PD Dr. Reinhard Blutner
ILLC, University
of Amsterdam
Lectures: Wednesday 15-18,
Oudemanhuispoort D118d
Office Hours: by appointment
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 15, Room W-2.25
"Wir sollten die Dinge so einfach wie möglich machen, aber nicht einfacher"
Albert Einstein
This course
is an introduction into the unusually active and exciting area of Cognitive
Philosophy. It covers many of the central issues currently debated in the field
including the problem of mental representation, the nature of meaning and
truth, the relationship between symbolism and connectionism, the concept of
consciousness, language and experience (the Sapir-Whorf-Hypothesis). In the
areas under discussion philosophical work on the nature of mind is continuous
with scientific work in Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Psychology,
Linguistics, and Neuroscience. Hence, the course is interdisciplinary in
character. The intention is to present the problems (and solutions) in a way
that is accessible for those without a formal background in philosophy.
Part 1
General Introduction: Philosophy and Philosophising
Part 2
Excursus
Colour
Programme
Schedule
for Part 2
October 29
Representation
and content
Introduction
Presentation
T. Dekker:
Concepts
Consciousness
I: The philosophical relevance of Benjamin Libet's experiments
Obligatory
Benjamin Libet: Do we have free will? [650KB,
pdf]
Libet takes an experimental approach to this
question. This article is a good example for what can be called
"Experimental Philosophy"
November 5
Consciousness
I, continued
Presentation I.-M.
Dimmitriou: Free Will
Consciousness
II: The explanatory gap
Presentation
G. Lacerda: Explanatory Gap
Presentation J. Dorling:
The Knowledge Argument
Obligatory
Thomas Nagel: What is it like to be a bat? Philosophical
Review 4:435-50, 1974 [html]
David J. Chalmers: Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness [70KB, pdf]
This paper gives a nontechnical overview of the
problems of consciousness and Chalmer's approach to them. In it C.
distinguishes between the easy problems and the hard problem of consciousness,
and argues that the hard problem eludes conventional methods of explanation. C.
argues that we need a new form of nonreductive explanation, and make some moves
toward a detailed nonreductive theory. This paper, based on a talk C. gave at
the 1994 Tucson conference on consciousness, appeared in a special issue of the
Journal of Consciousness Studies in 1995, and also in the 1996 collection
Toward a Science of Consciousness, edited by Hameroff, Kaszniak
November 12
Consciousness
II, continued
Presentation H. Ballieux:
The False Belief Task
Presentation B. Hagerty:
Knowledge of Other Minds
Presentation G. de
Vries: Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness
Consciousness
III: What is the self?
Presentation
W. Blokdijk: Self-representation
Obligatory
Patricia S. Churchland: Self-Representation in Nervous
Systems [70KB, pdf]
"The brain’s earliest
self-representational capacities arose as evolution found neural network
solutions for coordinating and regulating inner-body signals, thereby improving
behavioral strategies. Additional flexibility in organizing coherent behavioral
options emerges from neural models that represent some of the brain’s
inner states as states of its body, while representing other signals as
perceptions of the external world. Brains manipulate inner models to predict
the distinct consequences in the external world of distinct behavioral options.
The self thus turns out to be identifiable not with a nonphysical soul, but
rather with a set of representational capacities of the physical brain."
November 19
The
computational mind
Presentation
R. Isarfaty: Why
people think computers can't
Presentation
T. van Kasteren: Brains as digital computers?
Presentation S.
de Jager: Searle’s Chinese room
thought experiment
Presentation R. van Hoolwerff: QM
and consciousness
Obligatory
Readings:
Alan Turing: Computing machinery and intelligence [html]
The classical proposal of how to consider the question, 'Can machines
think?' (also called the Turing test)
John R. Searle: Minds, Brains, and Programs [html]
John Searle's (1980) thought experiment is one of the best
known and widely credited counters to claims of artificial intelligence (AI),
i.e., to claims that computers do or at least can (someday might) think.
According to Searle's original presentation, the argument is based on two
truths: brains cause minds, and syntax doesn't suffice for semantics. Its
target, Searle dubs "strong AI": "according to strong AI,"
according to Searle, "the computer is not merely a tool in the study of
the mind, rather the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind in the
sense that computers given the right programs can be literally said to
understand and have other cognitive states" . Searle contrasts
"strong AI" to "weak AI". According to weak AI, according
to Searle, computers just simulate thought, their seeming understanding isn't
real (just as-if) understanding, their seeming calculation as-if calculation,
etc.; nevertheless, computer simulation is useful for studying the mind (as for
studying the weather and other things).
November 26: NO COURSE
December 3
Symbolism
& Connectionism
Introduction
Presentation
Andrew Buchan: The language of thought hypothesis
Presentation:
G. Krimp: Connectionism
and cognitive architecture
Language
and experience
Introduction
Presentation
Jan Grue: Linguistic
relativism
Presentation
Charles Spencer: The myth of Jones (Sellars)
Presentation
Tim van Oosterhout: Embodied Cognition (working title; possibly this presentation will be
shifted to December 10)
Obligatory
Jerry A. Fodor and Zenon W. Pylyshyn, Connectionism and Cognitive
Architecture: A Critical Analysis [170KB, pdf]
Paul Kay & Willett Kempton, What Is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? [200KB, pdf]
December 10
Dreams,
Hallucinations, Buddhism, and the embodied mind
Presentation
Dechen Albero: Tibetan Buddhism and the embodied
mind
Presentation
David M.Baraznji Sassoon: Can the mind be ill?