Professor Kevin Lande

lande@yorku.ca

Office Location:  S443 Ross Building

Phone Number:  (416) 736-2100 Ext. 77594

Office Hours:  TBA

We have minds––with which we perceive, think, and use language. How do perceiving, thinking, and language work? More generally: How do minds work? How do you perceive the three-dimensional shape of a mug when all the eye gets is a two-dimensional array of light? How can you think about hypotheticals, such as what you would do if 30-50 feral hogs were to enter your yard? How can you understand lyrics and sentences that are like nothing you’ve heard before? Mental capacities like these are some of the most impressive and puzzling products of nature. The cognitive sciences—including philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and artificial intelligence—use scientific experimentation and theory to explain how these mental capacities work. We will look at recent and historical attempts to explain core aspects of our mental lives and those of other animals. In doing so, we will examine the foundational concepts and principles that make scientific explanations of the mind possible. At the same time, we will consider the possibility of building machines with mental lives of their own.

Textbook: José Luis Bermúdez. (2019). Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind (3^rd Edition). ISBN: 9781108440349.

Supplementary readings will be available through the Moodle course website.

Papers                                   30%

Midterm Exam                      30%

Final Exam                            35%

Section Participation           5%

Biweekly lectures and weekly discussion sections.

In this course, we will work toward being able to

1. Identify and understand the core concepts, principles, and experimental methods employed in cognitive science.
2. Understand and evaluate major historical developments in cognitive science, recent discoveries and trends, and how contemporary research fits into a broader historical context.
3. Learn how to comprehend, critically evaluate, and write about cognitive scientific research—appraising methodology, empirical evidence, and argumentation.