PHL2172S
Advanced Seminar in Philosophy of Mind:



Instructor: William Seager.
Office: H323.
E-mail: seager@utsc.utoronto.ca
Office Hrs: Tuesdays 1-2pm, or by appointment.

Course Outline:

This course aims to work through David Chalmers's 1996 The Conscious Mind. The book contains 10 chapters so we should be able to do about one chapter per week.

Evaluation: each student will be responsible for five "argument precis" which are explications of particular arguments within the reading of about 500 words long. The student will present these to the class. In addition, there will be a term paper due at the end of class (on a topic of the student's choice and which should be about 2500 words long). The term paper will be worth 40% of the final grade; the argument precis will be collectively worth 60% of the final grade (i.e. 12% each).

Reading:

D. Chalmers:The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory



Schedule:


Week Readings Precis
1 (Jan. 10) Introduction to course            
2 (Jan. 17) Ch. 1 "Two Concepts of Mind" David Balcarras / William Lanno-Wehrens
3 (Jan. 24) Ch. 2 "Supervenience and Explanation" Miguel Cendana / William Lanno-Wehrens
4 (Jan. 31) Ch. 3 "Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained            
5 (Feb. 7) Ch. 4 "Naturalistic Dualism"            
6 (Feb. 14) Ch. 4 "The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgement"            
Reading Week (Feb. 21) No class            
7 (Feb. 28) Ch. 6 "The Coherence Between Consciousness and Cognition"            
8 (Mar. 6) Ch. 7 "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia"            
9 (Mar. 13) Ch. 8 "Consciousness and Information: Some Speculation"            
10 (March 20) Ch. 9 "Strong Artificial Intelligence"            
11 (Mar. 27) Ch. 10: "The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics"            
12 (Apr. 3) Catch-Up