A sound background in analytical philosophy and philosophy of science is imperative for students to be successful in consciousness studies. This course will introduce basic philosophical issues in epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics and assign relevant reading material from the seminal works of principal Western philosophers. A variety of schools such as materialism, physicalism, behaviorism, dualism, pan-psychism, and phenomenology will also be discussed. A basic introduction to philosophy of physics, philosophy of chemistry, philosophy of biology, and neurophilosophy will be given. The students will use the acquired philosophical knowledge to learn and discuss the main issues in consciousness studies including: the neural correlates of consciousness; the binding problem; ‘the problem of Mary’s knowledge’; the symbol grounding problem; eliminative and non-eliminative strategies to explain the mind; the computational view of brain and Searle’s Chinese room counter-argument; causality (starting with Hume); theories of perception (starting with Kant); semantics and meaning.
General Information
Time: M & W 11:00-12:00 pm and F: 3:00-4:00 pm
Venue: Room No.207
Instructor: Prof. Ramakant Sinari, Ph.D.
Grading Scheme
Evaluation Component |
Maximum percentage |
|
Test I |
10% |
|
Class-room Paper Presentations |
10% |
|
Midterm Examination |
20% |
|
Home Assignment / Project |
20% |
|
Final Comprehensive Examination |
40% |
Number of Class-room Hours: 45
- Lectures: 37
- Class-room discussions of research papers & tests: 8
(Many class-room hours being of 90 minute duration, discussion on many topics will be accommodated in these class-room hours)
REFERENCES:
File of the photocopied material distributed to students contains the following papers:
- 17 papers from Ned Block, Owen Flanagan and Guven Guzeldere (Ed.): The Nature of Consciousness – Philosophical Debates, MIT Press, 1997
- 6 papers from Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett (Ed.): The Mind’s I, Penguin Books, 1981
- 10 papers from Thomas Metzinger (Ed.): Conscious Experience, Imprint Academic, 1995
Ancilliary books
- Karl Popper and John Eccles: The Self and Its Brain, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983.
- D.M. Armstrong: A Materialist Theory of the Mind, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968.
- Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained, Little Brown, 1991.
- Colin McGinn: The Problem of Consciousness, Oxford, 1991.
- David Chalmers: The Conscious Mind: In Search of Fundamental Theory, Oxford, 1996.
- David Rosenthal (Ed.): The Nature of Mind, Oxford, 1997.
- Owen Flanagan: Consciousness Reconsidered, MIT Press, 1992.
- Roger Penrose: Shadows of the Mind, Oxford, 1994.
- John Searle: The Mystery of Consiousness, NYREW, 1997.
- John Searle: “Do We Understand Consciouness?” Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, Nos. 5-6, 1998.
- Michael Tye: “Precis of Ten Problems of Consciousness” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LVIII, No.3, 1998.
