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Philosophy 342:
Philosophy of Mind |
Prof. Warren Schmaus |
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TR 3:00 - 5:40
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Office:
228 Siegel Hall |
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Room: 109 Perlstein Hall
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Mailbox:
218 Siegel Hall |
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Office Hrs: TR 1:00 - 3:00, 228 Siegel Hall
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Email: schmaus@iit.edu |
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Phone: x
7-3473 |
SUGGESTED
TERM PAPER TOPICS:
I. History
of the Philosophy of Mind
A. Hobbes’s materialist
philosophy of mind
B. Spinoza on the unity of
mind and body
C. Locke on Personal
Identity
D. Dr. Molyneux’s
question about whether a congenitally blind person given sight as an adult could
distinguish cubes from spheres
E. Leibniz’s
pre-established harmony
F. Berkeley’s idealism
G. Hume’s Bundle Theory of
the Self
H. Thomas Reid’s
Common-Sense Philosophy and the rejection of Ideas
I. William
James on “Does Consciousness Exist?”
II. More
Recent Issues in the Philosophy of Mind
A. The Inverted Spectrum
Argument
B. David Chalmers’s Zombie Argument
C. Absent Qualia arguments against Functionalism
D. Recent Evolutionary
Approaches to the Mental Content
1. Ruth Garrett
Millikan
2. Kim Sterelny
3. David Papineau
E. Could we be brains in
vats?
1. Hilary Putnam
2. John Heil
F. Do you end at your
skin? (Individualism versus externalism)
G. Freedom of the Will
1. Daniel Dennett, Elbow
Room
2.
Patricia Smith Churchland, Brain-Wise, ch. 5.
3. Dennis Overbye, “Free Will: Now You Have it, Now You Don’t,”
New York Times (Jan 2, 2007), pp. D1-D4 (on-line
version).
4. Dr. Benjamin Libet’s experiments (electroencephalogram detects brain
signals before person is conscious)
III. Research
in the Cognitive Sciences Bearing on Issues in the Philosophy of Mind
A. B. F. Skinner on
methodological and radical behaviorism
B. Noam Chomsky versus B.
F. Skinner on explaining verbal behavior
C. Chomsky’s computational
linguistics
D. Jerry Fodor
1. Language of
Thought Hypothesis
2. Modularity of Mind
3. methodological
solipsism
E. Theories of
Consciousness in Psychology
1. Francis Crick and Christof Koch
2. Antonio Damasio
3. B. J. Baars
F. Theories of Color
Perception
1. C. L. Hardin
G. Rick Grush
on emulators
H. Dan Ryder’s SINBAD
networks
I. Evolutionary
Psychology
J. The language of
Bees
K. Research on language use
in higher primates
L. Change Blindness
M. Action-oriented
Representation
1. J. J. Gibson and
“affordances”
2. Millikan on pushmi-pullyu representations
N. Shepard’s
Research on Rotation of Mental Images
O. Proprioception
and Kinaesthetic Awareness
P. ethology
and animal cognition
IV. Artificial
Intelligence Research Bearing on Issues in the Philosophy of Mind
A. Allen Newell and Herbert
Simon on the Physical Symbol System Hypothesis
B. Minsky’s
Frames
C. Schank’s
scripts
D. Terry Winograd’s Microworlds
E. Natural language
manipulation programs
1. Eliza
2. Alice
3. The Loebner Prize competition
F. Artificial Vision
programs
G. Herbert Dreyfus on what
computers cannot do
H. For additional ideas,
see:
1. John Haugeland’s Artificial Intelligence:
The Very Idea, and/or his two anthologies, Mind Design
and Mind Design II
2. Andy Clark’s Mindware
V. Neuroscience
Research Bearing on Issues in the Philosophy of Mind
A. The Problem of Blindsight
B. Goodale on ventral
versus dorsal visual processing
C. Michael Gazzaniga’s research on patients with split brains
D. Jerome Lettvin et al. on “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s
Brain”
E. research on prosopagnosia: the failure to recognize faces
F. Is there an innate
theory of mind?
1. Alan Leslie and
research on autism
2. Premack and Woodruff on theory of mind in higher primates
G. the use of fMRI and Positron Emission Tomography in Brain Research
H. Any other issue that
comes to mind as you skim through Patricia Churchland’s
Brain-Wise
I. For
additional ideas, see any of the books on the cognitive neurosciences written
or edited by Michael Gazzaniga