Philosophy of Mind

Advanced

Graduate level. Metatheory, technical variants, and disputes that are still open, with the primary literature named rather than gestured at.

The Hard Problem and the Explanatory GapPlanned
Why explaining every cognitive function can leave the question of experience untouched
22 min
Illusionism and the Meta-ProblemPlanned
Denying that phenomenal properties exist, and explaining instead why we are so sure they do
22 min
Higher-Order Theories of ConsciousnessPlanned
Making a state conscious by being represented by another state, and the trouble raised by states with no target
20 min
Global Workspace and Integrated Information TheoryPlanned
Two empirical theories assessed philosophically: what each measures, and whether either addresses experience or only its correlates
24 min
Representationalism and Qualia ExternalismPlanned
Reducing what an experience is like to what it represents, with transparency for it and spectrum inversion against
22 min
The Phenomenal Intentionality ProgramPlanned
Reversing the usual order of explanation: content derived from experience rather than experience from content
22 min
Cognitive PhenomenologyPlanned
Whether thinking a thought has a felt character of its own, or only the sensory imagery that accompanies it
20 min
Naive Realism and the Problem of HallucinationPlanned
Disjunctivism about perceptual experience, the causal argument against it, and the screening-off worry
22 min
Panpsychism and the Combination ProblemPlanned
Putting experience at the bottom to avoid emergence, then facing the question of how small subjects make a large one
21 min
Russellian MonismPlanned
Physics describes structure and leaves the intrinsic nature of matter open, and consciousness is offered as the filler
20 min
Teleosemantics and the Disjunction ProblemPlanned
Naturalizing content through indication and biological function, and the misrepresentation cases every version has to survive
26 min
Predictive ProcessingPlanned
Treating perception as controlled hypothesis testing, and asking what survives of representation under the free energy story
22 min
Extended and Embodied MindPlanned
Otto's notebook, the parity principle, and the bloat objection that follows from taking it seriously
21 min
Mental Causation and the Exclusion ProblemPlanned
Kim's argument that a sufficient physical cause leaves no work for a mental one, unless overdetermination is accepted
24 min
Deviant Causal Chains and the Disappearing AgentPlanned
The right mental cause producing the right movement the wrong way, and the worry that on this story nobody acts at all
22 min
Self-Knowledge and TransparencyPlanned
Answering whether you believe it by looking at the world rather than at yourself, and what Moore's paradox shows about the asymmetry
21 min
The Unity of ConsciousnessPlanned
Why experiences at a time come as one field, and what split-brain patients do to that claim
21 min
Animal and Machine MindsPlanned
Deciding how far consciousness extends when the only evidence is behaviour and structural similarity
23 min