BASS Politics and Sociology / Course details

What makes pain unpleasant? What is the relationship between emotion, mood, and judgement? How is the mind related to the brain? By exploring questions such as these, this course will help students to arrive at considered judgements on a range of issues in contemporary philosophy of mind. Although the topics covered will differ from year to year, they may include pain, perception, emotion, behaviourism, dualism, mental causation, anomalous monism, functionalism, the extended mind hypothesis, internalism and externalism about mental content, panpsychism, and illusionism.

The unit aims to:

• give a detailed understanding of contemporary debates concerning the metaphysics of mind;
• enable students to engage critically with some recent contributions to these debates; 
• enhance students' powers of critical analysis, reasoning and independent thought.

Lectures (20 hours): delivery of content 

Tutorials (10 hours): small group discussion will facilitate student engagement 

Office Hours: students will have access to the course convenor through regular office hours 

VLE: learning materials (reading lists, lecture slides, etc.) available online (asynchronous) 

Essay Plans: students will be encouraged to submit essay plans for formative feedback

• explain contemporary philosophical views about distinct types of experiential state.
• explain some influential responses to the mind-body problem from the last 30 years.

• recognise connections between distinct types of experiential state.
• appraise contemporary philosophical views about some distinctive types of experiential state.
• compare and evaluate some influential responses to the mind-body problem from the last 30 years.

• prepare written work using word processing software, in accordance with assessment regulations.

Key transferable skills (critical thinking, discussion, independent research) enhance employability and key to many routes to employment.

• construct clearly written and well-organised responses to questions.
• gather and synthesise material from various sources (e.g. online resources and library resources).

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1. Pain Bain, David. 2013. “What Makes Pains Unpleasant?” Philosophical Studies 166, 69-89. 

2. Perception Mehta, Neil. 2022. “Naïve Realism with Many Fundamental Kinds.” Acta Analytica 37, 197-218. 

3. Emotion Maiese, Michelle. 2014. “How Can Emotions Be Both Bodily and Cognitive.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13, 513-531. 

4. Mood Mitchell, Jonathan. 2019. “The Intentionality and Intelligibility of Moods.” European Journal of Philosophy 27, 118-135. 

5. Anomalous Monism Yoo, Julie. 2009. “Anomalous Monism.” In B. McLaughlin, A. Beckermann, and S. Walter (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

6. Functionalism I Lewis, David. 1982. “Mad Pain and Martian Pain.” In his Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 122-132. 

7. Functionalism II Clark, Andy and Chalmers, David. 1998. “The Extended Mind.” Analysis 58, 7-19. 

8. Dualism Lowe, E. J. 2006. “Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism and the Problem of Mental Causation.” Erkenntnis 65, 5-23. 

9. Panpsychism Coleman, Sam. 2014. “The Real Combination Problem: Panpsychism, Micro-Subjects, and Emergence.” Erkenntnis 79, 19-44. 

10. Illusionism Frankish, Keith. 2016. “Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 23, 11-39

Notional Hours of Learning: 200