|
|
Philosophy
6330:
Seminar in Psychological Explanation
Fall
2005
Tuesday
2:30 - 5:30 p.m.
S447 Ross
Course Description :
This seminar will be focused on the topic of psychological explanation. We will critically examine the traditional account of behavior as being caused by beliefs and desires. Starting with contemporary accounts of the role of mental states by Davidson, Lewis, Fodor, Churchland, and Dennett, we will then begin to bring empirical evidence to bear on the traditional theories of action. We will examine assumptions about action and the nature of mental states from the perspective of experimental philosophy, cognitive ethology/comparative psychology, and cultural psychology, and determine whether such empirical evidence has a role to play.
Requirements:
Presentations 50%
Term paper 50%
Readings:
All readings are available in the course pack available at the university bookstore, except for one reading which will be handed out in class, and three readings which are available on line, as indicated in the schedule below.
Tentative
Schedule:
Date
|
Reading
|
|
September
13 |
Introduction
|
|
September
20 |
Donald Davidson
“Action, reason, and causes”
David
Lewis
“Psychophysical
and theoretical identifications”
|
|
September
27 |
Jerry
Fodor
“The
persistence of the attitudes”
“You
can fool some of the people all of the time, everything else being
equal” |
|
October
4 |
No
Class Rosh Hashanah |
|
October
11 |
Churchland
“Eliminative
materialism”
“Folk
psychology and the explanation of human behavior”
|
|
October
18 |
Dennett
“True
believers”
“Real
patterns” |
|
October
25 |
Goldman
“Folk psychology and mental concepts”
Gordon, “Simulation and the explanation of action” |
handout |
November
1 |
Wimmer & Perner
"Beliefs about beliefs"
Robinson & Mitchell
"Masking of children's understanding of the representational mind"
Bloom
and German
“Two reasons to abandon the false belief task as a test
of theory of mind" |
|
November
8 |
Nisbett & Wilson
“Telling more than we can know”
Knobe & Malle
“Self and other in the explanation of behavior” |
|
November
15 |
Alfred Mele
“Intentional action: Controversies, data, and core hypotheses”
J. Knobe
“The concept of intentional action” |
|
November
22 |
Bennett
“Folk-psychological explanations”
Dennett
“Cognitive ethology” |
|
November
29 |
Tomasello
et al. “Chimpanzees understand psychological states”
Povinelli
and Vonk
“We don't need a microscope to explore the chimpnazee's
mind”
|
|
December
6 |
Lillard
“Ethnopsychologies”
Nisbett
Geography of Thought
Ch. 5 |
|
|