Philosophy of Mind
Textbook: Stich, S. P., & Warfield, T. A. (2008). The Blackwell guide to philosophy of mind. John Wiley & Sons. (compulsory). If you are on a tight budget, don't buy it just yet! A number of articles will be provided through uploads on the UniStudium Platform.
Office Hours: by appointment, online or in physical presence.
Your teacher: Vera Matarese
When: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays 10 – 12
Description: Mental phenomena such as desires, fears and thoughts play a crucial role in human activities. One could even maintain that mentality is essential to human nature, as some sort of mental life is necessary for being fully human. This course covers a wide range of issues in contemporary philosophy of mind, such as mental content, mental causation, consciousness, the nature of the mind, personal identity, the mind-body relation, and free will. We will explore these topics with a more traditional, a priori methodology, as well as an empirically-oriented approach, which is based on recent scientific developments in neuroscience. Students will be invited to reflect about the main philosophical topics of philosophy of mind, as well as on the methodological and meta-philosophical issues relevant to this fascinating discipline.
Exams: written exam. Students will have to reply to TWO open questions in English.
Language: this course is in English. No use of Italian will be accepted at any point.
Way of instruction: each class will be divided into two parts: the first part consists in a frontal lecture given by the lecturer, the second part will be devoted to active and participated discussion.
Teaching philosophy and norms of inclusiveness: as an instructor, I fully embrace intellectual character education. Teaching goes beyond increasing and enriching my students' knowledge. Nor it is merely enhancing their cognitive abilities, such as the ability to analyze, synthesize, understand, or think critically. Teaching is rather helping them cultivate intellectual virtues proper of a good learner and of a good thinker. Such virtues include: intellectual depth, intellectual empathy and tolerance, intellectual curiosity, self-confidence and courage, and self-reflection, intellectual clarity and carefulness.
During my lectures, I am committed to supporting and maintaining a thriving climate for everyone, especially for underrepresented students and for students with special needs. In order to implement an inclusive climate, I ask everyone in the class to follow some norms of inclusiveness, which are especially important during discussion time.