ClassInfo - Spring 2018 Philosophy Classes

Spring 2018 | PHIL 4615 Section 001: Minds, Bodies, and Machines (66666)

Instructor(s): Joseph Owens
Class Component:: Lecture
Credits:: 3 Credits
Grading Basis:: Student Option
Instructor Consent:: No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:: In Person Term Based
Times and Locations:: Regular Academic Session

01/16/2018 - 05/04/2018

Mon, Wed 09:45AM - 11:00AM

UMTC, West Bank

Blegen Hall 430
Enrollment Status:: Open (14 of 26 seats filled)

Course Catalog Description:: Mind-body problem. Philosophical relevance of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, computer simulation. prereq: one course in philosophy or instr consent
Class Description:: Our concern is with the nature of mind with alleged differences between mind and body, and with a number of recent attempts to integrate mind into the natural order. This course has three parts. In part A, we discuss some traditional conceptions of mind and body and how these have come under attack from materialists and behaviorists. In part B, we examine the view of mind that is dominant in contemporary cognitive theory. This view has two components: first, it incorporates the notion that representation is central, that having a mind is primarily having a representational system--being able to represent one's environment and being able to operate on such representations to infer, to plan actin, etc. Second, certain well known systems exhibit this kind of representational capacity--computers--and so they provide us with a new model of what it is to have a mind. To have a mind is to satisfy a certain kind of very powerful program. In a sense, we are no more than sophisticated automata, and if on e wants to understand the working of such an automaton one studies its program. To gain some real understanding of such phenomena as vision, linguistic understanding, try to design a program for a system so that it, too, can be said to see and understand. our final part consists of an examination of Wittgenstein's later philosophy, the most most radical challenge to all traditional and contemporary theories of mind.
Grading:: 100% Reports/Papers
Class Format:: 75% Lecture
25% Discussion
Workload:: 2-3 Exam(s)
Textbooks:: https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/66666/1183
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:: 4 September 2007

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