Journal of Mathematics 28 (1906): 159-202)
CC: Landini
Online: RequiredReadings (All) | TheoryOfImplication (JSTOR) | JourdainLetter

Week 7 -- REQ: “The Regressive Method of Discovering the Premises of Mathematics” (in EA), and “Mathematical Logic As Based on the Theory of Types”† (in LK or American Journal of Mathematics 30 (1908): 222-262)
CC: Urquhart, Hager
Online: MathematicalLogic... (JSTOR) | RegressiveMethod

Week 8 -- REQ: “The Nature of Truth [1905]” (in CPBRv4), “On the Nature of Truth [1907]”, part III (from Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 7 (1907): 44-49). and “On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood [1910]” (in CPBRv6)
Online: NT 1905 | ONT 1907 (JSTOR) | ONTF 1910

Week 9 -- REQ: Principia Mathematica, Introduction to First Edition (pp. 1-84) OR “The Theory of Logical Types” (in CPBRv6 or EA) (These are virtually identical.)
Online: PM Intro

Week 10 -- REQ: “Analytic Realism” (in CPBRv6 and RoM), “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description” (in CPBRv6 or M&L or RoM), selections from the Theory of Knowledge manuscript (=CPBR v7)
REC: “On the Relations of Universals and Particulars” (in CPBRv6 or LK), and/or The Problems of Philosophy
CC: Baldwin
Online: AnalyticRealism | Knowledge by... (JSTOR) | TheoryOfKnowledge parts | Relations of Universals... (JSTOR) | Problems of Philosophy

Week 11 -- REQ: “The Relation of Sense-data to Physics” and “The Ultimate Constituents of Matter” (both in M&L and CPBRv8)
REC: The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (in L&K or as stand-alone)
Online: Relation of... | Ultimate Constituents... | PLA

Week 12 -- REQ: Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
REC: “skim” of corresponding parts of Principia Mathematica

Week 13 -- REQ: “On Propositions: What They Are and How They Mean” (in L&K or CPBR v8); “Logical Atomism,” (in L&K or CPBR v9 and PLA)
REC: “Vagueness” (in CPBRv9 and RoM)
CC: Linsky, Tully
Online: On Propositions (JSTOR) | Logical Atomism (1924) | Vagueness

Week 14 -- REQ: Introduction to Principia Mathematica, 2nd ed. Introduction to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
REC: F. P. Ramsey, “The Foundations of Mathematics”
Online: TLP Intro | PM2 Intro | Ramsey

1959 BBC Interview with Bertrand Russell (Mostly Biographical)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3