PH02002 Extended and Embodied Cognition

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2019
Extent and Intensity
0/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
dr. Lucas Thorpe (lecturer), prof. Dr. phil. Jakub Mácha, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
prof. PhDr. Josef Krob, CSc.
Department of Philosophy – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Philosophy – Faculty of Arts
Prerequisites
familiarity with English
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
Course objectives
This class will focus on recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science that stresses the embodied, embedded and extended nature of cognition. These approaches reject, in various ways, the dominant computational theory of mind. We will begin with a brief overview of the computational theory of mind and then look at criticisms of this paradigm. Two areas of focus will be those who appeal to Dynamic Systems Theory and those who appeal to Gibson’s Ecological theory of perception. Although most of the class will be focused on our perceptual capacities, we will explore other aspects of cognition.
Learning outcomes
Familiarity with the discussed texts
Syllabus
  • Monday 17/06/2019:
  • The Computational Theory of Cognition: The Mind as a Syntactic Machine
  • (1) Jerry Fodor, The Mind Doesn’t work that Way, MIT Press, 2000, chapter 1
  • (2) David Marr (1982), Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information, (Republished by MIT press in 2000), selections from Introduction.
  • Tuesday 18/06/2019
  • The Mind is neither Syntactic nor a Machine.
  • (1) Daniel Nicholson (2018), “Reconceptualizing the Organism: From Complex Machine to Flowing Stream.” In John Dupree (eds), Everything Flows, OUP, 2018.
  • (2) Andy Clark, (2008). Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford: OUP. Chapters 1 and 2.
  • Wednesday 19/06/2019
  • Robots (and Steam Engines) to the Rescue? “The world is its own best model”
  • (1) Tim Van Gelder (1995), ‘What Might Cognition be if not Computation?’ Journal of Philosophy, 92:7 (first half)
  • (2) Rodney Brooks (1991), ‘Intelligence without Representation’, Artificial Intelligence 47:139-159
  • Thursday 20/06/2019
  • Gibson and Ecological Psychology
  • (1 &2) James Gibson (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin). (selections)
  • Friday 21/06/2019
  • Sensory Motor Representations
  • (1) J. Kevin O’Regan and Alva Noë (2001), “A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 939-1031
  • (2) Ruth Garrett Millikan (1995) “Pushni-Pullyu Representations”, Philosophical Perspectives, 9, 185-200.
Literature
  • David Marr (1982), Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information, (Republished by MIT press in 2000), selections from Introduction.
  • Jerry Fodor, The Mind Doesn’t work that Way, MIT Press, 2000, chapter 1
Teaching methods
lectures, class discussion
Assessment methods
Class Requirements: Either one longer paper (10-15 pages) or two shorter papers (4-7 pages) due to August 31st.

Grading: Class Participation and Attendance can increase or decrease your grade by a + or -. Anyone who gets an ‘f’ for attendance will fail the whole class.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
The course is taught: in blocks.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: bloková výuka.
Teacher's information
http://www.phil.boun.edu.tr/lthorpe/
All the readings are available in pdf form.

Contact email: lthorpe@gmail.com

The course will be opened if at least 10 students enroll.

The course will take place always between 11-13 (in B1.41) and 14-16 (in A11).

  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2019/PH02002