Galen Strawson

Past topics include basic issues in metaphysics; particulars and universals; identity and individuation; realism and antirealism; mind-body issues. 

“Nature is altogether Material … Thoughts, Ideas, Conceptions, Sympathies, Antipathies, … Natural Life, and Soul, are all Material” (Margaret Cavendish 1664: 12)

“a thesis that says [that] panpsychistic materialism ... is impossible ... is more than just materialism” (David Lewis 1983: 36)

Course Description

All materialists until 1900 were outright realists about consciousness (in broad sense of ‘consciousness’, i.e. ‘experiential “what-it-is-likeness”’ of any sort whatever); almost all materialists until about 1960 were outright realists about consciousness. They were therefore (in my terms) ‘realistic’ materialists: the idea that materialism/physicalism has anything to do with doubt about or denial of the existence of consciousness is as new as it is groundless.

This course aims to follow the realistic-materialist thread—if not from the Early Church Fathers (some of whom were staunch realistic materialists), then at least from the 17th century, with some brief notice of the great eighteenth-century surge of ‘French materialists’ and the great nineteenth-century surge of ‘German materialists’ (when Russell referred to “the materialistic ’60s” he was referring to the 1860s). These philosophers make many points and arguments as good as (often better than) anything in the last sixty years in analytic philosophy. Some of them are panpsychist physicalists, but we should not worry about this.

The historical (pre-twentieth century) grounding will be relatively brief. In the twentieth century the focus will be on—among others—Schlick, Russell, Eddington, C. A. Strong, R. W. Sellars, H. Feigl, G. Maxwell, T. Nagel, U. T. Place, Lockwood, etc, unto the present day.  Some of them, again, are panpsychist physicalists, but, again, we should not worry too much about this.

Most of the authors just mentioned are genuine mind–brain identity theorists (and say so explicitly). Many of those who call themselves ‘identity theorists’ post-1960 are not (you can’t assert an identity between two seemingly different things if you deny the existence of one of them). The course will also have a look at how false identity theorists can go so wrong—along with ‘eliminativism’ or ‘illusionism’. It will also become entangled as required with metaphysics and the philosophy of perception.

Grading Policy

Two presentations 10% (one of a required text, one of draft of term paper); one 20-page paper 90%

Likely or possible texts include work by those mentioned above; excerpts from (e.g.) Hobbes, Descartes, Regius, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Cavendish, Spinoza, Locke, Toland, Priestley, d’Holbach, Diderot, Lawrence, Faraday, Tyndall, Riehl, Tyndall; and much more (but not too much).

In this course we try to answer a stream of linked questions. What is mind? What is consciousness (is there a hard problem of consciousness)? Why do some people think that consciousness doesn’t exist? What is self-consciousness (human beings are said to be self-conscious, dogs aren’t)? What’s the relation between consciousness and matter, mind and brain? What, for that matter, is matter? Is panpsychism (the view that everything is mental) defensible? Are ‘behaviorist’ or ‘functionalist’ theories of mind defensible? How did mind begin? / What is a person? What is meant by ‘personal identity’ (what makes a person the same person at different times)? What is a ‘self’ (is there such a thing)? What is a soul (is there such a thing)? / What are memory, perception, imagination, desire and belief, and intentional action? / What sort of knowledge do we have of other people’s minds? (Is seeing the color red the same for all of us? 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 and unconscious impulses)? Can it be true, as some say, that we are constantly self-deceived, and completely wrong about why we do what we do? What is the will? Do we have free will?

Restricted to doctoral students in philosophy.

Intensive examination of selected dissertation topics: attention to research methods, presentation, structure, and argument. Student reports on current research.

Taught as a Web-based course.

Prerequisites

Graduate Standing and Consent of Graduate Advisor or instructor required.

Course Description

[1] Start with fundamental metaphysics: how objects, properties/qualities, events, processes, states, etc., relate. There are deep natural blockers that prevent us from thinking well about (and in terms of) these categories. We need to examine the blockers because they mislead us in many areas of philosophy. I think the blockers can be largely overcome—in a way strikingly congruent with current physics (insofar as physics suggests a metaphysics at all)

[2] Connect [1] to examination of ‘critical realist’ attitude to metaphysical enquiry from ancient beginnings through Kant to nineteenth-twentieth-century critical realists (+ input from evolutionary theory). Compare crude version in Hofmann 2019 The Case Against Reality. 

