Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Explores the topic of consciousness, often called "the last great mystery of science," focusing on current scientific theories and empirical investigations from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.

COURSE DETAILS:

Selected Topics: Consciousness

Prerequisites: Either one of: PHIL 201 or 203; or one of PHIL 100W or COGS 100, plus COGS 200; or permission of the instructor. This course will be taught at a level suitable to 3rd and 4th year students from a variety of disciplines. Please contact the instructor if you are unsure whether you are prepared for this course. 

[Note: this course is to be taught concurrently with COGS 310.]

Overview: In the 1990’s, cognitive science experienced a surge of interest in the study of consciousness, a research topic that had been largely dormant since behaviourism became the predominant theory of mind in psychology.  New interest in consciousness studies was the result of a series of article in philosophy.  Ironically, each of these articles argued that consciousness could not be studied or explained by science.  Although some questions, such as the structure of conscious states, might be accessible to scientific inquiry, it will never be possible to explain something more fundamental about conscious experience, what are often described as the phenomenal or qualitative properties of consciousness—or so these philosophers have argued.

This course will begin with those first seminal but negative philosophical papers, the theories/frameworks that have defined much of the debate since they were first published.  However, one thing we know from the history of science, however, is that it is easier to argue against the very possibility of any explanation at all than it is to resolve such puzzles themselves.  That being the case, this course will cover the ‘big’ questions: How does consciousness arise?  How could it arise out of a physical body/brain? Can we ever know what it is like to be someone else or some ‘thing’ else, such as a bat?   Why is there consciousness at all?   But we will also spend time on the ’smaller’ questions about consciousness on which we are making good progress, such as:  What sort of access do we have to our own conscious states—are we ever wrong?  How does attention affect what we experience?  What sort of access to the world do we gain through conscious sensory experiences?  How do we experience ourselves?  What it is like to have a physical body and to act as a physical being?  What can we learn about those experiences from cases in which things break down—when we experience dissociation, minimal states of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, out of body experiences or when we cease to be aware of our own bodies or actions? In other words, in addition to the standard theoretical questions about consciousness at a whole, we will look at particular states of consciousness and in what they consist.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Students may repeat PHIL 332 for further credit if the topic is different.

Goals: 

• To understand how different disciplines approach and theorize the topic of consciousness.   
• To learn how to read original scientific sources and place them within their theoretical context.  
• To learn to write concise summaries of and critical questions about original research.

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Students must have access to internet and a computer/other device that permits streaming video, word processing and teleconferencing with Zoom.

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: