PHI 302: PERSON, MIND, AND BRAIN

Level
Undergraduate
Instructor
Maher
Credits 3
When I meet a human being, do I encounter a person who somehow transcends the body I can see, or do I encounter a neurochemical machine that can be understood completely through the operation of its physical parts? Is the person an immaterial mind or self? Is the mind rather an illusion, where the mental acts we experience as ours—memory, imagination, choice, and so on—are really nothing but operations of the brain? This course offers a philosophical examination of attempts to understand the human being in relation to neuroscience. We consider the phenomena of personal life and engage dialectically with diverse efforts to explain the phenomena by appeal to the neural conditions that make it possible.
Prerequisites
PHI 100 and any intermediate PHI course (151–154); PHI 152 or 153 recommended.