[3] Apply [1] and [2] to questions about subjectivity, consciousness, the status of panpsychism conceived in the classical way as a view about the nature of physical stuff (where physical stuff is assumed to be the fundamental concrete stuff). There’s a great correction coming in the philosophy of mind, in particular the metaphysics of mind.

There are a lot of terminological issues—e.g. all the different uses of the words ‘consciousness’, ‘physical’, ‘explain’, ‘know’. They cause immense confusion across many areas of philosophy. But they're tractable. We have a much better chance of understanding other philosophers when we get the hang of the various different uses. 

Prerequisites

Graduate Standing and Consent of Graduate Advisor or instructor required.

Course Description

A general survey of questions raised by the notions of the subject of experience, the self, and the person. The course will be centered in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, extending into epistemology, social psychology, moral psychology, and ethics.

Central questions. What is a subject of experience? Is there such a thing as ‘the self’? Review of the ideas of Descartes, Locke, Hume (all three standardly misunderstood). William James on the self. The question of self-knowledge (questions about introspection, immediate acquaintance, the ‘situationist’ data, the injunction to ‘know yourself’, the structure of self-consciousness—role of embodiment, role of ‘the other’). Other possible topics: The ‘narrative’ conception of the self. Indian views. The structure of consciousness. Kant on the self. Relevance of data from psychopathology.

Grading Policy:

Term paper (up to 20 pages) relating to one of the topics covered 90%; one in-class presentation 10%

Texts:

Illustrative selection of authors: A. Coliva, B. Dainton, A. Damasio, D. Dennett, R. Descartes, B. Gertler, D. Hume, W. James, D. Kahneman, J. Locke, A. MacIntyre, I. Murdoch, F. Nietzsche, D. Parfit, M. Proust, B. Russell, M. Schechtman, S. Shoemaker, G. Strawson, C. Taylor, D. Velleman, S. Wolf, D. Zahavi, P. Zimbardo.

This seminar satisfies the M&E requirement

This seminar is restricted to first year graduate students in Philosophy.

Topics of central concern in analytic philosophy, with a focus on philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and metaphysics.

Texts

To be determined

Grading Policy

two 20-minute presentations from weekly readings (required but not letter-graded); one 18-20 page term paper

TBD

Prerequisites

Graduate Standing and Consent of Graduate Advisor or instructor required.

Course Description

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‘Matter, Motion and Figure, are but one thing, individable in its Nature …. Nature is altogether Material’ (Margaret Cavendish 1664)

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In this course we plan to consider the prospects of various forms of (among other things)

thing monism aka existence monism (sc there is only one thing—Parmenides, Spinoza, ‘blobjectivists’ Horgan and Potrč, Samuel Alexander, a cloud of idealists, and various leading present-day cosmologists)

and

stuff monism (sc there is only one fundamental kind of stuff)

including e.g.

materialism/physicalism in leading post-1950s sense of ‘materialism’ and ‘physicalism’

materialism/physicalism in leading pre-1950s sense of materialism’ and ‘physicalism’

neutral monism

panpsychist monism including Whitehead physicalist panpsychist monism

We propose to examine the prospects for identity metaphysics, which questions the fundamentality of ontological distinctions that other forms of metaphysics treat as fundamental. In one strong form identity metaphysics holds that [1] the distinctions between the notions substance object quality property process state event are metaphysically superficial, so too [2] the distinctions between the notions energy laws of nature force causation power, so too [3] the distinction between these two sets of notions.

Questions concerning the explanatory significance or intelligibility of various metaphysical or methodological proposals may occasionally arise.

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background course book: Bertrand Russell 1927 An Outline of Philosophy (UK title) Philosophy (USA title) pdf available from GS

[metaphysics, philosophy of mind, history of philosophy requirements]

This seminar satisfies the M & E requirement

Intensive examination of selected dissertation topics: attention to research methods, presentation, structure, and argument. Student reports on current research.

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

Intensive examination of selected dissertation topics: attention to research methods, presentation, structure, and argument. Student reports on current research.

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)

Intensive examination of selected dissertation topics: attention to research methods, presentation, structure, and argument. Student reports on current research.

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%

Intensive examination of selected dissertation topics: attention to research methods, presentation, structure, and argument. Student reports on current research.

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