PHILOSOPHY 117                                                                                                                                            W. Lycan

Fall, 2004

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

Text

    W.G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition, Second Edition (Blackwell).

Written work

    There will be five short papers (1000-1250 words) during the semester, due on September 9, September 30, October 28, November 11, and December 2.  If you like, you may (once) substitute one 2000-2500-word paper for two of the shorter ones.  Topics will be of your own choosing, but I will hand out lists of suggestions.

Syllabus

August 26:  Introduction to the main issues.  Dualism and Behaviorism.  Read the Introduction to Part I as soon as possible.

September 2:  The Type-Identity theory and the Causal theory.  I: 1 (Place), 2 (Armstrong).

September 9:  Functionalism.  I: 2 (Putnam), 4 (Fodor, Lycan, Sober).  Paper #1 due.

INTENTIONALITY

September 16:  Instrumentalism.  II: Introduction, 5 (Dennett, Stich).

September 23:  The “language of thought” hypothesis.  IV: Introduction, 8 (Fodor), 9 (Churchland and Churchland).

September 30:   Psychosemantics.  IV: 10 (Millikan, Fodor).   Paper #2 due.

October 7:  Folk psychology and content externalism.  V: Introduction, 11 (Stich), 12 (Horgan and Woodward, pp. 274-86 only).

October 21:  More on wide content and narrow content; self-knowledge. V: 13 (Devitt), 16 (Davidson, Heil).

October 28:  Eliminativism and neurophilosophy.  III: Introduction, 6 (Churchland), 7 (Churchland and Sejnowski, Bechtel); V12 (Horgan and Woodward, pp. 271-74 only).   Paper #3 due.

CONSCIOUSNESS

November 4:  Conscious awareness.   D.M. Armstrong, "What Is Consciousness?" (to be distributed).

November 11:  Phenomenal character and “qualia.”  VI: Introduction, 18 (Block, Jackson).  Paper #4 due.

November 18:  “Knowing what it’s like.”  VI: 19 (Lewis, Van Gulick).

December 2:  Qualia strictly so called.  VI: 20 (Harman, Block).  Paper #5 due.