Postgraduate Course: Cognition, Culture and Context (PPLS11004)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course will investigate the two-way relationship between our status as perceiving, acting and feeling cognitive systems, and as participants in society and culture. |
| Course description |
This course will investigate the two-way relationship between our status as perceiving, acting and feeling cognitive systems, and as participants in society and culture. The aim is to explore the various ways in which adopting different ways of thinking about the relationships between mind, body, world and cognition can change the way we understand various problems or phenomena in cognitive science.
After gaining familiarity with some important conceptual tools for thinking about and studying cognition in the first four weeks, we move on to consider this two-way relationship as it arises in various domains of study and interest, including moral psychology, the cognitive science of gender and placebo effects.
With respect to each theme we will consider:
1) ways in which pre-existing intuitions about the nature of a cognitive process can shape our thought and research on a topic, and possible ways and consequences of calling those intuitions into question, and
2) ways in which our status as participants in society and culture might make an essential contribution to the nature of the cognitive property in question.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- develop an understanding of, and critical insight into a range of topics in philosophy and cognitive science concerning the relationship between our status as perceiving, acting and feeling cognitive systems, and our status as participants in society and culture
- develop an understanding of, and critical insight into the applications of work on these topics to broader social issues
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Reading List
Core readings will include:
Dewey, J. (1896). The reflex arc concept in psychology. Psychological review,
3(4), 357.
Haugeland (1996) 'Mind Embodied and Embedded', in his Having Thought, Cambridge MA, MIT Press (to be made available on Learn)
Brooks, R. A. (1991) 'Intelligence without representation' Artificial intelligence, 47(1), 139-159.
Susan L. Hurley (1998) 'Vehicles, contents, conceptual structure and externalism' Analysis 58 (1):1-6.
Fuchs, T. (2012) 'Are mental illnesses diseases of the brain?' in Critical Neuroscience: Linking Neuroscience and Society Through Critical Practice, London: Blackwell
Fine, Cordelia (2012). Explaining, or Sustaining, the Status Quo? The Potentially Self-Fulfilling Effects of 'Hardwired' Accounts of Sex Differences. Neuroethics 5 (3):285-294.
Gerrans, Philip & Kennett, Jeanette (2010). Neurosentimentalism and Moral Agency. Mind 119 (475):585-614.
Hacking, I. (2007) 'Kinds of People: Moving Targets', Proceedings of the British Academy, 151, 285-318
Frenkel, O. (2008). A Phenomenology of the 'Placebo Effect': Taking Meaning from the Mind to the Body. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 33 (1):58-79. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Thinking and writing clearly. Understanding the relationship between work from different disciplines and traditions. |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
All lectures as scheduled |
| Keywords | moral psychology,embodied cognition |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Dave Ward
Tel: (0131 6)50 3652
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Toni Noble
Tel: (0131 6)51 3188
Email: |
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