Program: Philosophy, year II
Course title: Philosophy of mind and cognitive science
6 credits – mandatory course
Semester I, weekly: 2 hours course + 2 hours seminar
Lecturer Dr. Gabriel Vacariu
Faculty of Philosophy, Bucharest University
Syllabus
Course description: In the first part of this course, I will present the main theories and
approaches of philosophy of mind (dualism, behaviorism, identity theory and eliminative
materialism, functionalism si nonreductionism) and cognitive science (computationalism,
connectionism, dynamical system approach and robotics). In the second part, I will
introduce the main notions of these domains: representation, emergence, levels of
analysis/organizational/epistemological/ontological) vs. reductionism, etc. In the last part,
I make a short presentation of the multidisciplinary science, cognitive neuroscience (that
is part of cognitive science) realized through the unification of some knowledge from
neuroscience and psychology in order to solve one of the main philosophical problem, the
mind-brain problem.
Evaluation: There will be a continuous evaluation of the students through their activities
in the seminar (presentations, contributions, comments). The final examination will
consist of a discussion on their final paper on one of the main topics of the course. The
students will describe and explain the plan and the structure of their work and the
research methods used during the elaboration of the dissertation. In each week, there will
be an hour consultation for students in their preparing the final paper.
Course objectives: The objective of the course is to familiarize the students with the
main theories, problems and concepts of the philosophy of mind and cognitive science
seen in a critical and dynamic way.
Abilities and competences developed by the course: the course will try to help the
students in developing their analytical and critical abilities concerning the topic of
philosophy of mind and cognitive science and also their independent research in the field
and elaboration of ideas and new experiments.
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Subjects covered by the course:
1. Dualism (Descartes) and behaviorism (Watson, Skinner)
- Descartes’s dualism and a short view about behaviorism
Seminar: R. Descartes – “Meditations on First Philosophy (II and VI)”
2. Identity theory and eliminative materialism
- Identity theory (Place, Smart), eliminativism (Patricia and Paul Churhland)
- Folk psychology vs. neuroscience
- Intertheoretic reductionism
- Qualia and neuroscience
Seminar: Place (1956), Paul Churchland
3. Functionalism and nonreductionism
- Functionalism from Putnam to Fodor
Seminar: Searle (1992) The Rediscovery of the mind – Chapter 4
4. What is cognitive science? General notions
- Representations and neuronal patterns, computation and processing
- Dichotomies: declarative-procedural, accesibil-inaccesibil, conscious-unconscious,
conceptual-sensoriomotor, simbolic-subsimbolic, explicit-implicit. (Mandler 1998)
Seminar: Bechtel si Herschbach “Philosophy of the Cognitive Sciences” (2009)
5. Computationalism
- Fodor’s LOT: formalism, computation, syntax and semantics
Seminar: Clark (Chapter 1 and 2; 2001, Chinese Room)
6. Connectionism
- Notions about neural nets, (Elman, Clark, Bechtel and Abrahamsen, Elman et al 1996)
vs. Fodor and Pylyshyn, Marcus (compositionality, systematicity, productivity)
Seminar: Clark (1997, 2001- Chapter 4)
7. Dynamical system theory
- General notions about dynamical system theory (van Gelder, Kelso, Brooks, Thelen si
Smith)
Seminar: van Gelder (1995)
8. Robotics and AI
- 3 kinds of classical robots (computer, neural nets, dynamical system, hybrid robots)
Seminar: Brooks (2001) – “Intelligence without representation”
9. Representation and mental processing
- Representation and computation in psychology and neuroscience
- Propositional vs. image representation (Pylyshyn vs. Kosslyn)
- The need for symbolic representation
Seminar: “Extending the classical view of representation” (Markman and Dietrich 2002)
10. Levels, emergence vs. reductionism
- The relationship between neuronal and psychological levels
- Emergentism vs. reductionism
- Molecular level and cognition (Bickle 2007)
- “Explanatory gap” between neuroscience and psychology (Levine, McGinn)
- Fodor’s special sciences
Seminar: “Reduction, Emergence, and Other Recent Options on the Mind/Body Problem,
A Philosophic Overview” (van Gulick, 2001, pp. 1-20)
11. Cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga, Frith 2007)
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- “Cognitive neuroscience” as a new discipline/science
Seminar: Bernhard Hommel and Lorenza S. Colzato (2010) “Games with(out) Frontiers:
toward an integrated science of human cognition”
12. Binding problem, localization, synchronization, and the unity of the mind
- Binding problem and localization in cognitive neuroscience
- Synchronized oscillations and consciousness/mind
Seminar: Holcombe, “The Binding Problem” (2009)
13. Optimism vs. skepticism in cognitive neuroscience (Bechtel vs. Uttal)
- Bechtel’s optimism vs. Uttal’s skepticism
- The role of philosophy in cognitive science
Seminar: Bechtel (2009) “How Can Philosophy be a True Cognitive Science Discipline?”
