Philosophy of Mind
Syllabus
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Philosophy of MindSyllabus |
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You need to buy two books, and also a coursepack of Xeroxed readings.
The coursepack will be available at the Gnomon Copy on Mass Ave in Harvard Square. Be careful: there are several Gnomon Copys in the area; the one you want is across from Widener Library and next to Toscanini's.
The books will be available at the Coop in Harvard Square. Or you can purchase them online. There are several ways to do this.
One option is to use the Undergrad Council's UC Books site: <http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ucbooks/>. This site checks several online retailers and tells you whether they have the books for this course in stock, how much they cost, and how long it will take to get them to you. As I write this, the UC Books site doesn't yet have this course listed, but it should be working by the time classes start.
Two other online sources are Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com. I put links to these stores on the web version of this syllabus.
The books are:
Other readings will be placed on reserve in Robbins Library on the second floor of Emerson Hall.
There is a reading assignment for most class meetings. These readings are often pretty short, but they all require close study. You should read them carefully before we discuss them in class, and you'll need to read them more than once. You won't understand the material unless you read it several times. A good strategy would be to read it at least once before we discuss it, and then go back and read it again after we've discussed it.
You will also be required to attend a discussion section once a week. You are strongly encouraged to speak up in these sections. Talking about philosophy is one of the best ways of learning how to do it. Your participation in these sections will make up a substantial part of your grade for the course. We may assign a few short writing exercises to be discussed in section.
Please let us know your preferences for section times as soon as you can. You can always come back later and revise them.
Undergrads will have to write several papers for this course:
There will also be a take home final, which will be due on the last day of Reading Period, Wednesday 5/15.
(Philosophy grads will instead write two 10-12 page papers for the course. For the first paper, they'll first submit a draft, which we'll discuss, and then they'll rewrite and resubmit the paper. For the second paper, they'll first submit a brief proposal, which we'll discuss, before they begin writing their paper.)
| Date | Topics | Assigned Readings |
|---|---|---|
| Wed 1/30 | Substances, Dualism, Supervenience, and Materialism | |
| Friday 2/1 | Review of Supervenience and Materialism, Arguments for & against Dualism | Kim Ch. 1 |
| Mon 2/4 | Introducing Behaviorism | Kim Ch. 2 Putnam, "Brains and Behavior" (Rosenthal selection #16) Optional in Coursepack: Mind's I Ch. 4-5 on Turing Test |
| Wed 2/6 | Privileged Access, Propositional Attitudes, and Qualitative Experiences | Optional in Rosenthal: Chisholm, "Intentional Inexistence" (Rosenthal #31) |
| Mon 2/11 Wed 2/13 |
Identity Theory | Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes" (Rosenthal #17) Armstrong, "Causal Theory of Mind" (Rosenthal #19) Campbell, "Central State Materialism" (Rosenthal #20) Kim, Ch. 3 |
| Introducing Functionalism | ||
| Friday 2/15 | Turing Machines | Kim, Ch. 4 Block, "What is Funcationalism?" (in coursepack) Optional in Rosenthal: Putnam, "The Nature of Mental States" (Rosenthal #21) |
| Mon 2/18 | Presidents' Day | |
| Wed 2/20 | Ramsey/Lewis Definitions | Lewis, "Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications" (Rosenthal #22) Kim, Ch. 5 |
| Mon 2/25 | Lewis vs. Orthodox Functionalists | Lewis, "Mad Pain and Martian Pain" (Rosenthal #24) |
| Wed 2/27 Mon 3/4 |
Block's Troubles with Functionalism | "Troubles with Functionalism" (Rosenthal #23) Optional in Rosenthal: Searle, "Minds, Brains, and Programs" (Rosenthal #55) Optional in Coursepack: Ch. 12 and 26 from Mind's I |
| Externalism and Mental Contents | ||
| Wed 3/6 Mon 3/11 |
Externalism First Papers due Wed 3/6! |
Putnam, "Meaning and Reference" (in coursepack) Kim, Ch. 8 |
| Wed 3/13 | Self-Knowledge | Armstrong on Introspection (in coursepack) Armstrong, "Is Introspective Knowledge Incorrigible?" (Rosenthal #13) Heil, "Privileged Access" (in coursepack) Also see Optional Readings on First Person, Self-Knowledge, and Consciousness, below |
| Experiences and What It's Like to Have Them | ||
| Mon 3/18 | Perception, Sense-Data, and the Primary Quality/Secondary Quality Distinction | Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, Ch. 1 (in coursepack) Dicker, Perceptual Knowledge, Ch. 1-2 (in coursepack) Optional in Coursepack: Mackie, Problems from Locke, Ch. 1 Optional in Coursepack: Heil, "The Molyneaux Question" |
| Wed 3/20 | Representational Accounts of Perception, Intentionalism vs. Qualia-Freaks, Absent Qualia and Inverted Qualia | Tye, "Visual Qualia and Visual Content" (in coursepack) Kim, Ch. 7 |
| Thu 3/21 | Rewrites of first papers due! | |
| last week in March | Spring Break | |
| Mon 4/1 | More on the Inverted Spectrum | Block, "Inverted Earth" (in coursepack) Also see Optional Readings on Intentionalism and the Inverted Spectrum, below |
| Wed 4/3 Mon 4/8 |
Jackson's Knowledge Argument | Jackson, "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (in coursepack) Jackson, "What Mary Didn't Know" (Rosenthal #42) Horgan, "Jackson on Physical Information and Qualia" (in coursepack) Also see Optional Readings on Jackson's Knowledge Argument, below |
| Mental Causation and Action Theory | ||
| Wed 4/10 | Exclusion Arguments | Kim, Ch.6 Optional in Robbins: Kim, "Mechanism, Purpose, and Explanatory Exclusion" Also see Optional Readings on Narrow Content and Causation, below |
| Mon 4/15 Wed 4/17 |
Davidson Second Papers due Wed 4/17! |
Davidson, "Mental Events" (Rosenthal #26) Optional in Robbins: Kim, "Psychophysical Laws" Optional in Robbins: Johnston, "Why Having a Mind Matters" |
| Mon 4/22 Wed 4/24 Mon 4/29 Wed 5/1 |
Intro to Action Theory | Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (in coursepack) Selections from Companion to Philosophy of Mind (in coursepack) Davidson, "Agency" (in coursepack) Frankfurt, "The Problem of Action" (in coursepack) See also entries on Action from Companion to Philosophy of Mind and Companion to Metaphysics, in reserve folder in Robbins |
| Wed 5/15 | Take-home Finals due! | |
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