The course will employ a variety of instructional methods to accomplish its objectives, including some of the following: any combination of lecture and seminar. Parts and/or entire classes may be devoted to formal lectures or to informal discussion. There may be student presentations on particular subjects. There may be some videos as well.
Instruction in this course will include some of the following:
- 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.
- A presentation of the history of various forms of reductionism showing the degree to which such reductionisms have or have not succeeded.
- A presentation of the general problem of whether mind is physical or non-physical. A review of the history of physicalism, dualism, and idealism.
- 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.
- A presentation of the criticisms of each of the theories just mentioned, and some of the responses offered to these criticisms.
- An exploration of various theories on the relationship between thinking states and emotional states.
- 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.
- 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.
- An introduction to some of the main theories of personal identity, and the difficulties which each of them faces.
- An introduction to the problems of explaining the presence of minds in a physical world, either by evolutionary, or other means.
At the end of the course, the successful student will be able to do the following:
- Explain the ordinary notion that the mind causes the body to do various things, and then explain the difficulties anyone will have integrating this notion with the apparent result of the sciences.
- Explain the differences between theories of mind such as substance dualism, property dualism, philosophical behaviorism, identity theory (reductive materialism), functionalism and eliminative materialism.
- Present arguments both in favor of and against some of the traditional problems that have arisen for any theory of mind, e.g.., the problem of other minds, the problem of self-consciousness, the problem of free will, the semantic problem, and the methodological problem.
Students will also be able to do some of the following: - Review the way in which psychology as a discipline emerged from the philosophical study of mind.
- Critically evaluate some of the following theories: physical identity theories, physical supervenience theories, functionalist theories, epiphenomenalist theories, eliminativist theories, anomalous monist theories, mysterian theories, and dual aspect theories.
- Show the argument(s) for the view, and critically assess the argument(s) for the view that we can establish that there are other minds.
- Review some of the main theories on personal identity, and critically examine these theories.
Evaluation will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with Douglas College policy. The instructor will provide a written course outline with specific criteria for assessment during the first week of class. No one evaluation component may exceed 40%. Any possible combination of the following will be used to sum to 100%:
| In-class tests, short written assignments | 20% - 50% |
| Class presentations, essays, final exam | 30% - 60% |
| Instructor's evaluation (e.g., participation, class attendance) |
0%- 20% |
| Total | 100% |
The students will purchase either one or more texts, for example, from the list of texts below, or a course pack of pre-approved photocopied materials:
Bourgeois, Warren. Persons: What Philosophers Say About You. Waterloo Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2003.
Burwood, Stephen, Paul Gilbert, and Kathleen Lennon. Philosophy of Mind. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1999.
Calhoun, Cheshire and Robert Solomon. What Is an Emotion? NY: Oxford University, 1984.
Churchland, Patricia Smith. Brain-Wise. Bradford: MIT, 2002.
Churchland, Paul. Matter and Consciousness. Bradford: MIT, 1988.
Cooney, Brian, ed. The Place of Mind. Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2000.
Crane, Time. Elements of Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Flanagan, Owen. The Science of Mind. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 1986.
Glover, Jonathan, ed. The Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.
Kolak, Daniel and Raymond Martin. Self and Identity. NY: Macmillan, 1991.
Morton, Peter, ed. An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. Peterborough: Broadview, 1997.
Rosenthal, David. The Nature of Mind. NY: Oxford University zPress, 1991.
Seager, William. Theories of Consciousness. London: Routledge, 1999.
Smith, Peter and O.R. Jones. The Philosophy of Mind. NY: Cambridge University Press, 1987.