Dr. Verena Gottschling

vgott@yorku.ca

The course an online course. All course lectures, information, activities, and assignments can be found on Moodle.

How do explanations in Neuroscience work? What can we learn for Philosophical questions from neuroscientific findings? Is there a difference between Neurophilosophy and Philosophy the Neuroscience? This course introduces Philosophy of Neuroscience. We will take a look at the intersection of Neuroscience and Philosophy and discuss several contemporary topics. These topics include the Free Will debate, Theories of emotion, delusions, pain, mirror neurons, cognitive architecture, modularity, synaesthesia and consciousness.

Technical requirements for taking the course:

In order to fully participate in this course, students will be required to take part in video conferencing and will also appear on video (e.g., for tutorial/seminar discussion, group work, assignment submission, etc). In addition to stable, higher-speed internet connection, students will need access to a computer with webcam and microphone. Some class activities can be done with a smart device (iPhone is fine) with these features. However, it is not recommended for most of them, since there is an impressive amount of research showing that using small screens gets in the way of student’s learning success.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Moodle

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.]

Times and locations: Please note that this is a course that depends on remote teaching and learning. There will be no in-person interactions or activities on campus.

The course in a blended online course, i.e. it has both asynchronous, as well as synchronous activities. The synchronous activities are required elements of the course as well.

The synchronous activities, our live classes, are always scheduled Wednesday 11:30-1:30.

Virtual office hours:

Each week I hold a virtual office hours: Wednesday 1:30 - 2:00 pm.
I am available for Zoom conferencing with students during this time to discuss any questions or concerns you may have. You can sign up for a meeting on Moodle.

The online papers we will use will be available online at or linked from at the moodle page.

Weekly homework:                    10%

Forum, class and group activity 20%

Two short papers                      40% (each 20%)

Final Essay                                30%

The course in a blended online course, i.e. it has both asynchronous, as well as synchronous activities. The synchronous activities are required elements of the course as well.

The synchronous activities are always scheduled Wednesday 11:30-1:30.

The course is organized in weeks. Each week has on live class on Wednesday. The new weekly module for the week opens at the beginning of the week (Monday morning).

You can (and should) do the reading um activities earlier than that time.

To ensure that you receive a high quality and hopefully transformative educational experience, regular participation is a requirement of this class. Typical weeks include required reading, completing an assignment or an exam, viewing some video/audio content, participating in discussion forums and at Zoom meetings/drop-ins with Q&A and discussion. To be successful in this class, you will need to log in several times per topic to access course materials and to participate actively in the class.

Besides our regular Zoom meetings you are responsible for being actively and regularly on Moodle to ensure you have the latest information about the course. Explanations like “I did not know that because I was not online” or “…because I did not check my Moodle messages” will not be accepted under any circumstances for this online course.

This course regularly requires submission of individual work and group work as well as class attendance in the live class. In addition to essays and assignments students will also be required to post regular questions and responses on Moodle. More detailed information about how the course works, student expectations, assignment outlines, and submission guidelines you can find on the Moodle site. They will also be introduced in our first class.

After completing this course, students should be able to:

1. Understand in some depth some of the main topics regarding Philosophy of Neuroscience in contemporary analytic Philosophy, and different views regarding foundational questions.
2. Evaluate others’ conceptual and empirical arguments and to create their own.
3. Develop the ability to write analyses of arguments
4. Know about several contemporary figures in the philosophy of Neuroscience

Course policies

** PLEASE NOTE**: A make-up of an assignment will only be given to students with a genuine medical or other emergency that prevents them from taking the assignment, but only if I am notified beforehand by email and if this is backed up by official documentation (e.g. a doctor’s report).

There is no make-up for missing forum contributions or missing homework.

Also: You must complete all requirements in order to pass the course.

All course materials are designed for use as part of this course at York University and are the intellectual property of the instructor unless otherwise stated. Unless a users’ right in Canada’s Copyright Act covers the particular use, you may not publish, post on an Internet site, sell, or otherwise distribute this work in any way without the instructor’s explicit permission.  Failure to abide by these restrictions may constitute grounds for academic misconduct proceedings and/or legal action against you.

If audio-visual recordings of our live sessions on Moodle are made, these recordings 1) the should be used for educational purposes in our course only and as a means for enhancing accessibility; 2) students do not have permission to duplicate, copy and/or distribute the recordings outside of the class (these acts can violate not only copyright laws but also FIPPA). Also all recordings have to be destroyed after the end of classes.