This course has been designed to meet two goals: First, to invite students to experience the fascinating mental tickles that thinking about thinking causes; second, to give students the opportunity to know the work of philosophers who do not meet the stereotype of philosopher (what is this stereotype? Try this: picture in your head a philosopher. That's it. What you got is probably something like this, or this).

​Existing anthologies and textbooks in the philosophy of mind give the impression that only White males in Western countries think about the mind. But there are many philosophers out there doing great work. As your instructor, it's my responsibility that you learn more than one single story about the philosophy of mind. As a student, you deserve to know more than a single story.

This course is a very small step in the direction of making the philosophy curriculum more diverse. It includes women, people of color, citizens from non-Anglophone countries, and LGBTQIA people. From Teresa of Ávila, a XVI century Spanish nun, to Susan Schneider, a US-based philosopher with a project with NASA on AI in space. From XVII century princess Elisabeth of Bohemia to Katalin Farkas or Jennifer Mundale and Frédérique de Vignemont.
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The course combines traditional and non-traditional topics in the philosophy of mind: from René Descartes' dualism to implicit bias and creativity; from Patricia Churchland's reductionist approach to the nature of the mind, to Monima Chadha's introduction to the Buddhist no-self; from Thomas Nagel's inquiry into what it's like to be a bat, to Esa Díaz-León's proposal that sexual orientations are mental states.

syllabus

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