PHIL 101.001 – Introduction to Philosophy: Central Problems, Great Minds, Big Ideas
Instructor: Jim Pryor. This course meets MW 9:05 – 9:55 a.m. in CO 201, with a recitation on Fridays.
This course will be an introduction to philosophy in the analytic tradition, by focusing on a few representative issues:
- How can we tell whether animals and future computers have “minds” — that is, their own thoughts, experiences, regrets, ambitions, self-awareness, and so on — or whether they’re instead just mindless automata?
- Relations between minds, brains, and machines: Are your mind and body made of different stuffs? If a machine duplicates the neural structure of your brain, would it have the same thoughts and other mental states that you have?
- What does it take to have free will? Is this incompatible with one’s choices being programmed or physically determined?
The course will place a strong emphasis on learning how to read philosophical texts and how to evaluate and produce philosophically compelling arguments.