Modules (date-wise)
Sr. No. |
Dates |
Tittle of the Paper |
No. of Lectures |
|
1 |
8 Sept |
William James: ‘The stream of consciouness’ |
1 |
|
2 |
10 Sept |
Daniel Dennett: ‘The cartesian theatre and ‘Filling In’ the stream of consciousness’ |
1 |
|
3 |
13 Sept |
Owen Flanagan: ‘The Robust phenomenology of the stream of consciousness’ |
1 |
|
4 |
15 Sept |
Patricia Smith Churchland: ‘Can Neurobiology Teach Us Anything about Consciousness?’ |
1 |
|
5 |
17 Sept |
Francis Crick and Christof Koch: ‘Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness’ |
1 |
|
6 |
20 Sept |
A.M. Turing: ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ |
1 |
|
7 |
22 Sept |
Douglas Hofstadter: ‘The Turing Test A Coffeehouse Conversation’ |
1 |
|
8 |
24 Sep |
John R. Searle: ‘Minds, Brain and Programs’ |
1 |
|
9 |
27 Sept |
Thomas Nagel: ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ |
1 |
|
10 |
29 Sept |
John R. Searle: ‘Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Consciousness’ |
1 |
|
11 |
1 Oct |
John R. Searle: ‘Breaking the Hold: Silicon Brains, Conscious Robots, and other Minds’ |
1 |
|
12 |
4 Oct |
Colin McGinn: ‘Consciousness and space’ |
1 |
|
13 |
6 Oct |
Colin McGinn: ‘Consciousness and content’ |
1 |
|
14 |
8 Oct |
Colin McGinn: ‘Can We Solve the Mind-body problem?’ |
1 |
|
15 |
11 Oct |
Ned Block: ‘Begging th Question Against phenomenal consciousness’ |
1 |
|
16 |
13 Oct |
Test 1 |
|
|
17 |
15 Oct |
Presentation of papers by students and discussion on them |
1 |
|
18 |
18 Oct |
Presentation of papers by students and discussion on them |
1 |
|
19 |
20 Oct |
Presentation of papers by students and discussion on them |
1 |
|
20 |
22 Oct |
Tyler Burge: ‘Two kinds of Consciousness’ |
1 |
|
21 |
25 Oct |
Robert Van Gulick: ‘Understanding the phenomenal kind : Are we all just Armadillos?’The absent qualia argument’ |
1 |
|
22 |
27 Oct |
Daniel Dennet: ‘Quining qualia’ |
1 |
|
23 |
29 Oct |
Frank Jackson: ‘What Mary did’t know’ |
1 |
|
24 |
1 Nov |
Paul M. Churchland: ‘Knowing Qualia: A reply to Jackson’ |
1 |
|
25 |
2 Nov |
Martine Nida-Rumelin: ‘What mary couldn’t know: Belief about phenomenal states’ |
1 |
|
26 |
5 Nov |
Guven Guzelere: ‘Is consciousness the perception of what passes in one’s own mind?’ |
1 |
|
27 |
8 Nov |
Thomas Metzinger: ‘The problem of consciousness’ |
1 |
|
28 |
10 Nov |
Peter Bieri: ‘Why Is consciousness puzzling?’ |
1 |
|
29 |
12 Nov |
Fred Dretske: ‘Consciousness Experience’ |
1 |
|
30 |
15 Nov |
Midterm Examination |
|
|
31 |
17 Nov |
Joseph Levine: ‘Qualia Intrinsic, Relational or what?’ |
1 |
|
32 |
19 Nov |
David J. Chalmers: ‘Absent qualia, Fading qualia, Dancing qualia’ |
1 |
|
33 |
22 Nov |
Robert Kirk: ‘How is consciousness possible?’ |
1 |
|
34 |
24 Nov |
Presentation of papers by students and discussion on them |
1 |
|
35 |
26 Nov |
Presentation of papers by students and discussion on them |
1 |
|
36 |
29 Nov |
Presentation of papers by students and discussion on them |
1 |
|
37 |
1 Dec |
Thomas Metzinger: ‘Faster than thought: Holism, Homogeneity and temporal coding’ |
1 |
|
38 |
3 Dec |
Daniel Dennet: ‘Where am I?’ |
1 |
|
39 |
6 Dec |
David Hawley Sanford: ‘Where was I?’ |
1 |
|
40 |
8 Dec |
Daniel Dennet: ‘Cog: Steps towards consciousness in Robots’ |
1 |
|
41 |
10 Dec |
Dieter Birnbacher: ‘Artificial consciousness’ |
1 |
|
42 |
13 Dec |
John Searle: ‘The Mystery of Consiousness’ |
1 |
|
43 |
15 Dec |
John Searle: ‘The Mystery of Consiousness’ |
1 |
|
44 |
17 Dec |
Karl Popper’s Concept of “World 3”(Ref: Karl Popper & John Eccles: The Self and its Brain) |
1 |
|
45 |
20 Dec |
Karl Popper’s Concept of World3” (Ref: Karl Popper & John Eccles: The Self and its Brain) |
1 |
