PHIL 349 Fall ’07  Topics in Mind and Cognition:

Self-Consciousness

Instructor: Jonathan D. Trigg Ph.D.

Office: HLG 561

Office telephone: (337) 482 1060

Office hours: Mon. Wed. 1:30 – 3.00 pm. // Tue. Th. 1.00 – 2.00 pm. // Fri. 11.00 – 12.00 am.

E-mail: jon.trigg@louisiana.edu

Class Time: Mon. Wed.: 12:00 - 1:15.

Class Place: HLG 504

Assessment: Your final grade will be made up of the following components:

                                    Essay 1      33%

                                    Essay 2      33%

                                    Essay 3      33%

 

Each essay will be 5-7 pages long. I will provide you with a list of titles for these papers, and plenty of advice on how to complete them.

 

Grading System

 

Attendance and Class Policies

Attendance will be recorded and may be taken into account in assigning final course grades to students on the borderline between two grades. Good reasons for absence from class include illness (requiring medical attention) and involvement in significant university activities. I will deduct 2.5 marks a day from unexcused late assignments. If you have a disability and require assistance with fulfilling class assignments, don't hesitate to notify the instructor and the Office for Services to Students with Disabilities at 482-5252. Finally, be sure you are familiar with all university policies described in the UL Lafayette Undergraduate Bulletin.

If you miss class, for whatever reason, it is your responsibility to get class notes from another student. Missed exams or other assignments can be made up only if an appropriate excuse, e.g., illness requiring medical attention, participation in certain official university events, etc., is provided. If you miss an assignment due date, you must notify me within one week of the due date in order to make up the assignment.

Anybody caught plagiarizing will fail the course, and will be reported to the University. It is incredibly easy to identify plagiarised passages in your written work. You must include full citations of any sources that you use – including page numbers of books and URL’s for websites.

 

Emergency Evacuation Procedures

A map of this floor is posted near the elevator marking the evacuation route and the Designated Rescue Area. This is an area where emergency service personnel will go first to look for individuals who need assistance in exiting the building. Students who may need assistance should identify themselves to the teaching faculty.

   Main Text

A course pack will be made available through Campus Copies (on St. Mary next to P.J.’s coffee house), and detailed instructions about reading will be given in class as we go along.

 

You can find a useful online resource to help with jargon and give overviews of various topics at:

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/

 

The Stanford Encyclopaedia Of Philosophy is also a reliable online resource – see, e.g.,

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-knowledge/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

 

 

Course Outline

 

Guiding question: What is the self, and what is the nature of our awareness or knowledge of it?

 

  1. Self-Consciousness from Descartes to Merleau-Ponty: the place of the notion of self-consciousness in the history of modern philosophy. Key figures include Descartes, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.
  2. Self-Consciousness in twentieth century analytical philosophy. Key figures include Gilbert Ryle, Peter Strawson, Bernard Williams, Derek Parfit, Quassim Cassam, David Wiggins, Sydney Shoemaker.