|
Mind or Knowledge This course is called “Mind or Knowledge” so that the instructor may choose to focus on contemporary issues in the nature of mind, or of knowledge, or both (i.e. the “or” is inclusive). During the Winter 2008 offering, the instructor will focus on both mind and knowledge. The two main texts for the course are Making It Explicit and Hot Thought, though other readings will be placed on reserve. In his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Michael Dummett makes the following claim: "What distinguishes analytical philosophy, in its diverse manifestations, from other schools is the belief, first, that a philosophical account of thought can be attained through a philosophical account of language, and secondly, that a comprehensive account can only be so attained." While this is not the only conception of analytic philosophy, it is a useful one. In Making It Explicit, Robert Brandom can be understood as taking an analytic (in Dummett’s sense) approach to understanding intentionality. In other words, Brandom is taking an analytic approach to what it is to possess meaningful states about the world and one's self. To be sure, he stresses the social dimension of agency, but even this is pursued with a focus on the philosophy of language. During the first part of the course, we will read selections from Brandom’s Making it Explicit. In Hot Thought, Paul Thagard examines the relationship between emotion and reason and uses (among other things) neurocomputational models of cognition. Thagard is not taking the language-first approach often found in traditional analytic philosophy. During the second part of the course, we will undertake a careful study of most of Hot Thought. This course will look at the nature of mind as well as the nature of reasoning, knowing, and agency. One concern with the analytic approach is that it may proceed on unacknowledged and problematic empirical assumptions about the nature of mind, thereby failing to present an adequate account of mind (which may then infect the account of agency, reasoning and knowing). Empirically informed approaches are less likely to suffer from such problems. However, a concern with more empirically informed approaches is that they may fail to speak adequately to the normative nature of agency, reasoning, and knowing. The nature of this normativity is front and centre for analytic thinkers like Brandom. Discussion of the alleged strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches will be an important part of the course. While this course is open to students who are not graduate students in philosophy, it will be pursued philosophically. No background in cognitive science or neuroscience will be assumed.
Home
Links
|