Part I. Theories and approaches in philosophy of mind and cognitive science
1. Dualism (Descartes) and behaviorism (Watson, Skinner)
Seminar: R. Descartes – ”Meditations on First Philosophy (II and VI)”
2. Identity theory and eliminative materialism
Place, Smart, Patricia and Paul Churhland
- Folk psychology vs. neuroscience
- Intertheoretic reductionism
- Qualia and neuroscience
Seminar: Place (1956)
3. Functionalism and nonreductionism
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. Computationalis
- Fodor’s LOT: formalism, computation, syntax and semantics
Seminar: Clark (Chapter 1 and 2; 2001, Chinese Room)
6. Conexionism
- 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 (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” and Clark (2008)
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Part II. Esential notions in cognitive science
(relationship mind-brain-body-external world)
9.
Reprezentation and mental processing
- Reprezentation and computation in psychology and neuroscience
- Propositional vs. image representation (Pylyshyn vs. Kosslyn)
- Dietrich and Markman – Symbolic representations for cognition cognitiei (2003)
Seminar
: “Extending the classical view of representation” (Markman and Dietrich)
10. Cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga, Frith 2007)
- “Cognitive neuroscience” as a new discipline
- The “gap” between psychological and neuroscience explanation (Levine, McGinn),
- Fodor’s special sciences
Seminar: Bernhard Hommel and Lorenza S. Colzato (2010) “Games with(out) Frontiers: toward an integrated science of human cognition”
+ C M Wessinger and E Clapham, (2009) “Cognitive Neuroscience: An Overview”
11. 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) + Catherine Tallon-Baudry (2010)
“The roles of gamma-band oscillatory synchrony in human visual cognition”
12. 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 (2004) The Epistemology of Evidence in Cognitive Neuroscience
+ Bechtel (2009) “How Can Philosophy be a True Cognitive Science Discipline?”
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