PHIL 255: Philosophy of Mind

Delve into your mind's eye.

Think you know your own mind? Think again! PHIL 225: Philosophy of Mind will redefine what you thought you knew about what’s inside your head and how you perceive the world.

This article will tell you everything you need to know about this mind-bending course, including its learning takeaways, class structure, and the required readings and assignments. We’ll also get to hear from Dr. Nick Ray, who teaches the course. “Mind” the gap as we bridge the mysteries of consciousness!

About PHIL 255: Philosophy of Mind

What you’ll learn

In PHIL 255, the mind isn’t just one thing. You’ll get to study what the mind is and how different theorists have viewed the mind throughout history. Topics include whether the mind is part of the physical world, how minds and mental contents evolved, and the relationships of folk psychology to scientific psychology, and other disciplines that study the mind. You’ll also have the opportunity to think about the constraints of the mind, such as what is a mind and what is not and apply these concepts to new technology like AI. This course is open to any UW student, so you can study this fascinating subject whether you’re a Philosophy major or just interested in learning more about the mind.

Major themes

• Definition of the mind
  • Through classwork and discussions, you’ll study the nature of the mind and try to figure out for yourself what minds are. You’ll learn about different points of view when it comes to the fundamental function of the mind, the location of the mind, and how thoughts acquaint us with the world.
• Methodologies for studying the mind
  • Though this is a philosophy course, you’ll also have the opportunity to think about the mind through biological, psychological, and anthropological lenses. Bringing together these different disciplinary points of view will enhance your idea of philosophical thought as well as allow you to apply theories to the real world.
• Rethinking prior philosophical conceptions
  • PHIL 255 asks you to let go of what you thought you knew about the mind and consider other definitions of what the mind might be. You’ll get to think about what the mind might look like and the implications of defining the mind as a non-human entity while exploring topics like computers and artificial intelligence.

Readings

Every week, you’ll read 1-2 chapters from the course textbook or articles supplementing the lecture material for that week. You’ll also get to watch a film related to the course content at least once per term, with recent offerings watching Ex Machina. In addition, your understanding of the material will be deepened through watching shorter videos like TedTalks or academic talks, with the occasional philosophical interview.

Assignments

Your understanding of PHIL 255 course material is assessed through a variety of different assignments and tests. While there is often a midterm test and an exam, the majority of your grade is based on analyses, discussions, and an essay. You’ll have the opportunity to work with fellow students to develop your own ideas about the mind and learn about others’ points of view. Though a peer-share process, you’ll also receive feedback on your essay topic before submitting it to the class instructor for review, providing a collaborative and collective experience that you don’t always see in university courses.

An average PHIL 255 class

Class begins with a lecture, which explains the readings you will be expected to have completed beforehand. Once you have a good grasp on the theories, you’ll get to discuss them with your classmates in general discussions or workshops. Sometimes, you’ll even extend your learning into the real world and apply the theories to movies, T.V episodes, and music. Classes might also incorporate peer reviews of assignments and workshop sessions to improve your writing and enhance your understanding of course concepts.

Why take this course?

PHIL 225 allows you to think about the big questions of life and encourages you to reconsider your existing ideas and beliefs. It also teaches you how to explore the gray areas, or topics that do not have a definite answer, and accept that sometimes better questions are as good as definite answers on tough issues. You’ll also learn valuable skills for critical thinking and research, preparing you for courses and careers outside of the realm of philosophy that require you to understand, analyze, and consolidate lengthy documents or data.

About Dr. Ray

Dr. Nick Ray is interested in a variety of philosophical topics, specifically areas where science interacts with philosophy such as bioethics, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. He has taught at the University of Waterloo since 2012 and has also taught in the Philosophy and Communication Studies departments at Wilfrid Laurier University. Dr. Ray’s work has been published in journals including Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, and he is currently working on a book about how perception can be modelled using new logical tools to better understand the role of experience in generating knowledge. This research brings together philosophical analysis with methods and findings from cognitive science.

Why do you like teaching this course?

“Philosophy of Mind is so unbelievably fun to teach. You’re bringing a bunch of different ways of thinking about the world together. I love it because I get to do parts of the course where we're focused on logical problems, empirical psychology, and how the study of the mind is so challenging. I also love the students who take this course. It's an elective; no one needs to be there, but they're there because they're like, ‘oh, cool – minds! I don’t know what studying that means, but I have one!’ It always makes for great discussions. They’re asking the best questions, and I’ve got the best job in the world.”

How do you engage students during class?

“I make sure that I'm explaining the context for some of the readings that might not make a whole lot of sense to them. I also try to be as multimedia as possible, using slideshows for lectures but also ‘chalk and talk’ where we work out theories on the board. One of the things that I've become a big proponent of is showing students films and television shows and playing music for them. I like how with philosophy we don't have to just think about what is the case now, but also what possibilities there are down the road. And I think if you think about how narrative story-telling works, how video games work, how music works, if you think about creative space in a slightly less analytic way, it's also asking us to think about the possibilities.”

What do you hope students will get out of this course?

“I would like to see students learning lasting skills for critical thinking. So, learning how to read a dense text and pull meaning out of it and ask probative questions that can help with that process.  I also want students to become good critical writers, learning how to organize and sequence their thoughts so they really know what they think. They’ll also learn how to approach big issues that don’t yet have canonical answers. Understanding that these big questions have a number of reasonable ways of thinking about them teaches students to have the cognitive flexibility to question a situation from different points of view and assess the reasonableness of different positions.”

What is your favourite topic in this course?

“I love how technology intersects with Philosophy of Mind, especially in the unit on functionalism. The theory of functionalism states that the mind is whatever can play a certain kind of causal role within a physical system. That could be a brain, but it could also be alien cognitive hardware or a computer program, like an AI system. So we can then talk about the different ways minds could be implemented and the moral consequences of non-human minds. Like what happens if all of a sudden, an advanced version of your computer has a mind? Do we have to treat it the way that we treat people? I think it's just terrifically fun.”

Special thanks to Dr. Ray for providing an interview for this article!