Philosophy of Mind

Instruction in this course will include some of the following:

1. An introduction to the ordinary concept of mind and to our familiarity with psychological states including belief, desire, hope, fear, intention, anger, love, etc. A presentation and clarification of the ordinary notions that mental states receive information from the physical world, and that mental states cause effects to occur in the physical world.
2. A presentation of the history of various forms of reductionism showing the degree to which such reductionisms have or have not succeeded.
3. A presentation of the general problem of whether mind is physical or non-physical. A review of the history of physicalism, dualism, and idealism.
4. A presentation of the various theories of how mind relates to the physical world: idealism, interactive dualism, physicalism by identities, physicalism by functional supervenience, epiphenomenalism, eliminativism, anomalous monism, and mysterianism.
5. A presentation of the criticisms of each of the theories just mentioned, and some of the responses offered to these criticisms.
6. An exploration of various theories on the relationship between thinking states and emotional states.
7. A presentation of some epistemological problems related to the mind, such as whether we can establish that there are other minds, and if we can, whether, and how, we can establish their contents.
8. An introduction to some of the main issues in the theories of consciousness and qualia, including, whether there are any qualia, whether conscious states are connectionist brain states, whether any non-human animals or plants are conscious, and whether machines can be conscious, and if so, how.
9. An introduction to some of the main theories of personal identity, and the difficulties which each of them faces.
10. An introduction to the problems of explaining the presence of minds in a physical world, either by evolutionary, or other means.