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Externalism: Where is My Mind?
One of the most interesting and challenging theories to emerge in the last 50 years in the philosophy of mind is the view that the mind might not be located entirely inside the head. This view, sometimes called ‘externalism’, has resulted from several distinct lines of inquiry. Studying concepts, philosophers have discovered that contradictions appear if we assume the content of our thoughts to be determined entirely by facts about individual thinkers taken in isolation. In developing models of the computational basis of the mind, on the other hand, some philosophers have argued that the mind might best be understood as a coupling of the brain and the body with its environment – and not as the activity of the brain alone. In this course we will take a close look at the development of both of these lines of thinking. We will also consider what implications these surprising results have for our understanding of ourselves as persons, who may not be confined to the bodies we have traditionally conceived ourselves as belonging to. Our discussion will range over issues in the philosophy of language, the computational model of the mind, the metaphysics of personal identity, and cyborgs.
Required Texts:
Clark, Andy, Natural Born Cyborgs, Oxford University Press 2003
All other readings available online
Evaluation: 5 Weekly Summaries (10%); Short Essay (20%); Long Essay (40%); Final Exam (30%)
Readings:
No Readings
Part 1: Are Thoughts in the Head?
2: Concepts as Internal States – Images and Descriptions
Hume, David (1764). A Treatise on Human Nature (Book 1, section I)
Grandin, Temple (2006), Thinking in Pictures (Chapter 1, down to 'Different Ways of Thinking', and from 'Abstract Thought' to '...for me it's like programming a computer'))
Frege, Gottlob (1892), "On Sense and Reference" (First two paragraphs)
3: Concepts as External Relations
Putnam, Hilary (1975). The Meaning of ‘Meaning’. (excerpt)
4: Concepts as Linguistic Relations
Dretske: A Recipe for Thought (read the whole thing - we'll be looking mainly at this on Thursday)
Burge: Individualism and the Mental (excerpt: read until page 85 "...where I fully understand the content".)
Searle: Are Meanings in the Head?
Optional - for anyone interested in the linguistics behind the establishment of the meaning of words in shared languages: Clark - Referring as a Collaborative Process
Part 2: Is the Mind in the Head?
Chalmers and Clark: The Extended Mind (W)
Clark: Chapter 1
7: The Internalist Strikes Back
Jerry Fodor, “Where’s My Mind,” London Review of Books (2009)
Robert Rupert, “Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition,” Journal of Philosophy 101 (2004): 389-428.
Noe: Experience without the Head (relevant figures below)
Clark: Chapters 2-3
fig 1. Noe:
Fig. 2 Noe:
Mach's Visual Field
Gursky's 99 cent store
Gerd Gigerenzer, “Is the Mind Irrational or Ecologically Rational?” in The Law and Economics of Irrational Behavior, Francesco Parisi and Vernon Smith, eds., Stanford University Press, (2004) (W)
Gilbert Harman, “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 99, 315331.
Part 3: Where am I?
Parfit, Derek: “Personal Identity”, The Philosophical Review, 80(1) (1971)
Clark: Chapter 4-5
Carol Rovane, "Alienation and the Alleged Separateness of Persons," The Monist 87 (2004): 554-572. (W)
Clark: Chapter 6-7
Neil Levy, “Rethinking Neuroethics in the Light of the Extended Mind Thesis,” American Journal of Bioethics 7 (2007): 3-11. (W)
Zoe Drayson and Andy Clark, “Augmentation, agency, and the spreading of the mental state” (draft manuscript)
Clark, Chapter 8
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