This course offers an introduction to philosophical theories of the mind its relation to reality, along with a section on reasoning itself. It begins with a study of theMeditations on First Philosophyby Rene Descartes, which in many ways set the agenda for philosophy since it was published in 1641. This lively book introduces students to dominant themes of modern philosophical thinking. Descartes raises fundamental questions concerning the foundations of knowledge, and, famously, argues that the mind and the body are quite distinct entities or substances. He challenges directly the belief that it is perceptual experience which grounds our knowledge of reality. He holds that, so far as the content of our experience goes, it might be just as it is and yet there be nothing in reality corresponding to that content. Knowledge of reality requires something other than what we experience.
In the second part of the course, Simon Blackburn's Thinkintroduces students to more recent perspectives on many of the issues raised by Descartes, along with some other issues such as the implications of modern science for our understanding of the mind and self.
The course will be examining arguments for and against various conclusions, and it will be important to have a conception of how to assess the force of those arguments. Thus a third component of the course aims to provide students with skills in critical thinking or informal logic. Such skills are essential not just in philosophy, but for assessing arguments in politics, advertising, other academic disciplines, and elsewhere.