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The photo is an illustration of the brain. It shows that certain brain areas have specific functions which in turn control personality traits.

Course24.08J / 9.48J5 lectures4 h 24 min

Philosophical Issues in Brain Science

Prof. Alex Byrne and Prof. Pawan Sinha · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Start with lecture 1 At MIT OpenCourseWare

About

This course provides an introduction to important philosophical questions about the mind, specifically those that are intimately connected with contemporary psychology and neuroscience. Are our concepts innate or are they acquired by experience? And what does it even mean to call a concept ‘innate’? Are ‘mental images’ pictures in the head? Is color in the mind or in the world? Is the mind nothing more than the brain? Can there be a science of consciousness? The course includes guest lectures by philosophers and cognitive scientists.

Lectures

Lectures: Video and Slides

  1. Lecture 5: Are Infants Little Scientists? 50 min · Video
  2. Lecture 8: Addressing Molyneux's Query 52 min · Video
  3. Lecture 12: The Imagery Debate: The Role of the Brain 56 min · Video
  4. Lecture 17: Theories of Consciousness that Neuroscientists Take Seriously 54 min · Video
  5. Lecture 19: Theories of Consciousness 54 min · Video

Syllabus and materials

At MIT OpenCourseWare, as the course publishes them.

Credits and licence

Institution
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department
Linguistics and Philosophy; Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Taught by
Prof. Alex Byrne, Prof. Pawan Sinha
Term
Spring 2009
Level
Undergraduate
Language
English
Subjects
Psychology and the brain, Society and politics, Philosophy, Languages and linguistics
Source
MIT OpenCourseWare
Licence
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, as MIT OpenCourseWare states it. Non-commercial use only. MIT OpenCourseWare's terms
Attribution
Prof. Alex Byrne, Prof. Pawan Sinha. Philosophical Issues in Brain Science. Spring 2009. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu/. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.
Who can watch
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