ATS2840: Philosophy of Mind

Expository 1 15% Expository 2 15% Essay 40% Exam 30%

Philosophy of Mind is an extension of some of the concepts in ATS1835 Time Self and Mind, and introduces some quite interesting content as well. The unit explores two primary questions – the metaphysical nature of the mind (such as the mind-body problem), and how the mind works (think consciousness as well as AI) using the perspective of seminal papers from Descartes to relatively contemporary philosophers (such as Daniel Dennett). I found the material rather intellectually stimulating (eg. panpsychism’s arguments that consciousness is a fundamental part of the universe was pretty cool).

Much of the material is quite accessible after lectures and the unit reader (though I do know of several people who did quite well without watching a single lecture), though some of the papers are very dense (such as Descartes or Smart's identity theory arguments) and require several readings to understand – having done another philosophy unit previously would be handy but I wouldn’t say necessary. Online resources such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website are useful to keep on hand, but note that it does also cover a lot of material outside of the course.

Completing this unit off-campus means that there are no tutorials (note that I’ve only ever done philosophy units by off-campus learning, so I’m not too sure how the comparative is), but gives you the option to resubmit. I didn’t find the reduced interaction to be particularly onerous. Feedback on assessment tasks is very comprehensive and constructive, and tutors are happy to be emailed for questions. The expository assignments (and the essay to an extent) can be almost exclusively completed from the given readings, but it’s handy to do a bit of research and try and understand differing perspectives. I found the expository assignments quite straightforward – the focus of those seem to be refining your writing style and being able to understand philosophical arguments rather than making novel contributions. The essay was a bit more challenging and vague in its requirements, but if you have a good grasp of the readings, and have a general overview of other perspectives from independent research, you should be able to do quite well on this (again would recommend Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as a supplementary resource).

The format of the exam is around 20 multiple choice questions with 2 essay questions – we were provided with a sample exam with 8 MC questions (most of these did appear on the exam as stated) and around 6 extended response questions (two of these appeared on these exam word-for-word as stated). The multiple choice questions are very conceptually based (so you won’t have to do much more than keep up with readings), but do cover the entirety of the unit so you can’t really get away with skipping readings and the extended response questions, given that you have access to them beforehand, are reasonably straightforward.

Dr Jennifer Windt

Yes, sample exam available

4 out of 5

Yes with screen capture

Unit Reader and Study guide are indispensable (provided as PDFs for summer off-campus learning)

1x lecture per week (off-campus learning)

Semester 3, 2017 (Summer semester 2017-2018)

TBA