Galen Strawson

This course focuses on questions in metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of mind. It begins with some general introductory remarks, some basic philosophical terms and methods of philosophical analysis. It goes on to consider some issues in ‘early modern philosophy’ in the writings of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, together with some present-day treatments of these issues: issues concerning knowledge and scepticism, the relation between mind and body, the nature of color, color words, and color concepts, personal identity and the self. These lead to questions about agency and responsibility, and free will, these lead in turn to a consideration of ‘situationism’ and cognitive biases and illusions, and even, perhaps, to the question of the meaning of life

 no course book [readings drawn from the following] Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), Descartes (Meditations 1, 2, 6), Elizabeth of Bohemia (letters), Locke (Essay 2.27, 4.3.6), Hume (Treatise 1.4.6 and Appendix, Enquiry §8), Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals), Emerson (Essays), Nietzsche (passim), William James (Principles of Psychology vol 1); A. Camus, P. & P. Churchland, D. Davidson, D. Dennett, J. Doris, H. Frankfurt, F. Jackson, D. Kahneman, C. McGinn, I. Murdoch, T. Nagel, D. Parfit, G. Ryle, M. Schechtman, J. Smart, G. Strawson, J. Searle, R. Taylor, M. Tye, G. Watson, B. Williams, L. Wittgenstein, S. Wolf, V. Woolf

(1) section attendance and participation: 10%

(2) mid-term exam: 25%

(3) in-class final exam: 25%

(4) 7-8 page paper: 40%

Instructors:

Michelle Montague and Galen Strawson

Prerequisites

This seminar is restricted to first year gradraduate students.

Course Description

In this course we’ll consider some topics that are of central concern in analytic philosophy today, focusing on philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and metaphysics.

Grading Policy

2 presentations, 10% each

18-20 page paper, 80%.

Readings will be drawn from the following list (provisional):

René Descartes Works and commentators (e.g. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Marleen Rozemond)

John Locke Essay and commentators (e.g. Catharine Cockburn, Galen Strawson)

Franz BrentanoPsychology from an Empirical Standpoint

William James The Principles of Psychology

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis

Gottlob Frege ‘On Sense and Reference’

Bertrand Russell ‘On Denoting’

P. F. Strawson ‘On Referring’

K. Donnellan ‘Reference and Definite Descriptions’

Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity

A. E. Eddington The Nature of the The Physical World

Bertrand Russell The Analysis of Mind, The Analysis of Matter

Iris Murdoch The Sovereignty of Good

Gareth Evans The Varieties of Reference

David Lewis ‘New work for a theory of universals’

Fred Dretske Explaining Behaviour

Thomas Nagel The View From Nowhere

This course is an introduction to some of the central issues in the philosophy of mind. The fundamental question is simple: What is mind? Among the more specific questions that will be considered are the following: What is consciousness? Is mind-body dualism defensible? Is physicalism (everything is physical) defensible? Is panpsychism (everything is mental) defensible? Are ‘behaviorist’ or ‘functionalist’ theories of mind defensible? What is the relation between consciousness and matter (mind and body)? What is it to be a subject of experience? Is there such a thing as ‘the self’? What is a person (what makes a person the same person at different times)? What sort of knowledge do we have of other minds? (Is seeing the color red the same for all of us, and can we know this?) What sort of knowledge do we have of our own minds? To what extent are we subject to cognitive biases and illusions? What is the will? Do we have free will? How can mental states be about things? What are memory, perception, imagination, intentional action, ‘intentionality’?

Prerequisites

Graduate standing and consent of Graduate Advisor or instructor required.

