| Unit name | Thought, Perception and Emotion |
|---|---|
| Unit code | PHIL30087 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Montague |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Philosophy |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Suppose I am currently feeling happy about getting a new dog. Two central features of my experience of happiness are that it has intentionality and that it has a phenomenology. A way to characterize the phenomenon of intentionality is to say that it is the phenomenon of one thing's being about another thing; my happiness is about my new dog. My feeling of happiness is also an experience and as such it has, essentially, a certain phenomenology, i.e. a certain phenomenological qualitative character given which there is, in a familiar phrase, 'something it is like' for the subject of experience to have it.
In this course, we will discuss the relationship between intentionality and phenomenology with respect to a number of different kinds of mental phenomena. We'll begin by making a working division between three central and variously overlapping modes of intentional experience-conscious thought (the comprehending entertaining of particular propositions or objects), perception (e.g. seeing, hearing, tasting, etc), and emotion (e.g. happiness, sadness, etc.). Each mode of intentional experience has a phenomenology, and the task is to give a satisfactory general account of the phenomenology of experience and its relationship to the intentionality of experience.
We will be mainly concerned with the following questions. [1] Do conscious thoughts really have a phenomenology? [2] How do we account for our thoughts about 'non-existent objects' such as thinking about Santa Claus or the golden mountain? [3] Is there a self-reflective element in all experiential phenomena? [4] Can we learn something about the nature of perception by considering the possibility of hallucinations and illusions? [5] How do emotions represent the world and how are they connected to value?
Aims:
To address a group of closely connected questions: [1] Do conscious thoughts really have a phenomenology? [2] How do we account for our thoughts about non-existent objects such as thinking about Santa Claus or the golden mountain? [3] Is there a self-reflective element in all experiential phenomena? [4] Can we learn something about the nature of perception by considering the possibility of hallucinations and illusions? [5] How do emotions represent the world and how are they connected to value?
By the end of this course students will be able to give an overview of different approaches to: [1] the standard modern debate on the intentionality and phenomenology of mind; [2] the relationship between these two essential features of the mind; [3] the standard modern debate about the emotions and perception and what is distinctive about these mental phenomena. They will be able to give examples of theorists who have advocated some main approaches and state in detail the form of least two theorists accounts.
One lecture + one seminar per week.
Three hour unseen examination.
