OrangePhilosophy

Start with something counterintuitive like eliminative materialism? Or perhaps anomalous monism?

I've always found courses that start with dualism immensely dull because it's not a theory I find plausible to begin with so arguing against it seem's otiose.

I've also found discussions of consciousness a yawn whereas the notion that there's something systematically faulty with propositional attitude ascriptions is something I find thought-provoking.

Hi Jessica,
I like to start with problems of personal identity. The thought experiments are a lot of fun, and the issue of whether or not they would survive certain scenarios makes them feel they have a stake in the proceedings. Also, you can show what views in regards to mind/body relations they are committed to via how they respond to the various views in regards to personal identity. Then, after I cover the mind-body unit, I come back to personal identity to see how their views might have changed. This usually seems to work well.

The Kyoto School, which follows the traditional Japanese view that the mind and the body form a continuum, could be also an interesting start.

But you could also distribute some texts among the students and ask each student (or group) to come and talk about one specific theory. Then, you could even organise debates asking them to defend or attack a certain theory.

Jessica
I teach a mind-body unit in the classes in my charge. Starting with Descartes, although old hat, seems to work best for me. There are a lot of examples that can motivate people to think about an internal privileged part of themselves. If they believe what they read in the Meditations, then looking at The Concept of Mind ch. 1 should be exciting (well, maybe exciting isn't the right word). Atleast there are some neat examples there. But perhaps before that, a brief description of some possible solutions to interaction problems can just be briefly discussed--say in one session. The one that I try to give the best argument for is Subjective Idealism. If you can give a "good show" on this front, then when they look at the Churchlands, they will have a real quagmire to feel out. Well, I've done this in only 7 courses, but it hasn't failed to confuse the students into actually doing the reading assignments.

Hi Jessica,

I think students have a hard time getting the problem because they don't understand the notion of identity.....they are happy to say "yeah, the mind equals the brain". But if you can get them to understand what this means, their eyes will open with the (prima facie, anyway) implausibility of it.

I set the problem up this way, by beginning with an appeal to the difficulty of understanding how the mind (or mental states) could just _be_ the brain (or brain states). But then I use causal considerations to prevent them from happily endorsing some kind of obscure dualism.

Oh, and one other thing -- I think to make it appealing it has to be very Socratic...one covers much less material in a set amount of time this way, but it sticks extremely well.

I agree with Mark that personal identity really helps, but I've never started with it. I disagree with just about everything thepublicguy says, not because I'm attracted to dualism but because the majority of students seem to consider dualism to be just obvious.

What I think should be done in an introductory course is anything related to behaviorism or functionalism. It's much too hard for people to deal with that stuff in their first philosophy course. Dave Horacek is an exception, because he can spend a whole week motivating behaviorism and getting the students working through the problems with it until he develops something that sounds more reasonable, but you really have to like behaviorism to do that well. For the same reason that I can spend a lot more time in my classes on the theistic arguments and he can't, I'm happy to see him doing that while I avoid it. Instructor interest makes a lot of difference.

My suggestion is to focus on dualism vs. materialism in general, including the Mary problem of Frank Jackson and the Chinese Room problem with artificial intelligence. Students love both of those issues. Then find some provocative personal identity readings. The dialogue by John Perry and short story by Dennett in Reason and Responsibility are a good start. I use videos to motivate some of these problems as well, but you just need the examples really. The general sort of issues about functionalism and identity theories will come up with the psychological and biological views of personal identity, so that will come out, but doing it less systematically seems to have helped both student interest and student understanding in my classes.

There is also a dialogue, in the Hackett series with Perry's, on Mind and Body, by Genarro. It's at least as accessible as Perry's and the arguments are very easy to discern.

The downside of using the Gennaro book at Syracuse is you'd have to order it, which you can't do the way the course is set up. These dialogues are available as separate entities from Hackett, but the Perry one is actually in the R&R book, which the course uses. It's too bad, because Rocco Gennaro happens to be a graduate of the Syracuse program, and using his book would be supporting one of our own. Of course, we already do that with the Cover and Garns book.

Here is a web site with online texts--"Classics in the History of Psychology". Most are early psychology books and articles. There are others as well. There are articles by watson and skinner, as well as James. If someone wanted to discuss behaviorism more completely than their textbook, this might help students.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/

I've had the same problem, but the best strategy I've found so far is the one Chuck mentions. Start with Descartes, talk a bit about what evidence there might be for substance dualism, talk a bit about what evidence there might be against it, and then consider reactions to Descartes from his contemporaries as a lead in to the current debate. I've assisted in courses in which the lead in was personal identity and the students really seemed to like that issue, but they also seemed to be really convinced that somehow PI is a problem for alternatives to substance dualism only which I found personally very frustrating. Maybe that was due to the way the course was taught or the kind of students we deal with, but I've taken to dropping the PI stuff entirely from courses at Nebraska.

Clayton, most dualists agree with your students. I certainly do. There are a couple personal identity issues to be resolved for dualists (e.g. fission) but nothing devastating. Since the dualist view is an answer to personal identity problems (or most of them anyway), I can see how they'd see the issue as less crucial for dualists. Some philosophers see personal identity problems themselves as an argument for dualism, most notably Dean Zimmerman and to some extent John Hawthorne, and I agree with them. Dualism seems much more appealing when you see how easily it solves many of those problems.

Divide the class into two groups (empiricists and phenomenologists), setting up a formal, timed debate between the parties.

Start with Monique Wittig's "Les Guerilleries"[spelling?] and Luce Irigary's essay, "That which is not one". A bit a French feminist epistemology. That'll get the boys arguing with the girls and you're off to the races!