PHL 361, Philosophy of Mind                                                                 Dr. Poston

T,R 9:30-10:45                                                                                       HUM 124

Office Hours: MWF 1 to 2, TR 11 to 12 & by appt.                                 Phone: 460-6248

Email: mylastname@jaguar1.usouthal.edu

Course Webpage: http://www.southalabama.edu/philosophy/poston/mind361/mind361.htm

 

Course Description: Philosophy of mind is, according to some, the most active field in contemporary philosophy.  The issues in the philosophy of mind are relevant to a wide-range of philosophical topics.  Questions about the nature of language, human persons, knowledge and free will are topics within the philosophy of mind.  In this course we shall focus on traditional problems in the philosophy of mind.  We shall begin with a survey of the literature on the mind-body problem, the problem of how one’s mental life—thoughts, desires, feelings, qualia, etc.—is related to one’s physical body, primarily the brain.  In the reminder of the course we will examine various problems for physicalism.  You will learn about the knowledge argument, the modal argument, the explanatory gap and so on.  Additionally, you will acquire a number of important philosophical concepts: intentionality, intensionality, Turing machine, functionalism, reduction, supervenience, etc.  The philosophy of mind is very exciting! 

Texts:            

  1. David Chalmers, ed. Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

  2. John Searle, Mind, Oxford University Press 2004.

 

Course Policies and Procedures:

 

Evaluation: All written assignments should be emailed to me before class the day it is due.  Please email the document in Word.  I will return the document to you with comments, using Word’s comment function.  It’s best if you have Word 2003 or above.  If you don’t know how to display comments in Word, talk to me after class and I’ll show you how to do this. 

  • Article summaries (500 word limit) – 50%
    • These will be graded as follows
      • 5 = excellent
      • 4 = good
      • 3 = so-so
      • 2 = poor
      • 1 = extremely poor
      • 0 = no effort at all
  • 2 argumentative papers, 2000 words – 20% each
  • Participation – 10%
    • Participation & Class Attendance: Your score is determined as follows:
      • 2 or fewer unexcused absences:             10/10
      • 3 unexcused absences:                           8/10
      • 4 unexcused absences:                           6/10
      • 5-6 unexcused absences:                        4/10
      • More than 6 unexcused absences:          0%

    • Regular classroom participation can increase your attendance score, but not above 10.
    • The number of unexcused absences is determined at the end of the semester by counting the number of times your name is missing from the sign-in sheet that I pass through the class most days.

 

Make-up Work: Since everything is done over email this shouldn’t be an issue.  In any case, I don’t accept make-up work for the article summaries. 

Disabilities Policy: If you have a specific disability that qualifies you for academic accommodations, please notify me and provide certification from Disability Services (Office of Special Students Services). The Office of Special Students Services is located in the Student Center, Room 270, Phone 460-7212.

 

Academic Dishonesty Policy: Don’t do it!  Please see the Student Academic Conduct Policy of the University for details.

 

 

Teaching Philosophy

 

The kind of courses I like are one’s in which I learn a lot, courses that I come out of with a good grasp of the logical space of the field—the issues that divide up the field and the possible positions.  I like to read the very best articles and books in the field and think really hard about those and read nothing else.  I think it’s important to think on your own about issues in an informed way.  The way I do that is to read the very best stuff and think hard about that stuff.  I don’t like to read too much—information overload.  I try to set up the readings and writing assignments with this in mind.  You’ll write A LOT in my course.  But this is to achieve the goal of thoroughly understanding the articles we will be reading.  You don’t understand a position until you can explain it in writing.  Also, you don’t understand a philosophical claim until you know all the arguments for it and against it.

About class dynamics, I like to keep things low key.  I encourage lots of questions.  If there’s anything you don’t understand—and there will be lots of things—circle the word or paragraph and ask me in class.  It’s very important to ask lots of questions.  I hope we can have some good discussions in class.  Come prepared.  I’ll ask you about your take on arguments or key premises; how you think a position should be developed; how you think one should argue for a claim; whether a key premise is reasonable; etc.  If you don’t come prepared then a lot of these questions will fall on deaf ears.  Let’s have a good time.  We get to think about some fundamental and very difficult philosophical problems!

 

 

Tentative (& Incomplete) Reading Schedule

 

An entry marked with * indicates that you are to write a 1-page summary of the article.

 

PART I: FOUNDATIONS

A. Dualism

1.    John Searle, A Dozen Problems in the Philosophy of Mind, Mind chapter 1 (8/23)

2.    Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (II and VI). (8/28)

B. Behaviorism

3.    *Gilbert Ryle, Descartes' myth. (8/30)

4.    Rudolf Carnap, Psychology in physical language (excerpt). (8/30)

5.    *Hilary Putnam, Brains and behavior. (9/4)

C. The identity theory

6.    U.T. Place, Is consciousness a brain process? (9/6)

7.    Herbert Feigl, The "mental" and the "physical" (excerpt). (9/11)

8.    J. J. C. Smart, Sensations and brain processes. (9/13)

9.    Searle, Mind chapter 2 (9/18)

D. Functionalism

10. *Hilary Putnam, The nature of mental states. (9/20)

11.  David M. Armstrong, The causal theory of the mind. (9/25)

12. Ned Block, Troubles with functionalism (excerpt). (9/25)

13. *Martine Nida-Rümelin, Pseudonormal vision: An actual case of qualia inversion? (9/27)

14. Searle, Mind chapter 3  (10/2)

E. Reduction, Realization, and Supervenience

15. Chalmers’ video “The Conscious Mind” (10/4)

16. *Fodor “Special Sciences (or: the Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis) (10/9)

17. *Jaegwon Kim, Multiple realization and the metaphysics of reduction. (10/11)

18. Chalmers’ interview (10/16)

19. Joseph Levine interview (10/18)


First Paper Due:  Friday 10/19 via email.  Must be in my inbox by the time I wake up Saturday morning

20. Terence Horgan, From supervenience to superdupervenience: Meeting the demands of a material world (excerpt). (10/23)

21. “Supervenience” handout (10/23)

F. Mental causation

22. *Jaegwon Kim, The many problems of mental causation (excerpt). (10/25)

 

PART II. CONSCIOUSNESS

General 

23. Searle, Mind Chapters 4 & 5 (10/30)

24. Thomas Nagel, What is it like to be a bat (11/1)

25. *Ned Block, Concepts of consciousness (11/6)

26. *Daniel C. Dennett, Quining qualia. (11/8)  (Read sections 1-3 and write an article summary on those sections; then read section 4 and later sections 5-6)

27. *David J. Chalmers, Consciousness and its place in nature [skip section 6 “The Two-Dimensional Argument against Type-B Materialism”] (11/13)

Modal arguments

28.  Saul A. Kripke, Naming and necessity (excerpt). (11/15)

The knowledge argument

29.  *David Lewis, What Experience Teaches (11/27)

The Explanatory Gap
30.  *Joseph Levine, Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap (11/29)

31.  *Colin McGinn, Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem? (12/4)

 

Final Paper due Monday December 10th