PHL2172

Winter Session 2019

Seminar in Philosophy of Mind: Animal Minds and Beyond


This course is concerned with non-human minds. There is now almost universal acceptance of the existence of animal minds despite a long history of significant philosophical and scientific skepticism. But the nature of these minds and how they relate to our own is still far from clear, as is the more general question of how far mentality reaches into the natural world. Mostly we will focus on animal minds, covering issues in animal cognition and consciousness, though some attention will be paid to recent work on plant mentality and bacterial cognition.

Special Notices

The Descartes reading should be Discourse, Pt. 5 (not 4)!

Instructor

Bill Seager
Office: JHB 510
E-mail: Bill Seager
Office Hrs: by appointment.

Requirements

This is a seminar course and students will be expected to present two seminars (accompanied by a short paper of approximately 1000 words). At the end of term, a final paper will be due (of between three and four thousand words). Seminar topics will be arranged by mutual agreement, so please let me know which readings strike your fancy and I will try to co-ordinate your requests.



Course Schedule

Jan. 17 Introductory Meeting, No Reading. No seminar scheduled.
Jan. 24 Descartes: Discourse on Method, Part 5;
Huxley, T: "On the hypothesis that animals are automata, and its history" Fortnightly Review, 1874, 22: 199-245
Greg Horne (Huxley).
Jan. 31 N. Malcolm "Thoughtless Brutes", Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 1972, 46 (September): 5-20;
E. Sober "Evolution and the problem of other minds" Journal of Philosophy, 2000, 97: 365-386.		 Caroline Blaney / Felix Lambrecht (Malcolm); Manula Adhihetty (Sober).
Feb. 7 D. Davidson "Rational Animals" Dialectica, 1982, 36: 317-328;
J. Bennett "Thoughtful Brutes" American Philosophical Association Proceedings 62 (1988), pp. 197–210 		Caroline Blaney / Taylor Barinka (Davidson); Zain Raza (Bennett).
Feb. 14 P. Carruthers "Brute Experience," Journal of Philosophy, 1989, 86: 258-269;
D. Dennett: "Animal consciousness and why it matters" Social Research, 1995, 62: 691-710.		 Catlin Hamblin (Carruthers); John Jalsevac (Dennett).
Feb. 21 Reading Week. No seminar scheduled.
Feb. 28 A. Turing "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" Mind, New Series, Vol. 59, No. 236. (Oct., 1950), pp. 433-460;
D. Dennett "Intentional Systems" Journal of Philosophy 68 (February):87-106 (1971). 		Michael Benedicto / Jack Beaulieu (Turing); Manula Adhihetty / Liang Zhou Koh (Dennett).
Mar. 7 T. Nagel "What is it Like to be a Bat" Philosophical Review 83 (October):435-50;
S. Allen-Hermanson "So that's what it's like!" in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds Routledge 2018, pp. 157-68.		 Lian Zhou Koh (Nagel);

John Jalsevac (Allen-Hermanson).
Mar. 14 P. Godfrey-Smith "The Evolution of Consciousness in Phylogenetic Context" in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds Routledge 2018, pp. 216-226;
P. Godfrey-Smith "From White Noise to Consciousness", ch.4 of his Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.		 Paul Patton (Godfrey-Smith 1);

Marissa Bennett / Taylor Barinka (Godfrey-Smith 2).
Mar. 21 P. Carruthers "Invertebrate concepts confront the generality constraint (and win)", in R. Lurz (ed.) The Philosophy of Animal Minds Cambridge University Press 2009 pp. 89-107;
A. Knoll and G. Rey "Arthropod Intentionality?" in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds Routledge 2018, pp. 13-24. 		Sean Dudley (Carruthers);

Catlin Hamblin (Knoll & Rey).
Mar. 28 F. Fulda "Natural Agency: The Case of Bacterial Cognition" Journal of the American Philosophical Association (2017) 69–90;
P. Lyon "The cognitive cell: bacterial behavior reconsidered" Frontiers in Microbiology April 2015, vol.6, article 264.		 Jack Beaulieu (Fulda);

Michael Benedicto (Lyon).
Apr. 4 C. Maher Chs. 1-2 of Plant Minds: A Philosophical Defense, Routledge, 2017;
M. Gagliano "The mind of plants: Thinking the unthinkable" Communicative & Integrative Biology, 2017, 10:2, e1288333, DOI: 10.1080/19420889.2017.1288333 		Greg Horne (Maher);

Felix Lambrecht (Gagliano).
Apr. 11 T. Nagel "Panpsychism" in Mortal Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19779, pp. 181–195;
G. Strawson "Realistic Materialism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism" Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2006, 13(10–11): 3–31		 Sean Dudley (Nagel);

Zain Raza / Marissa Bennett (Strawson).


Philosophy Hall (PO102), University of Toronto Scarborough, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, Ontario, M1C1A4

Office: 103 Philosophy Hall (PO102)       Phone: 416-208-2976