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Syllabus for Philosophy 3280 3.0A
Mind and Nature: Philosophy
| Course Director: |
David Johnson |
| Lectures: |
1152A Vari Hall, Mondays, 2:30-5:30 p.m. |
Download Course Syllabus in PDF
(Revised as of September 16, 2009)
Brief Course Description:
When, where, and how did humans acquire the special sort of nature they now possess? In this course, we shall assess several different answers to these questions that have been proposed by recent scientists as well as philosophers, and will discuss several issues arising from those answers. For example, is our ability to use and understand language the most important element in human nature; or have observations shown that most of our thinking is relatively independent of language? What role in human development has been played by culture, over and above biology? Do humans count as domesticated animals? Is it correct to say that we have a universally shared sense of religion; and if so, what exactly does that mean? |
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Requirements:
| First exam: |
30% |
| First paper: |
30% |
| Final exam: |
40% |
Required Readings:
Noam Chomsky, The Architecture of Language, Oxford, 2000,
Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee, Harper, 2006,
D.M. Johnson, How History Made the Mind, Open Court, 2003,
and a kit of readings from the bookstore.
(Additional recommended book: Irene Pepperberg, Alex and Me, Harper 2008)
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Date |
Topic and Reading |
| 1 |
Sept. 14
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Review of Darwin’s theory. D. Quammen, “Was Darwin Wrong?” and Ian Tattersall, “How Evolution Works.” Begin reading Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee. (Darwinism applied to our species—“you only get what you earn.”) |
| 2 |
Sept. 21
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Diamond continued. |
| 3 |
Sept.28
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Stephen Jay Gould, “The Wheel of Fortune and the Wedge of Progress,” “Tires to Sandals.” (Revolutionary events sometimes bring it about that, instead of species getting what they earn, their evolutionary fate is determined by luck.)
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| 4 |
Oct. 5
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Begin reading Noam Chomsky, The Architecture of Language, and John Searle, “End of the Revolution” from the course kit. |
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Oct. 10-16
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Reading Week
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| 5 |
Oct. 19 |
Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch, “The Faculty of Language: What is it, Who has it, and How did it Evolve?” from D. Johnson’s website. (Also recommended for those students who want to go into the same subject more deeply are the following four additional papers from the same website: [1] Chomsky, “Three Factors in Language Design,” [2] Pinker and Jackendoff, “The Faculty of Language: What’s Special about it?” [3] Jackendoff and Pinker, “The Nature of the Language Faculty and its implications for evolution of Language,” and [4] Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky, “The evolution of the Language Faculty: Clarifications and Implications.”) (Discussion of a largely non-Darwinian account of the evolution of language.) |
| 6 |
Oct. 26 |
Hauser, Chomsky et al. continued. |
| 7 |
Nov. 2 |
Hauser, Chomsky et al. continued. Also, mid-term Exam (worth 30% of grade). |
| 8 |
Nov. 9 |
Stephen Strauss, “Life without Numbers in a Unique Amazon Tribe”; Jay Ingram, “Tiny Tribe has never played the Numbers Game”; Peter Gordon, “Numerical Cognition without Words—Evidence from Amazonia”; Pica, Lemer, Izard, Dehaene, “Exact and Approximate Arithmetic in an Amazonian Indigene Group.” (Is counting part of language or of something else?)
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| 9 |
Nov. 16 |
D. Johnson, How History Made the Mind. (An account of humanity’s development based on two cultural revolutions that helped some of our ancestors find and occupy a currently active ecological niche.) First paper due (worth 30% of grade). |
| 10 |
Nov. 23 |
How History Made the Mind continued. |
| 11 |
Nov.30 |
D. Johnson readings from the course kit. |
| 12 |
Dec. 7 |
Johnson readings continued, and review. |
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(The Final Exam, worth 40% of the final mark, will be given at some time during the final exam period, December 10-23.) |
