Intro to Philosophy of Mind (Minds, Brains, Machines)
Finally getting to teach my first philosophy of mind course at uni which is both exciting and a bit daunting. I will try and track my progression in this blog as I go. The first step, already completed, was getting the reading list together. Here I tried to balance my own desires to show the problems with representational theories of mind while presenting a fairly standard picture. I also wanted to include Merleau-Ponty, who I think is essential phenomenologist needed to understand current debate (there was also a course dedicated to Heidegger the previous semester). The mid-semester break was quite late in the year, so that also helped shape the course, making the last few weeks a concentrated look at the phenomenological approach. I’ve included the full reading list below for those interested but I’ll mention some notable inclusions.
My biggest mark on this course is that I leave out the discussion of dualism you normally have in such a course, or at the start of a philosophy of mind textbook (e.g. Kim, Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson). For me what is interesting about dualism now is its resurgence, which stems from the argument: by now we should have a naturalised account of the mind, because we do not, there may be problems with naturalism/phyiscalism. For me, this new found doubt is of more compelling than the history reasons that drove Cartesisn dualism. To this end I didn’t start with a passage from Descartes, rather Ryle’s Descartes’ Myth. To me this piece helps introduce the core ideas of the modern debate as well as the critique them all at the same time. It also starts the course with an impressive source material; it is fairly easy to read and sets a good philosophical tone.
Another notable quirk is my reliance on John Haugeland’s work. For me his development from a traditional, computational account of the mind to the more Heideggerian approach is indicative on the development of Western philosophy of mind in general. Of particular interest is how in his textbook from the 80s he talks, like many did, of the mind, almost, being accounted for, as if there are just a few kinks to be ironed out. He then later critiques this position, in particular in the paper Mind Embodied Embedded where he pushes his more Heideggerian approach. Additionally, Haugeland’s work not only reveals the moves away from computationalism but also how similar the theories are. If you track what is kept the same in his work you see the base level assumptions that I think are problematic. That said, I won’t be delving too much into that aspect, rather just showing the transition and how it shows how the debate around the mind is still active and developing.
Now its time to go write some lectures!
Reading list
- Gilbert Ryle (1949) “Descartes’ Myth”, Chapter 1 of The Concept of Mind
- John Haugeland (1985) “The Saga of the Modern Mind”, Chapter 1 of Artificial Intelligence
- Jaegwon Kim (2010) Chapter 3 AND Chapter 4 of Philosophy of Mind (3rd edition)
- David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson (2007) “Common-sense functionalism”, Chapter 3 of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition (2nd edition)
- John Heil (2012) “The Representational Theory of Mind”, Chapter 4, pp. 104-120 in Philosophy of Mind
- Ned Block (1980) “Troubles with functionalism”, Chapter 22 in Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, ed. Ned Block
- Susan Blackmore (2007) “David Chalmers” in Conversations on consciousness
- Frank Jackson (1982) “Epiphenomenal Qualia” Philosophical Quarterly 32 p.127–136
- William Ramsey (2013) Eliminative Materialism http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/
- John Haugeland (1998) “Mind Embodied Embedded” in Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind
- Gallagher and Zahavi (2012) “Introduction p. 2-11” of The Phenomenological Mind 2nd Edition
- Maurice Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of Perception TBD
- Gallagher and Zahavi (2012) “Perception”, Chapter 5 in The Phenomenological Mind 2nd Edition
- Taylor Carman (2005) “Sensation, Judgement, and the Phenomenal Field”, Chapter 2 in The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty
