Philosophy 391, Science vs. Philosophy re: Neurology and Consciousness

Spring 2010, 4-5:30 Mondays in HGH 204
CRN 31701; One credit seminar/reading group; Professors Benjamin Shaeffer and John Powell

Prof. H. Benjamin Shaeffer, ph. 5755; Office 556 BSS; Office hours MW 1-2; Thurs 3:30-4:30, by appointment.
E-mail.
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Prof. J.W. Powell, ph. 5753; Office 502C BSS; Office hours 11-12 MF, 12-2 Tues; plus tba at Wildberries; and by appt. Your odds are good of catching me in my office at other times.
E-mail          please begin the subject line with "391" and your name, and include a subject.
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        Please note that the ten percent cut in pay via furloughs of staff and faculty for two days per month is still in effect this semester. We are minimizing the effect on this particular course, but one or two classes may need to be canceled.

        Course Description: A few months ago Professor Alva Noe of the University of California, Berkeley, published Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. The book takes aim at those who think that research in brain science will help us account for consciousness and the mind. Reviews have been interesting--it seems hardly any of those he attacks find his arguments persuasive, nor have they changed their minds. Many of the reviews are dreadfully lacking in arguments, and since some of those who are under attack will probably be in the seminar, we might get to think about not just whether Noe's arguments are good but whether or when good arguments (if we find some) make a difference. Our plan is to work on the book and to come to terms with it. We will spend some time thinking about whether we need to go back and provide ourselves background, and then may have to read and discuss that. Noe is not the first to navigate these waters, and some of those who have gone before shape how he thinks.
        
         Course Format: We will all read, question, discuss, present, and write. We will do the readings before the meetings at which those readings are discussed. We will take turns presenting summaries and commentary regarding the readings. We will help each other think by discussing and writing comments on the moodle forum. The two professors have agreed to write a review of Noe's book for the journal Teaching Philosophy, and will provide drafts of parts of that review to the class as we go.
        
         Grading: Department guidelines for these 391 seminar/reading group classes call for each student to write 1500-2000 words in graded assignments for one unit of credit. (The analogous guideline for other philosophy courses--except the intro to logic course--for three credits is 20 pages or 5,000 words.) Students can turn in this writing according to their own time table with this limitation: for each student: all of it, or at least one thousand five hundred (1500) words, needs to be shared with the class by the twenty-third of April so that class members can respond before the end of the course. You can accumulate this work gradually or all at once or in a couple of large chunks. We will make suggestions about writing topics as we go, but in general it is the responsibility of each student to come up with written work relevant to the course.
        Presentations: We have also decided to implement a presentation requirement--each student will present to the class either on a section of the book or on a piece of background or on some reading which is relevant to the issues. Students can present in pairs if they prefer. Each presentation must include an abstract given to the class members in written form, either at the time of the presentation or ahead of time via Moodle. Students who dread oral presentations can substitute a three page letter to the class provided they have consulted with one of the professors ahead of time.
        
        Context: This semester's reading group/seminar is a continuation of a series of reading groups on metaphilosophy and especially philosophical methods. How do philosophical problems arise? How shall we tell successful work on problems? What is philosophical progress? Where does philosophical work have implications outside the discipline of philosophy? What are the roles of arguments (and what kinds of arguments?) and what is the role of clarification in our work? How is philosophy like or unlike other academic disciplines?
         Some of these questions have been given impetus and urgency because of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), who developed the view that many traditional philosophical problems are based on mistakes. Arriving at this view was hard on him, partly because he had earlier been convinced that he had solved many of those same problems. Following his work and his thought processes is often hard on other philosophers, especially if they have worked hard to master more conventional treatments of the central problems. "Other philosophers" is a phrase which here means you and me. Wittgenstein's writing style (elliptical, spare, involving conversations among separate voices without the separations being announced, featuring striking metaphors and jokes) also adds to our difficulties. And by "central problems" are meant questions such as the following:          Negative criticism, demolition, is an important function of philosophy, including demolition which threatens to demolish philosophy itself. Philosophy survives any such attacks; if philosophy is bad and we need to reject philosophy, we find that that is still a philosophical position which requires arguments to sustain it, and we find philosophy has reassembled itself like a phoenix right before our very eyes.
         Philosophers cannot agree on how to understand Wittgenstein. It strains credibility how deep the disagreements go, and what a variety of positions people have. (People have said wild things. The problem with W. is that he is dyslexic; W's greatest accomplishment is his fundamental logicism; W. is an ur-Rorty; W. is a Zen master; W. doesn't practice what he preaches; W. is hostile to philosophy; W. is really an idealist or an empiricist or a logical monist or a mystic or emasculated by his self-hatred or a Heraclitean or an ecofeminist; I'm waiting for someone to discover that really he is a hippie.) It is impossible to sort through just the exposition questions. In general, I recommend just working on the problems issue by issue instead, using whatever help we can find from Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinians (and remembering that C.G. Jung's cautionary line could be altered to apply here: "Thank God I am Jung and not a Jungian!") Work on Wittgenstein has the potential to change one's conception of philosophy in a deep and pervasive way, but coming to terms with the new conception is difficult for many students--and for many professors.
         Wittgenstein's work has often been likened to a Copernican revolution in philosophy, in that most of what has passed for philosophical work now looks as if it is only marginally useful. Some philosophers then liken Wittgenstein to other ways of thinking which also attack traditional philosophy, not just for providing wrong answers but for misdirecting us toward wrong issues. So there are books and countless essays about Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty, W. and Derrida (and postmodernism in general), W. and Zen, W. and Rorty (and pragmatism in general), W. and ecofeminism, W. and Freud. It is a valuable exercise to work through the beginnings of these books; one should do this in an easy chair with light over one's left shoulder and with an opposite wall free of breakable objects.
         Some philosophical problems do rest on mistakes. There are different mistakes we can make, and we can describe the mistakes in different ways, so that investigating to find out whether a particular issue is based on a mistake might require several different kinds of thinking. That is, there is no one recyclable stake we can carry around to pound through the hearts of all these various problems.
           Wittgenstein remarks of some of these problems that the work on the problem is like doing therapy on a neurosis. This is because, among other things, we work to become conscious of our own thought processes in ways we find ourselves resisting. The goal of this kind of work is unlike much, perhaps most, traditional philosophical work in which we try to discover an answer to a philosophical problem--here we are trying to discover the confusions, assumptions, pictures, overextended analogies, and grammatical errors on which the problem rests, such that when we become clear about those mistakes, perhaps we find we no longer have to ask the philosophical question, no longer have to pose the problem. We work, he remarks, not toward a solution but toward the problem's dissolving. Becoming clear about the problem prevents the problem from arising.--at least, until we forget the clarity we achieved and find ourselves once again in the grip of the thinking which gave rise to it, and so, once again, in the grip of the issue. Those of us who are familiar with our own neuroses will recognize this phenomenon too.

