Postgraduate Course: Advanced Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science (Online) (PHIL11135)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This is a research led course focusing on core issues in cognitive science and its overlap with more traditional philosophy of mind. The course begins with an overview of some conceptual debates in philosophy of mind and cognitive science before addressing the more specific question of how we attribute mental states to others. In the final section of the course weżll look at more general themes in cognitive science, including the role of evolution and culture in shaping our minds. The course is strongly disciplinary, drawing on resources from psychology, neuroscience and anthropology to supplement philosophical ideas. No prior knowledge of these extra-philosophical disciplines is necessary for taking the course.
Students on this course would ordinarily be expected to have successfully completed the corresponding Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science course (PHIL11130).
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| Course description |
Language and thought
Week 1 - Introduction: the computational mind (Synchronous seminar)
Week 2 - Can animals think? (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 3 - The nativist/empiricist debate (Synchronous seminar)
Understanding other minds
Week 4 - Theory-theory (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 5 - Simulation theory (Synchronous seminar)
Week 6 - Mirror neurons (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 7 - Can infants mindread? (Synchronous seminar)
Applications
Week 8 - Evolutionary psychology (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 9 - How does culture affect the mind (Synchronous seminar)
Week 10 - Altruism in non-human animals (Asynchronous forum seminar)
Week 11 - Review (Synchronous seminar)
This may be subject to change; the final syllabus will be posted on Learn course page.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
Students MUST have passed:
Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science (Online) (PHIL11130)
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Students must have passed Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science (PHIL11130) or equivalent during their previous studies at another institution before taking this course. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
| Course Start Date |
21/09/2015 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Online Activities 20,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 2,
Revision Session Hours 2,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
172 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
85 %,
Practical Exam
15 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Students will be assessed by a 2500 word essay (85%) and successful participation in the on-line activities associated with the course (15%).
Essay deadline: Thursday 17th December 2015 by 12 noon.
Word limit: 2500 words maximum (excluding references)
Return deadline: Thursday 21st January 2016 |
| Feedback |
Students have the opportunity to submit a formative essay by week 6 deadline on Turnitin via Learn. The essay cannot be draft of summative essay but it can be on the same topic.
Formative essay deadline: Thursday 29th October 2015 by 12 noon
Return deadline: Friday 20th November 2015 |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- understand the main accounts (theory-theory, simulation, direct perception) of how we interpret other people's behaviour
- be able to critically assess philosophical approaches to joint attention and altruism
- be able to incorporate ideas from traditional philosophy of mind debates (other minds; eliminativism; rationality) with contemporary empirical discoveries in psychology and neuroscience
- understand philosophical and cognitive science methodologies in approaching the field of social cognition.
- have a grasp of core issues in the philosophy of psychology, e.g. nativism, modularity, tacit knowledge.
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Reading List
Class Reading
Week 1:
Clark, A. (2001). Mindware: an introduction to Philosophy of Cognitive Science . Oxford University Press. Ch.1 & 2
Kim, J. (1995). Philosophy of Mind. Westview. Ch.5
Crane, T. (1995/2003). The Mechanical Mind. Routledge. Ch.3
Week 2:
Carruthers, P. (2004). On being simple minded. American Philosophical Quarterly. 41, 205-220
Davidson, D. (1982/2001). Rational Animals. In Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective. Oxford University Press. Ch.7. Available as an Ebook.
Week 3:
Chomsky, N. (1967). Recent contributions to the theory of innate ideas. Synthese, 17, 2-11. Samuels, R. (2002). Nativism in cognitive science. Mind and Language, 17, 233 - 265
Week 4:
Gopnik, A., & Wellman, H. (1992). Why the child's theory of mind really is a theory. Mind and Language, 7, 145-71.
Week 5:
Goldman, A. (2006). Simulating Minds. Oxford University Press. Ch. 2. Available as an E-book
Week 6:
Gallese, V. (2002). Before and below 'theory of mind': embodied simulation and the neural correlates of social cognition. Philosophical transactions of the royal society of the biological sciences, 362, 659 - 669
Csibra, G. (2007). Action mirroring and action understanding: an alternative account. In P. Haggard, Y. Rosetti, & M. Kawato (Eds.), Sensorimotor foundations of higher cognition: attention and performance XXII (pp. 435 - 459). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (read this after the Gallese paper)
Week 7:
Butterfill, S. & Apperly, I. (2011). How to construct a minimal theory of mind. Mind and Language, 28, 606 - 637
Week 8:
Buller, D. (2005). Evolutionary Psychology: the emperor's new paradigm. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 277 - 283
Week 9:
Henrich, J., Heine, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Brain and Behavioural Science, 33, 61 - 83.
Lillard, A. (1998). Ethnopsychologies: Cultural variations in theories of mind. Psychological Bulletin, 123. 3 - 32
Week 10:
De Waal, F. (2009). Primates and Philosophers. Princeton University Press. Electronic resource. Part 1, pp.1-58 (they are very small pages!) The commentaries at the end are useful secondary reading.
The full reading list is available on LEARN. |
Additional Information
| Course URL |
Please see Learn page |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will gain transferable skills in research, analysis and argumentation. |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
This course is only for online MSc/Dip/Cert Epistemology, Ethics and Mind students. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Suilin Lavelle
Tel: (0131 6)50 3665
Email: J.S.Lavelle@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Lynsey Buchanan
Tel: (0131 6)51 5002
Email: Lynsey.Buchanan@ed.ac.uk |
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