Undergraduate Module Descriptor

PHL2015: Body and Mind

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Overview

NQF Level 4
Credits 15 ECTS Value 7.5
Term(s) and duration

This module ran during term 2 (11 weeks)

Academic staff

Dr Joel Krueger (Lecturer)

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Available via distance learning

No

This module will introduce current debates in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science over the extent to which the mind depends upon an agent’s body and surrounding environment. Recently, many theorists have argued that mental processes depend upon structures in both the body-beyond-the-brain as well as the natural and social world. Some have even argued that the boundaries of the mind literally extend beyond the skin and skull. This course will investigate the strength and scope of these claims; we will also consider their philosophical, methodological, and empirical consequences. The course material will consist of both philosophical and empirical literature.

Questions to be considered include: In what ways does an embodied approach to mind challenge traditional approaches to mind in philosophy and cognitive science? What is the relationship between movement, thought, and experience? What are some of the different ways we experience and live through our bodies? Does the mind extended beyond the head? Is language embodied? What about social cognition and our knowledge of others? What is an embodied approach to emotion? Gender? Disability? How does having a body shape our experience of selfhood?

Module created

10/2/2012

Last revised

19/09/2012