Dr. Kevin Lande

lande@yorku.ca

Virtual office hours:

The instructor will host a weekly hour-long Zoom session to meet with students collectively or individually to discuss questions from students, including but not limited to questions related to the seminar discussions, readings, philosophy in general, or student performance in the class (time TBD).

This seminar will explore the “Representational Theory of Mind” and its core puzzles and implications. Our minds are pointed outwards. Our mental lives are populated with inner experiences, memories, and thoughts that somehow give us an idea of a world beyond our skin, one that contains mountains and thunder, bosons and genes, politicians and prisoners. In fact, we cannot understand our inner mental states (thoughts and experiences and desires) except in terms of the parts of the world that those mental states seem to be about. The Representational Theory of Mind says that just as you can’t do justice to a photograph by merely describing the distribution of colours and contrasts across the photo’s surface, without also describing the people, places, and events that are represented in the photograph, so you can’t do justice to one’s experiences, thoughts, memories, desires, loves, and so on without describing what the experience is an experience of, what situation is thought about, what event remembered, what object desired, what individual loved, and so on. The representational nature of the mind is in fact central to our contemporary scientific understanding of the mind. Vision science, for example, tells us that there is some aspect of my own mind that represents a separate object in the world as having a certain shape, size, and position. We will critically survey some of the key discussions in both philosophy and cognitive science on questions such as: What are mental representations? What role does the concept of mental representation play in everyday and scientific explanations of the mental lives of people and other animals? How do mental representations fit into the natural world alongside electromagnetism, fungi, dust, and stars? How do mental representations figure into our social interactions with one another?

• To access readings and to complete assignments throughout the week, students will need regular access to a computer that has an internet connection, email, a PDF reader, and a word processor.
• During the scheduled meeting times, students must have access to a computer with a stable, higher-speed internet connection, as well as a webcam and microphone, and/or a smart device with these features. Seminar meetings will be conducted on Zoom, and so the Zoom client should be installed on the student’s device.

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.

All course materials and readings will be available on the course website. Readings will consist of one or two articles per week, each article being approximately 20-35 pages.

• Short papers and/or term paper (80%)
• Participation and post-seminar reflections (20%)

(subject to revision)

Participation: This course will be conducted synchronously. Live, online seminar discussions will be hosted on Zoom at the scheduled meeting times. Students are expected to attend and actively participate in the live meetings. Students should therefore make sure their schedules are otherwise clear during the scheduled meeting times and that they have access to devices that meet the technical requirements for using Zoom. Seminar meetings will consist in a combination of instructor-led discussion, student-led discussion, and activities such as in-class debates. “Participation” will also consist in weekly, brief post-seminar reflections (marked pass/fail), in which the student writes up or records by video or audio their take-aways from that week’s seminar discussion.

Writing: Separate from active participation and the post-seminar reflections, students will submit weekly, short writing assignments, which will be due two days before seminar meetings. These short papers will respond to prompts that I will distribute a week in advance of the deadline. There will be an option to substitute a longer term paper for some number (to be determined) of the shorter assignments. On some occasions, a student’s piece of written work might be discussed, in anonymized form, in seminar for the benefit of others (students may choose to opt out of this).

• Purpose: This seminar will immerse students in the main contemporary questions and debates about the nature of the mind and its place in nature. By the end of the course, students should be able to identify key commitments of the “Representational Theory of Mind,” to think through its main implications and puzzles, and to engage in well-reasoned debates on these topics.
• Learning Outcomes:
• Students will be able to engage with key contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind, especially concerning the nature of mental representations.
• Students will learn how to relate empirical research in the cognitive sciences to foundational philosophical discussions.
• Students will acquire extensive practice at clearly and concisely presenting and arguing for ideas or questions, both in writing and in conversation.

Course policies

Grading:  The grading scheme for the course conforms to the 9-point grading system used in undergraduate programs at York (e.g., A+ = 9, A = 8, B+ - 7, C+ = 5, etc.).  Assignments and tests* will bear either a letter grade designation or a corresponding number grade (e.g.  A+ = 90 to 100, A = 80 to 90, B+ = 75 to 79, etc.). Final course grades may be adjusted to conform to Program or Faculty grades distribution profiles.

(For a full description of York grading system see the York University Undergraduate Calendar - http://calendars.registrar.yorku.ca/2010-2011/academic/index.htm

Assignment Submission: All written assignments (including short writing assignments and written post-seminar reflections) must be submitted to Turnitin, through the course website, by the specified deadline. Students who opt to substitute a term paper for some of their short writing assignments will have the choice of which short assignments they wish to complete. Students who pursue the term paper option must submit their term paper by the specified deadline.

Lateness Penalty: Since seminar discussions will be guided in part by short papers submitted ahead of time, late submissions will not be accepted except under pre-arranged accommodations (likewise for post-seminar reflections). Students will be able to drop two of their lowest short paper grades. For the term paper option, term papers will be penalized by one-half letter grade (1 grade point) for every 24 hours that the assignment is late. Exceptions to this lateness penalty on the term paper, for valid reasons such as illness, compassionate grounds, etc., may be entertained by the Course Instructor but will require supporting documentation (e.g., a doctor’s letter).

Recordings Policy: Subject to the permission of enrolled students, seminar discussions might be recorded and posted on the course website for review. Please note that 1) the recordings are to be used for educational purposes 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); and 3) all recordings will be destroyed after the end of classes.