Announcements

5/4

There will be a review session for the final, at 2 pm next Wednesday May 11, in room 202 in the Philosophy Building (5 Washington Place). As I said in class, this session will be most useful to you if you make the effort to study and review as much as you can on your own before the session.

Here again is a link to the review sheet.

The final exam will be on Monday May 16 from 10-11:50 am in Kimmel 803. Notice that the exam starts at 10, not at 11.

5/3

A while back, I linked to Shelly Kagan's online lectures at Yale, whose topics overlap substantially with the material we've been discussing. I've excerpted some parts of the transcripts of his lectures that cover the material we're discussing at the end of the course. I recommend you to read these alongside the Feldman---or watch or listen to Kagan lecture. Here are some segments on metaphysical and conceptual questions about death:

• Kagan on what is death?. This parallels Feldman's discussion in Ch 4.
• Kagan on whether you can imagine that you are dead. This is an interesting side-topic, which we haven't discussed.
• Kagan on the relationship between being essentially alive and being immortal. Consider this in connection with the Termination thesis, which says that living things cease to exist when they are no longer alive.

Here are some segments on death and value theory. We already started discussing the first topic; we'll continue with that, and start discussing the others, in class on Wednesday and next Monday:

• Kagan on why is death bad?. This parallel's Feldman's discussion in Ch. 8.
• Kagan on hedonism
• Kagan on when is death bad?. This connects with Feldman's discussion in Ch. 6, and is one of the topics in his Ch. 9.
• Kagan on Lucretius' argument. This is another of the topics in Feldman's Ch. 9.

5/2

For Wednesday, we'll continue discussing Feldman Ch 8, and will also discuss Ch 9.

Here is a review sheet for the final exam. We will also distribute a sample final in class, so that you can see what the format and kinds of questions will be.

4/25

Lecture notes on Parfit.

For Wednesday, read Feldman Ch 4 and 6. (We assigned Chapter 4 last week; be sure you've read it, and also read Chapter 6.) Next week, we will be discussing Feldman Ch 8 and 9.

4/24

Most of you saw quite substantial improvements in the second draft of your first paper. Here's a hint for your second paper: write multiple drafts. We're not going to collect them and give you feedback on them, but you can realize many of the benefits by simply making a serious attempt at a draft, and then stepping away from it a day or two, then coming back and rewriting it from scratch. Or ask other students in the class to give you feedback on it---we highly recommend this. Or come talk to the TAs or me about your argument---we can do this with you, though we won't read drafts. Or talk to other students about your argument. All of these steps help you write a better paper.

4/20

Finish reading the Perry dialogues.

Lecture notes on Perry's Third Night. Partly these online notes cover Bernard Williams, "The Self and the Future", which I'll just leave as optional reading. Partly the notes cover material we discussed in class on 4/20.

For Monday, read Parfit, "The Unimportance of Identity"

4/18

Fuller lecture notes on Perry's Second Night.

Fuller lecture notes on Fission cases.

For Wednesday, read Parfit, "What We Believe Ourselves To Be." Also read selections from John Varley, The Ophiuchi Hotline. Also read Feldman Ch 4 (that pdf also includes Chapter 6, which you don't need to read just yet).

Your second graded papers were announced to be due Monday 4/25. We've postponed them a bit; they will instead be due Monday 5/2.

Optional readings: Mind's I Ch 6: "The Princess Ineffable." And Philip K. Dick, "Impostor" (there's also a movie version).

4/16

On Monday April 18 at 7:30 pm, we'll be showing The Prestige in the first floor auditorium of the Philosophy Building (5 Washington Place). There will be a short written assignment about the movie, due in sections. We'll distribute and explain the assignment after showing the movie. If you won't be able to make the showing, you'll need to watch the movie on your own and make arrangements with your TA to get the assignment. This assignment won't be graded, but everyone must do it: it will be part of your participation grade for the class.

Links re The Prestige:

• IMDB
• Wikipedia
• Plot Summary

4/11

Lecture notes on Perry's First Night

Lecture notes on Fission Cases

For Wednesday, read the "Second Night" of Perry, Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality (not online).

4/6

Lecture notes on What is Personal Identity?

Lecture notes on Some Problem Cases about Personal Identity

For Monday read: Greg Egan, Learning to Be Me. This is one of my favorite sci-fi explorations of the philosophical ideas we have been and will be going on to discuss. Also read the "First Night" of Perry, Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality (not online).

4/6

Random links: Wikipedia on Mind uploading in fiction. Another similar list on Ask Metafilter.

The material we're covering in this course overlaps with a course offered by Shelly Kagan at Yale. And with many other introduction to philosophy courses, as well. But Kagan has released videos and transcripts of his course, which you may enjoy and find helpful.

4/4

Lecture notes on Numerical Identity and Identity over Time

For Wednesday, read Ch. 3 of Cory Doctorow's Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom. The fictional notion of "Whuffie" plays a role in this story, as in the story Truncat we read a few days ago. Basically it's something like a scoring system of how much other people appreciate and admire you and the things you've done; the economies of Doctorow's future societies have given up money and work on Whuffie instead. You can have a look at Wikipedia for more details. What's important for our purposes aren't the social changes he imagines, but rather the stuff about backing up and restoring your memories, in case your body dies. To get some context for Ch. 3 of this book, you could: (i) scroll up a bit and read the last six paragraphs of Ch. 2; or (ii) read all of the Preface, Ch. 1 and Ch. 2; or (iii) read the Wikipedia entry on the book, which includes a plot summary.

Also read Mind's I Ch 13: Dennett, Where Am I?.

4/4

We returned the first graded papers today. If you didn't get yours, email your TA. Rewrites of these papers will be due in one week, Monday April 11. The rewrites are permitted to be a page or two longer; many of you will need that extra space to further develop parts of your paper. When you turn in the rewrites, please also turn in the original paper with your TA's comments on them.

Soon we will be reading John Perry's A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. You will need to purchase that book if you haven't already done so.

Some more optional readings:

• Jackson, "Epiphenomenal Qualia" and "What Mary Knew" (optional)
• Armstrong, "What is Consciousness?" (optional)

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Course Description

1. The Problem of Other Minds: How can we tell whether animals and future computers have minds, or whether they're instead just mindless automata? How can we tell that other people have minds?  
2. The Mind/Body Problem: What is the relation between your mind and your body? Are they made up of different stuffs? If a computer duplicates the neural structure of your brain, will it have the same thoughts and self-awareness that you have?  
3. Life and Death: What does it mean to die? Why is death bad? Do you have an immortal soul which is able to survive the death of your body?
4. Personal Identity: What makes you the person you are? Why would a clone of you have to be a different person than you are yourself? If we perfectly recorded all the neural patterns in your brain right now, could we use that recording to "bring you back" after a fatal accident?  

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