General bibliography
Bechtel, William: 1998, “Representations and cognitive explanations: Assessing the
dynamicist’s challenge in cognitive science”, Cognitive Science 22(3), pp. 295–318
Brooks, A. Rodney: 1991, “Intelligence without representation”, Artificial Intelligence
47, pp. 139–159
Chalmers, J. David: 2003, “Consciousness and its place in nature”, in S. Stich and T.
Wartfield (eds.), Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell
Churchland, M. Paul: 1993/1998, Matter and Consciousness, revised edition, A Bradford
Book MIT Press
Churchland, M. Paul and Churchland, Patricia S.: 1990, “Intertheoretic Reduction: a
Neuroscientist’s Field Guide”, The Neuroscience 2, pp. 249-56 reprinted in R. Warner
and T. Szubka (eds.), The MindBody Problem, Blackwell Publishing Inc, 1993
Clark, Andy: 1997b, “The dynamical challenge”, Cognitive Science 21(4), pp. 461–481
Clark, Andy: 2001, Mindware – An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science,
New York, Oxoford, Oxford University Press
Descartes, René: 1994, A Discourse on Method; Meditations on First Philosophy,
Principles of Philosophy, translated by J. Veitch, Everyman
Fodor, A. Jerry: 1974, “Special sciences or the disunity of science as a working
hypothesis”, Synthese 28, pp. 77–115, reprinted paper
Kossylyn, S. Michael: 1997, “Mental Imagery”, in Michael S. Gazzaniga (ed.),
Conversation on Cognitive Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Levin J. “Functionalism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/
McCauley, N. R.: 1998, “Levels of explanation and cognitive architectures”, in W.
Bechtel and G. Graham (eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science, Blackwell, Oxford
Nagel, Thomas: 1974, “What is it like to be a bat?”, Philosophical Review 4 LXXXIII:
435–450
Place, T. Ullin: 1956, “Is consciousness a brain process?”, British Journal pf Psychology
in (eds.) Brian Beakley and Peter Ludlow, The Philosophy of Mind, A Bradford Book,
The MIT Press
Searle, R. John: 1992, The Rediscovery of the Mind, MIT Press
Searle, R. John: 1999, “The Chinese room”, in Wilson, R. A. and F. Keil (eds.), The MIT
Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge: MIT Press
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Smart, J. J. C.: 1962, “Sensations and brain processes”, in V. C. Chappell (ed.) The
Philosophy of Mind, Englewood
Smart, J. J. C.: “The identity theory of mind”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Fall
2004
Edition),
Edward
N.
Zalta
(ed.),
URL
=
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/mind-identity/
Van Gelder, Tim: 1995, “What might cognition be if not computation?”, Journal of
Philosophy 92, pp. 345–381
Van Gulick, R.: 2001, “Reduction, Emergence and other Recent Options on the
Mind/Body Problem- A Philosophic Overview”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8,
No. 9-10, pp. 1-34
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