Schedule

Tuesday & Thursday, 12:30-1:45 in Malloy 215

Topic

The topic of this seminar is the nature of consciousness.

Being conscious is a property. It is a property which you are I have, but (most think) a property which tables and chairs lack. There are many specific ways of being conscious, like feeling a stabbing pain or seeming to see red. Call these more specific ways of being conscious "conscious states." The main question we will ask in this class is: what are conscious states?

We'll divide this into four (slightly) smaller questions: (1) Are conscious states just physical properties? (2) If they are not physical properties, what could they be? (3) Do conscious states put us in touch with reality? (4) Could computers or robots have conscious states?

Because this seminar is designed to be a second philosophy course for students intrerested in pursuing the major or minor, we'll aso spend a fair amount of time talking about how to read philosophical texts and how to write good philosophy.

Texts

The one required text is Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity. Other readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.

Assignments

You will write three short papers during the course of the semester. These will all be tightly constrained: you will be asked to (i) state a thesis which you will defend, (ii) give an argument in favor of that thesis, and (iii) reply to what you think is the strongest objection to your argument.

You will then develop one of these three papers into a longer (5-7 page) paper which will be due at the end of the semester.

There will be no exams.

There will be a big emphasis placed on participation. You are expected to take an active role in class discussion, and to come to class ready to discuss and ask questions about the readings for the day. You will also be expected to thoughtfully participate in the web forum at least once each week.

Grading

Your grade will be determined as follows:

• 10% for each of your three short papers
• 30% for your final paper
• 10% for participation in the web forum
• 30% for participation in class

Each assignment is required, in the sense that failure to complete one or more assignments is sufficient to fail the course.

Notre Dame has no official way of indexing numerical grades to letter grades. This is the system that will be used in this course:

A	94+
A-	90-93
B+	87-89
B	83-86
B-	80-82
C+	77-79
C	73-76
C-	70-72
D	60-69
F	59-

Honor code

In all of their assignments, students are responsible for compliance with the University’s honor code, information about which is available here. You should acquaint yourself with the policies and penalties described there.

Sometimes, it can be hard to know what, exactly, the honor code implies with respect to different disciplines. For this reason, the philosophy department has prepared a document explaining, using examples, what the honor code requires of students when writing a philosophy paper. I strongly recommend that you read this document, which is available here. It is possible to violate the honor code without intending to do so; the best way to avoid this is to carefully read through the philosophy department's guidelines.

If you are in doubt about what the honor code requires of you in a particular case, please ask me.

Contact information

You should feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions about the course, or about how you're doing in the course — or if you just want to pursue some of the topics we're discussing further.

You can always get in touch with me by email, and this often the easiest route if you just have a quick question about the readings or assignments. I'm also very happy to meet in person. My office is in 100 Malloy Hall, and you can book a meeting with me here.

Philosophy on the internet

The internet offers a wealth of terrible philosophy. Fortunately, it also offers some very good philosophy.

In my view, the best philosophy resource on the internet is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Another good resource, which occasionally covers topics not covered by the SEP, is the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is only accessible if you are on the ND network or that of another subscribing institution).The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy can also be valuable. Wikipedia is much, much less reliable.

Increasingly, journal articles are also available online (though, as above, usually only if you are connected to a university network). JStor is an especially good place to download articles (though usually not articles from the last few years) from a number of leading philosophy journals.

Notre Dame's library also contains links to online resources. If you are searching for an article online, a good place to begin is with the library's QuickSearch for Philosophy.

Philosophy at Notre Dame

Notre Dame offers a few different options for students interested in pursuing a major, minor, or interdisciplinary minor. For an overview of the various options, click here.

There are lots of philosophy-related events at Notre Dame. A useful overview is on the department's event page.

On the department web page you can also view course descriptions for current and upcoming philosophy courses.

Contact information

You should feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions about the course, or about how you're doing in the course — or if you just want to pursue some of the topics we're discussing further.

You can always get in touch with me by email, and this often the easiest route if you just have a quick question about the readings or assignments. I'm also very happy to meet in person. My office is in 100 Malloy Hall, and you can book a meeting with me here.

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