I’m teaching Analytic Philosophy this year. It’s an odd sort of course, set up like a history course in its scope (Frege to Gettier!), and yet covering material still recent enough that there isn’t the kind of secondary literature that we often use to guide us through a period. That literature is only just getting started. Of course to add to the difficulty, I decided to start with philosophy of language. Intellectually that makes some sense, since language is a central issue for almost everyone in the period. But Russell, Frege and Strawson don’t make for an easy start to the term, especially since some of the students have only one prior course in philosophy.  Worse, unlike Gillian Russell, who has some good ideas for starting a philosophy of language course, I don’t have a whole term to talk about these issues, but instead a paultry three weeks.

This has meant I have had to be creative. So I have been turning the various examples in the literature into group exercises, which have worked surprisingly well. Now if only I can figure out how to do this for the metaphysics section! I include two examples that worked particularly well (both inspired by Donnellan) under the fold.

When I used these in class this year I gave all the story before asking any questions. Next time I use them I will split them into two bits, as indicated below by "side 1" and "side 2".

Kill Bill (the students named this one)

I actually gave out two different versions of this one. I give the variation in brackets.

Side 1:

Alice is on trial for the murder of Bill. You and your friend Pat are watching the trial. In response to every question asked, Alice explains that the government is using her hair clips to evesdrop on her. Pat turns to you and says: "Bill’s murder is insane."

Who is Pat talking about? Has she said something true?

Side 2:

As a matter of fact Alice didn’t murder Bill. Bill’s death was an accident. [John murdered Bill].

Does this change your answers to the first two questions? Why?

How would each of Frege, Russell and Strawson answer these questions? Are any of their accounts satisfactory?

The Martini

Side 1:

You are at a party with your friend Pat. Pat points to the corner of the room and says, "the man drinking the martini is my boss". In he corner there is a man holding a martini glass and a man holding a tumbler.

Who is Pat talking about? Has she said something true?

Side 2:

Actually the man with the martini glass is drinking water, and the man with the tumbler has a martini in it.

Does this change your answers to the first two questions? Why?

How would each of Frege, Russell and Strawson answer these questions? Are any of their accounts satisfactory?

The response to The Martini was particularly interesting. The group decided that in the complete situation Pat had said something false. The story never says which man is Pat’s boss. Presumably the reasoning went something like this: Pat is very unlikely to be mistaken about who her boss is. Also, Pat must mean to talk about the man holding the martini glass, since even if she knew the tumbler had the martini in it, she has no reason to think I do and so no reason to think I should be able to pick out her boss based on this information. Therefore the man holding the martini glass is Pat’s boss.

I was rather surprised to find most of the students were already little Russellian’s, but perhaps this is because we had read Russell so recently.