Instructor: Rick Grush
Course number: Philosphy 463, Psychology 4308.
Meeting time and place: Tuesdays, 4 - 6pm, Busch 220.
Course Description
Prerequisites
Course Requirements
Readings
Of the many interesting psychological capacities people have, one of the most interesting and least understood is our ability to explain the behavior of others in terms of beliefs and desires. This fact raises two questions. First, is such a belief-desire psychology actually true of us -- do we really behave the way we do because we have beliefs and desires which cause us to act in certain ways? This question will not concern us. The second question, which will be the topic of this seminar, is in virtue of what psychological or neurophysiological mechanisms do people produce such explanations? Is this capacity based on the use of a theory we have of human behavior? If so, is this theory explicit? implicit? innate? learned? Or is this capacity based on our ability to simulate others, to put ourselves in their place to see what we would do in their circumstances? When do children first manifest this ability? Does this ability come all at once, or in stages? And if the later, what do the stages look like? What are the neural mechanisms that give rise to ability?
The course will be roughly divided into four parts. This first will focus on what is largely a philosophical debate, the Theory Theory vs. the Simulation Theory. The second part will look at the so-called theory-of-mind (aka TOM) literature in developmental psychology. The third part will briefly explore neurophysiological and neuro-imaging studies which address the question of possible neural regions and even processes which underwrite our capacity to explain behavior as governed by representational states. The fourth and final section will extend the discussion and tools of the first three sections in order to address issues in semantics.
It is not expected that class participants have a strong background in all the different fields we will touch on, though having a decent background in at least one of the fields (philosophy, neuroscience, or psychology) is recommended. This is a 400 level course, which means, I think, that it is primarily for graduate students, and some stout-hearted juniors and seniors.
I will be doing some experimental things with this course this year, things designed to allow the students more flexibility in what they focus on, and to allow for more flexible budgetting of time.
Readings: There will be a number of required readings for the class, but fewer than is usual for a 400 level course of this sort. There will be about 13 articles which everyone will be required to read, or about 1 per week, which is pretty light going. However, since this requirement is so light, I will insist that everybody do all the reading, and this insistence will take the form of about 5 very short multiple choice quizes given randomly throughout the semester at the beginning of class (so don't be late). These quizes will be designed to be low-stress -- that is, the questions will be such that if you've read the article, the answers will be no-brainers, and if you haven't, then you'll be guessing. If you read the article(s) before class, even if you don't fully follow everything in them, you should ace the quizes.
Class meetings: This class will only actually meet for 2 hours per week. Normally, a 400 level class would meet for at least 3 hours per week. The additional hour will be spent on email discussion of the readings for the week. So, in effect, I am moving 1 hour per week from actual meeting and discussion to virtual meeting and discussion. This is because I believe that email provides an alternate medium that some students feel more comfortable with, and which allows people time to think about questions and points for a while before having to respond (I know I often don't think of anything smart or interesting to say until 4 hours after the class discussion has ended, if ever). So it is expected that students will attend class meetings, and participate in the discussion, either in-class discussion, or email discussion, or both.
Short paper: A short paper, about 7 - 10 pages, is due on March 25th. I don't expect these to be polished papers, but rather drafts of the final paper. I will return these papers on April 1st, with comments.
Final Projects: Students will be expected to complete a project for the class, and in most cases this will be a seminar paper of about 15 pages. Other projects are possible, such as a computer modelling project, or design and implementation of a pilot exprimental study, perhaps even in conjunction with other courses the student is taking. In any case, projects/paper topics should be cleared with me by the end of the eighth week. Final projects will be due on the last day of the seminar (4/22/97).
Also, we will have 2 or 3 outside speakers in this class. Bob Gordon, who is the leading simulationist, has agreed to talk to the class about his material. Also, there is a good chance that Dave Ripp from the Judevine Center, who works with autistic persons, will be able to speak to us about autism. And Larry May (author of the final article we will read) will speak to the class on the final day. As of November 19th, I don't have exact dates for Gordon or Ripp.
So, all tolled, there are 4 components to the final grade. The
percentages shown are very rough. Grading is a very subjective
and inexact process, but I try to be as fair as possible.
1. Class participation. This includes attendance as well as participation in the discussion, either the real discussion or the virtual discussion. This will amount to 20% - 25% of the final grade.
2. Quizzes. There will be about 5 of these, and each will have 5 no-brainer multiple-choice questions. The quizzes will represent a total of 20% - 25% of the final grade.
3. Short paper. This will be a short or draft verrsion of the final paper, or a project proposal for those doing projects other than final papers. This will be about 20%.
4. Final project. This will represent about 35% of the final grade.
Required class readings (as of 11/19. This list is still being finalized, but there probably won't be many changes from this list):
1/14 - First meeting. No required readings.
1/21 - Fodor (1987). The persistence of the attitudes. Chapter 1 of Psychosemantics. MIT/Bradford.
1/28 - Churchland, Paul (1981) Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional attitudes. Journal of Phiosophy 78:67-90.
2/4 - Gordon, Robert (1996) 'Radical' Simulationism. In Carruthers and Smith, eds. Theories of Theories of Mind. Cambridge.
2/11 - Perner, Josef (1996). Simulation as explicitation of predication-implicit knowledge about the mind: arguments for a simulation-theory mix. In Carruthers and Smith, eds. Theories of Theories of Mind. Cambridge.
2/18 - Wellman, Henry (1993). Early understanding of Mind: The normal case. In Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg and Cohen, eds., Understanding other minds: Perspecitives from Autism. Oxford.
2/25 - Happe (1994) An advanced test of theory of mind: understanding of story characters' thoughts and feelings by able autistic, mentally handicapped, and normal children and adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 24(2):129 - 154.
3/11 - Fletcher et al. (1995) Other minds in the brain: a functional imaging study of 'theory of mind' in story comprehension. Cognition 57:109-128.
3/18 - Whiten (1993). Evolving a theory of mind: the nature of non-verbal mentalism in other primates. In Baron-Cohen, Tager-Flusberg and Cohen, eds., Understanding other minds: Perspecitives from Autism. Oxford.
3/25 - Astington and Gopnik (1988) Knowing you've changed your mind: Children's understanding of representational change. In Astington, Harris and Olson (eds.) Developing theories of mind. Cambridge University Press. Short paper due.
4/1 - Frege (1952) On Sense and Reference.
4/8 - Perner, Josef (1988) Developing semantics for theories of mind: from propositional attitudes to mental representations. In Astington, Harris and Olson (eds.) Developing theories of mind. Cambridge University Press.
4/15 - Fauconnier, Gilles (1985) Pragmatic functions and images. Chapter One of Mental Spaces. MIT/Bradford
4/22 - May, Larry (ms.) Moral responsiveness and shared attention. Final projects/papers due.
Last updated November 18, 1996.