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Instructor: Alva Noë (Moses 303A)
510 643 8412 \ noe@berkeley.edu \ socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe
Office Hours: Tuesday, 4:40 - 6:00 pm, or by appointment
Graduate Student Instructors
Michael Caie: caie@berkeley.edu
James Stazicker: stazicker@berkeley.edu
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Two Important Announcements
The take-home examination is due on Monday, 15 May 2006 by 5 pm at your GSI's mailbox in Moses Hall, Room 301.
The instructor will hold a review session on Friday, 12 May 2006 from 2-4 in 213 Wheeler.
This course introduces and explores some central problems in the philosophy of mind. Topics investigated include, dualism, the problem of other minds, behaviorism, physicalism, functionalism, and the problem of consciousness. Can there be a science of the mind? The course seeks to answer this question. This course is designed for upper division philosophy students or students with equivalent preparation. Students without significant background in philosophy should not take this course. Please consult with the instructor if you are unsure whether this course is right for you.
REQUIREMENTS [ top ]
Students taking this course for credit are required to write two five-page essays and one take-home exam.
The first essay is due on 2 March 2006; the second is due on 9 May 2006. The exam will be due on 16 May 2006. For each assignment, questions will be handed out one week prior to the due date.
Late work will not be accepted withhout the prior approval of the instructor.
In addition, students are required to attend lectures and a weekly single one-hour discussion section led by a Graduate Student Instructor. Students are also expected and required to do all the readings.
For information on what we will be doing in any given week, please visit the instructor’s web site (given above) and follow the Courses link.
NOTE ON PLAGIARISM Apparently, plagiarism is a problem on campus. Any student found to have plagiarized work in this class will receive a failing grade and be reported to university officials. The definition of plagiarism will be discussed when the first assignment is handed out. Many students plagiarize because they are in over their head and need desperate last minute help to complete assignments. Please consider carefully whether this class is right for you.
READINGS [ top ]
There are two required texts for this course.
D. M. Rosenthal’s The Nature of Mind (Oxford University Press).
Jaegwon Kim’s Philosophy of Mind, second edition (Westview Press).
In addition, the following text is recommended but not required:
Tim Crane’s Elements of Mind: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford University Press).
Important Note on Reading: Readings should be completed before lecture.
SCHEDULE [ top ]
This is only a rough schedule. The approximate number of lectures for each unit are given in brackets after the headings. Each lecture, readings for the next lecture will be announced. This information will also be posted on the course web site, under the Updates link. To find the course web site, please go the instructor’s web set above and follow the Courses link.
Depending on our progress, it may be necessary (and the instructor reserves the right) to alter the plan of the course.
I: Cartesian dualism (1 lecture)
Jaegwon Kim, chapter 2
Descartes selections in Rosenthal (chapter one in Rosenthal = R1)
II: Animals and other minds (3 lectures)
R8: Bertrand Russell’s “Analogy”; R9: Norman Malcolm’s “Knowledge of other minds.”
R10: Stuart Hampshire’s “The analogy from feeling.”
R51. Malcolm’s “Thoughtless brutes.”
R38: Donalid Davidson’s “Thought and talk.”
III. Behaviorism (3 lectures)
Kim, chapter 3
R4. Gilbert Ryle’s “Descartes’ myth.”
R11: P. F. Strawson’s “Persons.”
R16: Hilary Putnam’s “Brains and behavior.”
IV. Physicalism (3 or 4 lectures)
Kim, chapter 4 and chapter 10
R17: J.J.C. Smart’s “Sensations and brain processes”; R18: Jerome Shaffer’s “Mental events and the brain.”
R19: D. M. Armstrong’s “The causal theory of mind.”
R25: Saul Kripke’s “from Naming and Necessity.”
V. Supervenience and epiphenomenalism (2 lectures)
R26: Davidson’s “Mental events.”
R27: Jaegwon Kim’s “Epiphenomenalism and supervenient causation.”
VI. Functionalism (7 lectures)
Kim, chapters 5 and 6
R22: David Lewis’s “Psychophysical and theoretical identifications”; R24: Lewis’s “Mad pain and Martian pain.”
R21: Putnam’s “The nature of mental states.”
R55: John Searle’s “Minds, brains, and programs.”
R23: Ned Block’s “Troubles with functionalism.”
R43: Sydney Shoemaker’s “Functionalism and qualia.”
R36: Daniel C. Dennett’s “True believer’s: the intentional strategy and why it works.”
R56: Putnam’s “Computational psychology and interpretation theory.”
VII. Foundations of cognitive science (5 lectures)
R53: Jerry Fodor’s “Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology.”
R62: Dennett’s “Three kinds of intentional psychology.”
R57: Tyler Burge’s “Individualism and the mental.”
R59: Robert Stalnaker’s “On what’s in the head.”
VIII. Consciousness (3 lectures)
Kim Chapter 8
R46: Thomas Nagel’s “What is it like to be a bat.”
Ned Block’s “The harder problem of consciousness,” availabe on Professor Block’s web site at NY University.
Susan Hurley and Alva Noë’s “Neural plasticity and consciousness,” availabe on Noë’s web site.