Course syllabus

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SEMESTER 1, 2019

15 points

 

Course Code: Phil 746

Course Title: Philosophy of Mind 2

 

Teacher & Course Convener:

Dr. Raamy Majeed

Humanities Building, Room 419

r.majeed@auckland.ac.nz

Office hours: Mondays 4-5pm in Arts 1/Humanities Building, Room 419

 

Lectures:

Mondays 2-4pm in Arts 1/Humanities Building, Room 213.

Well-being always comes first

We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page, which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

Summary of Course Description:  

This is an advanced course on the philosophy of emotion. We will ask questions about the nature of emotions, e.g. What are they? Are they more like judgements or perceptions? Are emotions as diverse as fear and love really the same kind of thing? How are emotions produced? Are they produced by cognition or by evolved mechanisms? And what contribution, if any, do they make to human rationality? In answering these questions, we will take a philosophical approach that is informed by recent scientific discoveries, especially from neuroscience, cognitive science and evolutionary developmental psychology. We will also reflect on these answers, and examine the possible limitations of our approach.

 

Reading:

The readings for this course will be a selection of articles, which will be posted on the Readings List. Note: students are required to do the readings before class, where we will be discussing the material in detail.

 

If you would like to do some background reading, I recommend the following texts by way of introduction:

  • Deonna, Julien A. & Teroni, Fabrice (2011). The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. Routledge.
  • Goldie, Peter (2000). The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford University Press.
  • Price, Carolyn (2015). Emotion. Polity.

 

For a flavour of the kinds of material covered in this course, I recommend the following texts:

  • Griffiths, Paul (1997). What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories. Chicago University Press.
  • Prinz, Jessie (2004). Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotions. Oxford University Press.
  • LeDoux, Joseph (2016). Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. Penguin Books.

 

Assessment: 

The assessment for this course will be a 6,000 word research-intensive essay, which will be due Monday 28th of October 2019.

 

 

Course summary:

Date Details Due