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Let's begin from our ordinary, everyday experience of the world. We have minds. We are pretty sure that many other things possess minds also, even if they are not as complex or as sophisticated as ours. Alongside those things with minds are countless others which are inanimate, non-minded objects. We experience the world; inanimate objects cannot. Following Descartes when we think about our own nature there seems to be radical differences between mental and physical properties. If we turn to one view of the world due to physical science, the world is ultimately composed of arrangements of the basic particles or bits identified by our most advanced physics. Yet, it is by no means clear a complete physical description of the world can include the mental and its particular features. That gap needs to be addressed. For surely any account of the nature of reality must find room for the mental.

Our focus will be on the central metaphysical and epistemological questions which have characterised philosophical consideration of the mind.

• What is the mind?
• What is its place in nature?
• What is the relationship between mentality and physicality?
• How are mental states identified, experienced and known?
• How can I know that others possess minds

Our starting point will be to consider what features characterise the mental and to move on to evaluate the merits of the major theories which have attempted to explain what the mind is. One helpful way of thinking about the philosophy of mind is in terms of what we want from a theory of mind. The basic job of a theory of mind is to tell us what kind of thing the mind is, or, perhaps, to tell us why this is not the right question to be asking. We shall be considering dualism, the thesis that the mental and physical are distinct substances or properties. We shall be moving on to examine the physicalist alternatives and the recent revival of arguments in support of a form of dualism, which focuses on the problem of explaining the nature of phenomenal consciousness.

Desiderata for a theory of mind can be spelt out in terms of those issues which a theory aims to explain. In evaluating a theory we can ask to what extent that theory succeeds in explaining these features. Part of the evaluative process is to be clear about the price one must pay. That is, to identify the metaphysical and epistemological commitments required to hold the theory, and to examine the extent to which such commitments fit with or force a change to one's existing views.

Following the approach of Ian Ravenscroft in his Philosophy of Mind: A Beginners Guide (Oxford) the key features a theory of mind aims to explain are:

1. The apparent causal congress between the mental and the physical. Some mental events or states are caused by physical events or states (think of the pain of stepping on a pin) while some mental states cause actions (think of your desire for coffee causing you to move the mug to your mouth).
   
   
2. The causal relationship between mental states. Some mental states cause others. My belief that there is a large badger running towards me and my belief that badgers are dangerous beasts brings about the belief that I am in danger. This feature seems to be connected to the rational structure of many aspects of our thought.
   
   
3. The intentionality or aboutness of (some) mental states. Some mental states are representational or intentional or have content. You can't just have a belief - you have to have a belief about something or that something is the case. The same is true of desires, hopes, fears, suspicions, and so on. My belief that badgers are mammals or that there is a badger sitting on the mat (note the lower case M) represents the world as being a certain way. The belief has content. My fear that the badger will be hunted or my desire to eat a fine whale steak are likewise states possessing content.
   
   
4. The qualitative aspect of conscious states. This is the what-it's-likeness of conscious states. A perceptual state of, say, seeing a red rose - the sensation of experiencing a red shape - possesses a subjective feel or quality. One clumsy way of putting the point is that the experiencing of red surface is to have a mental state of a certain shape of redness. That state has properties (qualia) in virtue of which it possesses that character or feel. Someone without normal colour vision (e.g. someone who is colour blind) will experience the red rose in a different in their consciousness.
   
   
5. The apparently systematic correlation between certain kinds of mental states and brain states. While there remain huge amounts of work to be done in neuroscience it is clear that quite in general mentality seems to be intimately connected to the functioning of the brain. More particularly certain areas of the brain and patterns of neuronal activity correlate strikingly with mental states. For example, our faculties of sight and speech are connected with particular areas of the brain. The favourite example of philosophers is the connection between the firing of c-fibres and pain (not actually accurate).

Philosophy of Mind Reading

Your main resources will be handouts provided by us, our on-line materials and, of course, your notes. You will also receive a collection of readings, Minds and Brains. Sometimes you will be asked to read a section for homework. Covering core elements of the course this selection of extracts is a good place to do some further or background reading.

We do recommend that you have at least one general introduction or text book as a course companion. It will also enable you to do some background reading and provide a different perspective on some issues from that of your lecturer.

Ian Ravenscroft, Philosophy of Mind: A Beginner's Guide, Oxford University Press

Clear, good introduction. Recommended.

Appleby et al., AQA Philosophy A2, Nelson Thornes.

Multi-authored work covering each of the themes for paper 3. While dealing with the main topics it is a bit thin.

Roy Jackson et al., Understanding Philosophy for A2 Level, Nelson Thornes

Multi-authored work covering each of the themes and texts for the old A2 syllabus. It covers the key material and is reliable enough while offering the benefit of having everything in one place. It is not to the same standard as the material we provide.

Keith Maslin, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, Polity Press

Comprehensive survey of the issues and written with the demands of A-level very much in mind. Maslin is the author of the mind chapter in Understanding Philosophy.

George Graham, Philosophy of Mind: An Introduction, Blackwell

Clear and accessible introduction, if a little idiosyncratic in organisation.

Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness, MIT Press

Clear and reasonably brief.

Jaegwon Kim, Philosophy of Mind, Westview Press

A more advanced treatment of the mind-body problem - not a first text, but useful once you are familiar with the topics.

On-line Resources

Your main source of materials and links will be this website: www.richmond-philosophy.net. You should also make use of the Richmond Journal of Philosophy (www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp). A very good place to start is with these articles.

• Is Your Mind Your Brain? by Alan Thomas.
• The Knowledge Argument by Frank Jackson.
• Confusions about Consciousness by David Papineau.

Now we live in the Facebook Age, those of you who have not done so, should join the Richmond Upon Thames College Philosophy Group.

There are some very useful and high quality websites for the philosophy of mind and, indeed, philosophy in general. These are run by philosophy departments and professional philosophy lecturers. Generally be very cautious of anything on the web that is not from a proper philosopher, philosophy, psychology or cognitive science department, library or publisher. While not entirely the product of dark forces, Wikipedia should be treated with care as its entries are highly variable in the quality of their content. Very good sites include:

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia
• David Chalmers' homepage (probably much of the content not too relevant or too advanced for much of this course, but worth a look if only for the collection of photos)
• Questions answered by living philosophers

Our On-Line Resources

Signs of Mind
Features of Minds
Metaphysics of Minds

Our Resources For Downloading (2011-2012 Series)

PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 1 [Intro].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 2 [S-Dualism].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 3 [Behaviourism].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 4 [TTID].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 5 [Functionalism].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 6 [Type,Token,Supervenience].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 7 [Anomalous Monism].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 8 [Eliminativism].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 9 [Property Dualism].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 10 [Mental Causation].docx
PoM 2011 (v1.0) ch 11 [Other Minds].docx

Exams

Sample Exam Questions

More On-line Stuff

Video! John Searle talks about dualism.
Video! John Searle talks about consciousness.
Philosopher Nigel Warburton's Philosophy of Mind Blog

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