David Chalmers

E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 621-7105
Web: http://consc.net/
Class meetings: Monday/Wednesday 1-1:50pm, ILC 120
Office hours: Monday 3:30-5pm (Social Sciences 226A)

Teaching Assistants:

• Jason Brennan ([email protected]):  Sections 11-13
• Nicole Hassoun ([email protected]): Sections 5, 6, 10
• Brad Thompson ([email protected]): Sections 7-9

This class is devoted to philosophical issues concerning the mind, the self, knowledge, and reality.

• How can we know anything about the world?
• What is the mind?
• What is the relationship between mind and body?
• Can consciousness be scientifically explained?
• What is the self?
• Do we have free will?
• Could computers have minds?
• Could there be time travel?

• Doing Philosophy: An Introduction through Thought-Experiments, (second edition), by Theodore Schick Jr and Lewis Vaughn.

Assessment

There will be two papers of 4-6 pages each, a midterm and a final exam, and occasional quizzes.  Late papers will be penalized at a rate of one letter grade per day (except with medical documentation).  No incompletes will be given, except for very good medical reasons.   If you have special needs, let me know soon. Attendance at discussion section is required; if you miss more than two meetings, your grade will suffer. Plagiarism will lead to automatic failure and report. The final exam is May 12, 11am to 1pm (no alterations).

Paper topics are available here!

Tips on doing philosophy

Here are some very useful resources on how to write philosophy papers. Read these carefully!

• Writing a Philosophy Paper (Peter Horban)
• Guide to the Study of Philosophy (Garth Kemerling)
• What Does He Want? (Geoffrey Payzant)
• Undergraduate Philosophical Writing (Martin Young)
• Writing a Philosophy Paper (Sanford Levy)
• Tips on Writing a Philosophy Paper (Douglas Portmore)
• Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper (James Pryor)

Schedule

Here is a very approximate week-by-week plan for the course, with associated readings.  Note that this is very likely to be revised as things develop, and further readings will be added.

TOPIC 1. INTRODUCTION (1 week)

Week 1 (Jan 15, 22): Philosophy, Arguments

• DP, Chapter 1

• Monty Python, The argument clinic
• Logical fallacies

Week 2 (Jan 27, 29): Descartes and Skepticism

• DP, Section 2.1
• DP, Chapter 7.1
• Rene Descartes, Meditations I, II (DP)

Week 3 (Feb 3, 5): Responses to Skepticism

• DP, Chapter 7.2 & 7.3
• Rene Descartes, Meditation IV (DP)
• George Berkeley, Of the Principles of Human Knowledge (DP)

Week 4 (Feb 10, 12): More on The Matrix

• James Pryor, What's so bad about living in the matrix?
• David Chalmers, The Matrix as metaphysics
• David Chalmers, The Matrix as metaphysics (Powerpoint)

• Philosophy in The Matrix
• The Matrix Game
• Matrix Card Experiment
• God in the Quad

TOPIC 3: THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM (3 weeks)

Week 5 (Feb 17, 19): Materialism and Dualism

• DP, Chapter 2
• Descartes, Meditations 1&2

Week 6 (Feb 24, 26): Varieties of Dualism: Interactionism and Epiphenomenalism

• DP, pp. 74-79
• Smullyan, An unfortunate dualist

Week 7 (March 3, 5): Varieties of Materialism: Behaviorism and the Identity Theory

• DP, pp. 80-101
• Davis, Strange behavior (DP)
• Taylor, Materialism vs dualism (DP)

• Rene Descartes and the Legacy of Mind-Body Dualism
• Beloff, The mind-brain problem
• Robinson, Epiphenomenalism
• Behaviorism (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Minsky, Minds are simply what brains do

TOPIC 4: CONSCIOUSNESS (2 weeks)

Week 8 (March 10, 12): The Puzzle of Consciousness

• Chalmers, The puzzle of consciousness (DP)
• Nagel, What is it like to be a bat?
• Jackson, Epiphenomenal qualia

Week 9 (March 24, 26): The Hard Problem

• Chalmers, Facing up to the problem of consciousness
• Dennett, Facing backward on the problem of consciousness
• Chalmers, Moving forward on the problem of consciousness (section 2.1)

• Zombies on the web
• Online papers on consciousness
• The Knowledge Argument

Week 10 (March 31, April 2): Midterm, Ethics of War

TOPIC 5: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2-3 weeks)

Week 11: (April 7, 9): Can Computers Think?

• DP, Chapter 2.3
• Bisson, They're made of meat!
• Alan Turing, The imitation game (DP)

Week 12: (April 14. 16): Machine Consciousness

• Searle, Minds, brains, and programs
• Chalmers, Absent qualia, fading qualia, dancing qualia (especially sections 3 and 4)

Other links:

• Alan Turing Home Page
• The Turing Test Page
• The Turing Test (encyclopedia article)
• The Loebner Prize
• Dialogues with ELIZA and PARRY
• Talk to ELIZA online
• Talk to ALICE online
• Subcognition and the Limits of the Turing Test (Robert French)

TOPIC 6: THE SELF (1-2 weeks)

• DP, Chapter 5
• Dennett, Where am I?

TOPIC 7: FREE WILL (1-2 weeks)

• DP, Chapter 3

TOPIC 8: TIME TRAVEL (1-2 weeks)

Web Resources

Some useful resources on the web include:

• Online papers on consciousness
• Consciousness in Philosophy: A Bibliography
• Consciousness in Science: A Bibliography
• Web resources related to consciousness, philosophy, and such