LECTURES ON CONSCIOUSNESS, ACCESSIBILITY AND THE
MIND-BODY PROBLEM
Lecture 1. The Mind-Body
Problem and Intertheoretic Reduction
May 3, 11-13 am, salle des Actes, 45 rue d'Ulm, 1er Žtage escalier A
Background Reading:
ÒFunctional ReductionÓ, forthcoming in a festschrift for Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience in Mind, edited by Terry Horgan, Marcelo Sabates
and David Sosa.This paper argues that the functional
reduction picture of reductive explanation, a picture shared by proponents such
as David Lewis and opponents such as Jaegwon Kim, David Chalmers
and Frank Jackson, misses an important insight in
the reductionist point of view.
Susan Hurley and
Alva Noe, "Neural
plasticity and consciousness." Biology and Philosophy 18, 1, pp 131-168
Slides here.
Lecture 2. Signal
Detection Theory Approaches to the Methodology of Consciousness Research
NEW TIME AND
PLACE: Thursday May 10th, 4-6, Salle des RŽsistants
Background Reading: "Two
Neural Correlates of Consciousness." This is a longer version of a
paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol (9), 2, February 2005 The shorter
published version is here.
Slides here
for a large file with animations or here
for a handout.
Lecture 3. Overflow and
Mesh
May 18, 2pm-4pm, salle des Actes, 45 rue d'Ulm, 1er Žtage escalier A
Background Reading. The 2nd half of ÓConsciousness, Accessibility and the Mesh between Psychology and Neuroscience,Ó forthcoming in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We can see the problem in stark form if we ask how we could tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their authority, and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is ÔYesÕ, then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is ÔYesÕ? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! The paper argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. The paper argues that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified (other things equal) by the explanations it allows.
Lecture 4. Awareness and
the Self
May 25, 4pm-6pm, salle des Actes, 45 rue d'Ulm, 1er Žtage escalier A
ÒAwareness, Phenomenal Consciousness and the SelfÓ to be posted