Phil 391Pinker, "How the Mind Works"

1 Unit, Fall 2001; Tuesdays 300-430 at FR 201

John L. Taylor and Prof. J. W. Powell,

Contact Information: Prof. J. W. Powell phone x5753; e-mail  jwp2@humboldt.edu; website: www.humboldt.edu/~jwp2; Office hours MW 2:00-3:00, 4-5 M, Tues 2:00-3:00 and by appt. Office 110 UANX; Your odds are good of catching jwp anytime I'm not teaching or in committee meetings.

John Taylor, e-mailjlt27@humboldt.edu and website: www.humboldt.edu/~jlt27

      This reading group will take on the formidable task of reading and appraising the arguments and positions in Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works".  Pinker's central claim is that the mind is a system of organs of computation, each specialized organ designed by natural selection to solve the kinds of problems our ancestors faced in their foraging way of life.  Our main issues regarding his claim have to do with the status of reductionistic accounts of mind (including computational accounts and brain-state accounts), the most important objections

to Pinker we can articulate, and the status of the philosophical problems to which Pinker addresses his arguments, problems on which Pinker and his opponents agree as to what the issue is but disagree as to the proper answers. Those come under headings such as the following: how do human beings recognize the same things in different situations? How can the eye and visual nervous system give rise to perceptions?  How can perceptions be a

source of information about the world?  What is the mind for? Given a view that the mind is modular (meaning it has different systems for doing different things--perception, consciousness, emotions, reproductive strategizing, remembering, etc.) is anyone in charge of the whole? How does _that_ work?

We recommend students look at a website put together at MIT, perhaps under Pinker's supervision, at http//www.mit.edu/~pinker/ , especially two reviews: a review from the journal _Lingua Franca_ laying out the political divisions behind the controversies and articulating the main objection to Pinker, that evolutionary theory might be able to account for small or incremental differences but is completely helpless in the face of questions about the origin of new, complex functions: where did eyes come from? the hand? the wing? digestive systems? remembering? --and a profile from the British _Guardian_ which is good on tying his big claims to Pinker's intellectual biography and research on grammar. The former is at

http//www.mit.edu/~pinker/darwin_wars.html

and the latter at

http//www.mit.edu/~pinker/guardian.txt

Though the controversies include divisions between lefties like Stephen Jay Gould and a group of deterministic and politically conservative (not that these have to go together) sociobiologists, we won't do much with these directly. They do reflect part of what is at stake in our appraisal of Pinker's arguments.

     Text and Materials: Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (W.W. Norton, NYC: 1997), paperback, $17.00.  Excerpts which used to be on the web have apparently been removed. There is a page of Pinker's website with a formidable selection of reviews and interviews regarding this book at http//www.mit.edu/~pinker/htmw.html

     Requirements and Grading: Each student is to write a half page every other week, without any reminders, and send it e-mail to the rest of the group.  At the end, write a two- or three-page summary, due a week before the

last class meeting, and send it as well to the e-mail list. We will provide suggestions for topics.  Your general question for the end essay is whether Pinker has a problem and whether he has a solution.  This may be a heavy

reading and writing load for one credit.  You are not doing this for the credit.  You are doing it for the chance to think about contemporary philosophical issues.  If you do not do the reading or the writing, your thinking will be impaired.