Philosophy of Cognition

General information

• The 2011 autumn course starts ??????!
• Hosted by the IMKE Master Programme, Institute of Informatics, Tallinn University (Estonia)
• Supervised by Emanuele Bardone
• Volume: 3 European Credit points (ECTS)
• TLU course code: IFI7153

This e-course was supported by the European Union through the European Social Fund.

Objectives

To create opportunities for acquiring theoretical knowledge about the nature of human cognition in terms methods, aims and goals, and results;

to support the development of argumentative skills.

Learning outcomes

Learner will acquire knowledge in the field of philosophy of cognition.

Learner will acquire the skills to discuss topics related to philosophy of cognition.

Learner will acquire skills to combine different concepts related to philosophy of cognition

Learner will acquire skills of written expression.

Learner is familiar with the major topics related to philosophy of cognition.

Feedback form

The feedback form is available here: http://philos.unipv.it/emabardo/feedback_form.pdf.

Course information

See the following:

• General guide to the course (read first)
• Participants' list

Overview by weeks

Note: The course is divided into two distinct halves - the first part (from week 1 to week 4) deals with models of cognition, the second (from week 5 to week 7) with the evolution of cognition. Every week has two topics which should be studied and discussed.

Week 1 (-)

• Topic 1: What Philosophy can say about human cognition
• Topic 2: The Problem of the Black Box

Forum discussion title: what your expectations from this course?

Week 2 (-)

• Topic 3: The Computational Theory of Mind
• Topic 4: Limits of the Computational Theory of Mind

Forum discussion title: Does the human mind work like a computer?

Week 3 (-)

• Topic 5: The Extended Mind Hypothesis and the Distributed Approach to Cognition
• Topic 6: The brain as open-ecological controller

Forum discussion title: Is the concept of mind empty?

Week 4 (-)

• Topic 7: The theory of Affordance and its relevance for distributed cognition
• Topic 8: Summing up. What have we learnt so far?

Forum discussion title: What would you learn more about?

Week 5 (-)

• Topic 9: What is evolution?
• Topic 10: Evolutionary psychology and its limits in explaining the evolution of cognition

Forum discussion title: How does the theory of evolution help us explain the way we make decisions?

Week 6 (-)

• Topic 11: Group selection and its limits in explaining the evolution of culture
• Topic 12: The Meme/gene (dis)-analogy

Forum discussion title: Do cultures evolve?

Week 7 (-)

• Topic 13: The theory of niche construction
• Topic 14: Cognitive niches and the evolution of cognition

Forum discussion title: What have you learnt from this course? Have your expectations been fulfilled?