Philosophy of Mind

Course Requirements

Syllabus: Provides an outline for the course, including lecture topics and reading assignments.
Four Short Papers: Accounts for 50-60% of the final grade.
Final Exam: Counts for the remainder of the grade, with section performance impacting borderline grades.
Attendance: Mandatory for lectures and discussion sections.
Waiting List: Efforts will be made to accommodate students on the waiting list, especially after initial dropouts.

Single Overriding Question: How do we reconcile human experiences (consciousness, free will, aesthetics, etc.) with the physical reality of particles and fields of force?
Central Problem: Explaining how mental phenomena arise from physical particles and their organization.
Philosophy of Mind: Foundation for exploring ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, and language.
Relation to Atomic Theory of Matter & Evolutionary Biology: Understanding human life as a consequence of evolutionary processes involving carbon-based molecules.

Descartes: Key figure in the 17th century who articulated Cartesian dualism, positing a distinction between mind (mental substances) and body (physical substances).
Cartesian Dualism: Minds are conscious (thinking) and indivisible, bodies are extended in space (physical dimensions).

Mind-Body Problem: How do mind and body interact causally?
Problem of Other Minds: How can one know that other people have minds, since we only observe their bodies?
Skepticism in General: How can we know anything beyond the contents of our own mind?
Perception: How do we perceive the world, and what is the nature of perceptual experiences?

Naive Realism: Directly perceiving objects in the world. Refuted by:
- Argument from Illusion: Illusions and hallucinations challenge direct perception.
- Argument from Science: Scientific understanding of perception (light waves, neural processes) implies we only see the effects on our nervous system.
Representative Theory of Perception: Sense data are representations of objects we do not see.
Phenomenalism: The only things that exist are minds and ideas. Objects are collections of actual and possible experiences.

Animal Minds: Descartes argued animals do not have mental states as they lack souls, complicating the mind-body relationship.
Scientific Methods: Use of brain imaging (e.g., functional MRI) to study brain activity and infer mental states.
Solipsism: The idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. Different degrees of solipsism propose varying levels of skepticism about the existence and nature of other minds.
Modern Scientific Views: Current neuroscience supports the idea that perceptual experiences involve complex neural processes, raising questions about the direct perception of the external world.

Detailed Theories of Perception: Further exploration of theories beyond naive realism, addressing the representative and phenomenalist perspectives.
Further Discussions on Descartes: Analysis of Descartes' problems and solutions, including the perception of pain and the connection between mind and body.