philosophy of cognitive science
course description
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of the mind, involving the cooperation of psychology, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience, anthropology, and more. In this course, we will review major philosophical and methodological questions that arise in cognitive science, especially regarding how findings from so many different sciences with different methods could fit together in a coherent way. We will discuss how cognitive science began as a response to behaviorism, and cover major questions that it has to confront, including: what counts as a good cognitive explanation, could computers or robots have minds, can our minds extend beyond our brains, are psychological and neural descriptions at odds with one another, and does cognitive science need to appeal to representations? We will review the answers to these questions provided by the major paradigms in the history of cognitive science, including classical computationalism, connectionism, dynamicism, and predictive coding approach.
No philosophical background is required, but an introductory course in Logic, Psychology, or Computer Science is highly recommended.
Syllabus