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School of Philosophy · ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences
Debates concerning the nature of mind and consciousness are active and ongoing, with implications for philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence and the neurosciences. It is difficult to understand how minds fit into the physical world and interact with material things. It is hard to explain how minds are capable of representing the world. And it is a deep mystery how conscious experience relates to our bodies and brains. This course will take a philosophical approach to these questions, exploring some of the metaphysical and conceptual issues that underlie psychological and neuroscientific explanations. We will begin by grappling with the Mind/Body problem via discussion of dualism, mind-body identity, functionalism, computationalism and connectionism. Further topics may include the frame problem and embodied cognition, mental representation and the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of reductive or mechanistic explanation.
Two Written assessments x 2000 words each (40% each for a total of 80%)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3
Reading Response Journal, total 1000 words
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 4
Tutorial Participation (10%)
Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4
130 hours of total student learning time made up from: a) 36 hours of contact over 12 weeks: 24 hours of lectures, and 12 hours of tutorials; and, b) 94 hours of independent student research, reading and writing.
Any relevant materials will be outlined on the Canvas site.