Prospectus

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Mind and World

Course
2024-2025

Admission requirements

Admission to this course is restricted to:

  • BA students in Filosofie, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including History of Modern Philosophy, Logica, Epistemologie or Wetenschapsfilosofie, Analytische filosofie.

  • BA students in Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including World Philosophies: Modern Europe, Logic, Epistemology or Philosophy of Science, Language of Thought.

  • Pre-master’s students in Philosophy who are in possession of an admission statement and who have to complete an advanced seminar, to be selected from package C.

Description

What is the relation between mind and world? Is the mind part of the world, or is the world part of the mind? Are mind and world independent of each other or is there a primal unity?

The first half of the course considers contrasting views: Descartes/Spinoza; Brentano/Meinong; Moore&Russell/Wittgenstein.
The second half will be devoted to selected chapters from John McDowell’s Mind and World and Meaning, Knowledge & Reality. McDowell is one of the most influential living philosophers, famous for crossing the divide between analytic and continental philosophy.

Topics: relation between mind, world and language; intentionality; objectivity; subject and object.

Course objectives

Students who have followed this course:

  • gain a deeper understanding of topics in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and epistemology;

  • will have learned to ask philosophical questions, and to discuss central topics in theoretical philosophy;

  • will have learned to write a paper on a relatively advanced level developing an independent position in relation to other. 

Timetable

The timetables are available through MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

  • Seminar.

Assessment method

Assessment and weighing

Endpape 100%

Resit

If the final mark is unsatisfactory, there is an option for re-examination by writing a paper. The mark for the resit will replace previously earned marks. Class participation and presentations are required for taking the resit.

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

The exact reading list will be made known shortly before the course starts.

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudymap is not possible for this course. Students are requested to submit their preferences for the third-year electives by means of an online registration form. They will receive the instruction and online registration form by email (uMail account); in June for courses scheduled in semester 1, and in December for courses scheduled in semester 2. Registration in uSis will be taken care of by the Education Administration Office.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga.

Remarks

Not applicable.