INDV 101: Philosophical Perspectives on the Individual (spring 2003)

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:

Overview

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

Texts Further readings will be made available on this web page.

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!

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

Other links: TOPIC 2: KNOWLEDGE AND SKEPTICISM (3 weeks)
 

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

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

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

Other links for Topic 2:

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

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

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

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

Other links for Topic 3

TOPIC 4: CONSCIOUSNESS (2 weeks)

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

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

Other links for Topic 4

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?

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

Other links:

TOPIC 6: THE SELF (1-2 weeks)

TOPIC 7: FREE WILL (1-2 weeks)

TOPIC 8: TIME TRAVEL (1-2 weeks)

Web Resources

Some useful resources on the web include: