Phil 2151: Philosophy of Mind

University of Minnesota, Morris
Professor Collier

Course Description: What is the place of the mind in the physical universe? Can it really be the case that consciousness is nothing but a brain state? What are emotions? Might psychology be eliminated by neuroscience? Is artificial intelligence possible? These are just some of the questions that we will ask in this course, which provides a broad introduction to the Philosophy of Mind.

Class Schedule

1. Introduction

Pryor: "Philosophical Terms and Methods"

2. Substance Dualism

Kim: "Substance Dualism" (30-37, 40-53)

3. Epiphenomenalism

Descartes: Selections from Discourse on Method
Huxley: "On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History"

4. Logical Behaviorism

Skinner: Selections from Science and Human Behavior
Hempel: "Logical Analysis of Psychology"

5. Rylean Behaviorism

Ryle: "Descartes' Myth"; "Knowing How and Knowing That"; "Dispositions and Occurrences"; "Self-Knowledge"

6. Central State Materialism

Armstrong: "The Nature of Mind"

7. Identity Theory

Smart: "Sensations and Brain Processes"
Place: "The Physiological Explanation of Introspection and the Phenomenological Fallacy"

8. Artificial Intelligence

Turing: "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"

9. Machine Functionalism

Putnam: "The Nature of Mental States"

10. Challenge to Functionalism

Searle: "Minds, Brains, and Programs"

FIRST EXAM

11. Intentionality

Chisholm: "Intentional Inexistence"
Dretske: "A Recipe for Thought"

12. Meaning Externalism

Putnam: "Brains in a Vat"

13. Active Externalism

Clark and Chalmers: "The Extended Mind"

14. Emotions as Feelings

James: "What is an Emotion?"

15. Emotions as Judgments

Pitcher: "Emotion" (326-342)

16. Emotions and Embodiment

Prinz: "Emotions Embodied"

17. Eliminative Materialism

Feyeraband: "Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem"
Churchland: "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes" (67-76, 84-90)

18. Eliminative Materialism II

Stich: "Future of Folk Psychology"

19. Instrumentalism

Dennett: "Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology"

20. Realism

Fodor: "The Persistence of the Attitudes"

SECOND EXAM

21. Qualia

Nagel: "What is it like to be a bat?"

22. Knowledge Argument

Jackson: "Epiphenomenal Qualia"

23. Modal Argument

Kripke: Selections from ‘Identity and Necessity’

24. Explanatory Gap

Levine: "Materialism and Qualia, The Explanatory Gap"

25. Mysterianism

McGinn: "Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?"

26. The Hard Problem [Second paper due]

Chalmers: "Consciousness and Its Place in Nature" (102-108)

27. Materialist Replies and Return of Dualism [Group Presentations]

Chalmers: "Consciousness and Its Place in Nature" (108-115, 119-135)

THIRD EXAM