Calendar. The assignments below are approximate and tentative. The reading guide for each class will give full details of the assignment and sometimes include passages that are part of your assignment.
| 8/26 | introduction | |
| 8/31 | René Descartes, sels. from Meditations and Passions of the Soul (Chalmers, pp. 10-23) | reading guide |
| 9/2 | Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, ch. 1 (Chalmers, pp. 32-38) | reading guide |
| 9/7 |
U. T. Place, Is Consciousness a Brain Process?(Chalmers, pp. 55-60), and Herbert Feigl, The 'Mental' and the 'Physical'(Chalmers, pp. 68-72) |
reading guide |
| 9/9 |
J. J. C. Smart, Sensations and Brain Processes(Chalmers, pp. 60-68) |
reading guide |
| 9/14 |
Hilary Putnam, Brains and Behavior(Chalmers, pp. 45-54) |
reading guide |
| 9/16 | no class | |
| 9/21 | no class | |
| 9/23 |
Hilary Putnam, The Nature of Mental States(Chalmers, pp. 73-79) |
reading guide |
| 9/28 |
Ned Block, Troubles with Functionalism(Chalmers, pp. 94-98), and Nida-Rümelin, Pseudonormal Vision(Chalmers, pp. 99-105) |
reading guide |
| 9/30 |
Thomas Nagel, What is it Like to be a Bat?(Chalmers, pp. 219-226) |
reading guide |
| 10/5 |
Ned Block, Concepts of Consciousness(Chalmers, pp. 206-218) |
reading guide |
| 10/7 |
Frank Jackson, Epiphenomenal Qualia(Chalmers, pp. 273-280) |
reading guide |
| 10/12 |
David Lewis, What Experience Teaches(Chalmers, pp. 281-294) |
reading guide |
| midsemester break | ||
| 10/19 |
Paul Churchland, The Rediscovery of Light(Chalmers, pp. 362-371) |
reading guide |
| 10/21 |
David Rosenthal, Explaining Consciousness(Chalmers, pp. 406-421) |
reading guide |
| 10/26 |
David Rosenthal, Explaining Consciousnesscontinued |
reading guide |
| 10/28 |
Michael Tye, Visual Qualia and Visual Content Revisited(Chalmers, pp. 447-456) |
reading guide |
| 11/2 |
Franz Brentano, The Distinction between Mental and Physical Phenomena(Chalmers, pp. 479-484), and Roderick Chisholm, Intentional Inexistence(Chalmers, pp. 484-491) |
reading guide |
| 11/4 |
Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, secs. XI-XV (Chalmers, pp. 534-541) |
reading guide |
| 11/9 |
Daniel Dennett, True Believers(Chalmers, pp. 556-568) |
reading guide |
| 11/11 |
Paul Churchland, Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes(Chalmers, pp. 568-580) |
reading guide |
| 11/16 |
Hilary Putnam, The Meaning of 'Meaning'"(Chalmers, pp. 581-596) |
reading guide |
| 11/18 |
Andy Clark and David Chalmers, The Extended Mind(Chalmers, pp. 643-651) |
reading guide |
| Thanksgiving break | ||
| 11/30 |
class choice: A. J. Ayer, Freedom and Necessity(Chalmers, pp. 662-666) |
reading guide |
| 12/2 |
class choice: Derek Parfit, Reductionism and Personal Identity(Chalmers, pp. 655-661) |
reading guide |
| 12/7 |
class choice: Fred Dretske, A Recipe for Thought(Chalmers, pp. 491-499) |
reading guide |
| 12/9 |
class choice: Bertrand Russell, Analogy(Chalmers, pp. 667-669) and Norman Malcolm, Knowledge of Other Minds,The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 55 (1958), pp. 969-978. (Also on JSTOR.) |
reading guide |