72538 - Philosophy of the Mind (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

Philosophy of mind deals with the nature of mental phenomena and their relation to language, body and the rest of the physical world. Central questions in the philosophy of mind are: the nature of thought, the relation between thought and language, the nature of mental states (e.g beliefs and emotions), the causal relations (if any) between mind the the physical world, the possibility of explaining the mental in physicalistic terms, the nature of the phenomenal aspect of the mental (qualia) and of consciousness. The course will provide knowledge of the main themes in the philosophy of mind and of some issues discussed in the latest literature.

Course contents

Introduction to the philosophy of mind: mind, world and consciousness

When we think of conscious experiences, such as the smell of a flower, it appears to us that nothing is more different from the workings of the physical world. The experience of the smell of a flower seems to us totally different, in its own nature, from the structure that explains the chemical workings that have caused to us this experience. However our experiences are intimately connected tothe physical world that we inhabit, but how? Descartes thought that that the mind must be a substance diffferent from the material substance: a complete description of reality could not be exhausted by a description of its physical workings. Cartesian dualism has been criticized from its beginning, and in the last centuries several competing theories have been advanced such as the identity theory, behaviourism, functionalism and eliminativism. At the same time, the recent attention on conscioussness has revived new forms of dualism such as the idea that we cannot provide a satisfactory reductive explanation (in physical terms) of the phenomenal character of mental states, such as what is like to undergo the experience of pain or of colour vision.

The course will deal with central questions in the philosophy of mind:

- Mind/Body dualism (property and substance dualism)

- Mind and behaviour (behaviourism)

- Mind and brain (identity theories, reductionism and physicalism)

- Functionalism (computationalism, Turing test, the Chinese room experiment)

- Mental causation (Lewis-Ramsey method, psycho-physical laws, realism, epiphenomenalism, supervenience of the mental over the physical)

- Contenuto mentale (teorie interpretative, esternalismo, contenuto stretto/largo)

- Coscienza (qualia, soggettività, "cosa si prova ad essere un pipistrello", l'esperimento di Mary, il caso degli zombie)

Readings/Bibliography

Our main textbook will be:

[1] Kim, Jaegwon. Philosophy of Mind, third edition. Boulder CO:Westview Press, 2010.

together with some parts of

[2] Jaworski, William (2011). Philosophy of Mind: A Comprehensive Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

The following Italian textbooks will also be useful:

[3] Paternoster, Alfredo. Introduzione alla filosofia della mente, second edition, Roma: Laterza, 2010.

[4] Di Francesco, Michele. Introduzione alla filosofia della mente, second edition, Roma: Carocci, 2002.
Some classic articles in the philosophy of mind will also be discussed during the lectures.

Teaching methods

The course will consist mainly in lectures. Students are strongly encouraged to take part actively to the lectures by raising questions and commenting the arguments presented. There will be also the possibility for some group of students of organizing some presentations. Each student is required to write an essay of 20 pages circa on the some of the topics of the course.

Assessment methods

The assessment will be based on the following criteria:
- partecipation (10% of the assessment)
- presentation [optional] (20% of the assessment)
- written essay (50% of the assessment)
- oral examination where the written essay will be discussed together with other topics related to the course (20% of the assessment if the student has done a presentation, 40% of the assessment otherwise)
PLEASE NOTICE: plagiarism, as defined by the University of Bologna's ethical code [http://http://www.normateneo.unibo.it/NormAteneo/codice_etico.htm] (clause 4), is punished with examination failure.

Teaching tools

• Handouts and slides
• e-learning [http://elearning-cds.unibo.it/] online webplatform

Office hours

See the website of Sebastiano Moruzzi