Course Description 

This course will consider address questions and topics on the following list: —what is the mental?  —what is the physical? —what is naturalism? —the prospects for monism, dualism, pluralism, when it comes to giving a general account of the nature of concrete reality. —the prospects for thing monism (view that there is only one entity) and stuff monism (view that there is only one fundamental kind of stuff). —is neutral monism (stuff-monist position) a possible position when it comes to giving an adequate account of the relation between the mental and the non-mental (the experiential and the non-experiential)? —is property dualism a possible position (is it a coherent position)? —what is a subject of experience? —the nature of subjectivity. —the nature of consciousness, conscious experience. —does all conscious awareness essentially involve awareness of that very awareness? —what are the fundamental types (the highest-level determinables) of conscious experience (is there only sensory-emotional phenomenology? is there also cognitive phenomenology? is there also irreducible evaluative phenomenology?) —the prospects for panpsychism (view that all that exist are subjects of experience and experience) —the prospects for panexperientialism (view that all that exists is experience, experientiality) — what follows for naturalistic philosophy of mind from the fact that physics only tells us about structural (logico-mathematically characterizable) features of reality, not about non-structural qualitative/intrinsic features? —what is the distinction between structure and quality? —the metaphysics of intentionality —mental causation

Grading

1 term paper (90 per cent); 1 class presentation (10 per cent) 

Texts

Consciousness in the Physlcal World: Perspectives on Russellioan monism, ed. T. Alter and Y. Nagasawa (Oxford)

Description (one to three paragraph description of course content):

 This course examines epistemological issues as they arise intertwined with metaphysical issues in the philosophy of mind: including, centrally, the (so-called) mind-body problem. It moves on to questions about persons and personal identity. These lead in turn to issues of agency and responsibility, and from there to central questions in ethics about (for example) the relative importance of consequences and goals, duties, virtues; even, perhaps, about the meaning of life

List of Proposed Texts /Readings:

[from the following] Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), Descartes (Meditations 2 and 6), Elizabeth of Bohemia (letters), Locke (Essay 2.27, 4.3.6), Hume (Treatise 1.4.6 and Appendix, Enquiry §8), Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals), Emerson (Essays), Nietzsche (passim), William James (from Principles of Psychology vol 1); A. Camus, P. & P. Churchland, D. Davidson, D. Dennett, J. Doris, H. Frankfurt, F. Jackson, D. Kahneman, C. McGinn, I. Murdoch, T. Nagel, D. Parfit, G. Ryle, M. Schechtman, J. Smart, G. Strawson, J. Searle, R. Taylor, M. Tye, G. Watson, B. Williams, L. Wittgenstein, S. Wolf, V. Woolf

Proposed Grading Policy:

One 6-7 page paper: 40%

Mid-term Exam: 30%

In-class Final Exam: 30%

Title:      The Situated Self

Graduate standing and consent of graduate adviser or instructor required.

Course Description

The question to be addressed is Socrates’ question: how should we live? More particular questions are likely to include the following:   (1) Should we expect a (non-trivial) single answer to Socrates’ question? (2) What is the proper place and scope of the notion of character in ethics? (3) What is the place and scope of the notion of the self in metaphysics and ethics? (4) What is the place of the notion of narrative in ethics—in moral psychology and psychology in general? (5) How should we react to the situationist data in social psychology? (6) What is the scope of intentional action in human mental activity (ethical or not)? (7) Correlatively, to what extent is human mental activity best understood as passive, fundamentally a matter of reactivity? (8) How do answers to questions (5), (6) and (7) bear on the question of moral responsibility?

Grading

Term paper (up to 20 pages) relating to one of the topics covered 80%, due around 12 December; two in-class presentations 10% each

Texts

[illustrative selection] Aristotle, B. Dainton, D. Dennett, J. Doris, H. Frankfurt, Alasdair MacIntyre, R. Moran, F. Nietzsche, D. Parfit, M. Schechtman, S. Shoemaker, G. Strawson, C. Taylor, D. Velleman, G. Watson

This course satisfies the Ethics requirement.

An introduction to the philosophical achievements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, concentrating on such figures as Descartes, Hume, and Kant. 

Prerequisites

Graduate Standing and Consent of Graduate Advisor or instructor required.

INSTRUCTOR:  GALEN STRAWSON

Course Description

Topics in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind

Texts

Various articles or book excerpts including Frankfurt, G. E. Moore, Nagel, Parfit.

Assessement

Term paper relating to one of the topics covered 80%, due around 12 December, two in-class presentations 10% each