           Schedule: We will start reading Noe's book right away from the beginning, but we will feel free to stop and supply other readings if they seem needed. Some of the background on how to think about mind and consciousness is elided by Noe and we may have to supply that. Contemporary controversies in which some claim that consciousness is now a scientific problem about neurons and others regard such claims as poppycock are indisputably shaping influences on Noe, whether they should be or not. There is a danger of entering the labyrinth of contemporary quarrels without the spool of thread so we can get back out. In other words, the schedule will be constructed according to our needs as we go, centered on working our way through the book.

         Standard Waiver and Warning: These reading groups can be used to meet requirements for a philosophy major (three graded one credit readings groups may be substituted for one of the electives), and, like most reading groups, we are taking up contemporary issues in philosophy. That makes it look as if this reading group is something like a regular class. Other factors might seem to confirm this impression. There are teachers and there are students, with that power imbalance, as usual, screwing up thinking for students and teacher alike. There are readings. There are writing requirements. There are grades. You have to show up. But there are important differences. The instructor is offering the group on a voluntary, overload basis, (the instructor would be paid the same and would be counted as having fulfilled all instructional responsibilities if this group never existed) and one of the main purposes is to help the instructor think about the particular issues. It may be that you, the students, will get some benefit out of the reading group--you get to watch some philosophy being done right before your very eyes rather than picking it up in a bubblewrapped package at the postoffice. The group aims to benefit the faculty and the students as if we were a community of thinkers working on some issues we hold in common. Responsibilities for meeting the reading, writing, and grading requirements, and for shaping the discussions, are shifted to some degree to the students, just because the group will do better work and will produce more results if you step up to the plate. The group is an attempt to get together and to help all of us think something through. Sometimes this works well, but sometimes, ummm, well, not so much. or not for everyone.

         Text and Materials: Our main text is Alva Noe, Out of Our Heads, (Hill and Wang, NYC: 2009). We will figure out how to reduce the expense of the book for those who find it unaffordable. Some background readings, as we find they are needed, will be posted on Moodle.

         Online support: Use Moodle for accessing readings, for posting your written work, for sharing questions and comments, and for writing thank you notes to class members. Prof. Noe has a half-hour lecture (plus responses to mostly lame questions) on YouTube. There are also many reviews of the book available on the web, and Noe has other articles of interest under "Writing" on his website.
           Outcomes: [by jwp] Some of you know that I have been working on philosophical problems with the move to require accountability in higher ed by imposing programs of outcomes assessments. I now have a manuscript (under consideration at the journal Thought and Action) which I'll be happy to share. It develops further some claims I made in an article ten years ago in that same journal on what education is for, which is available online through their archive--send me a note if you want a link. In brief, I am now convinced that the implementation of requirements that all professors set aside time to measure learning outcomes, though it may have some good effects in those places where the teaching is really shitty or is at a very low level (e.g. in which students are acting as recording devices), is destructive of excellence in good courses and displaces analytical and critical work, finally harming students and the society rather than helping. If, though, you wish to look over the department's documents regarding our learning outcomes, send me a note.

Miscellaneous Legal and Regulatory Notices


           Comments to the class can be posted to the Moodle forum--those are automatically send e-mail to all class members and can later be reviewed by logging in to Moodle. It will help if in replies to forum posts you say in the subject line to whom you are replying. Please send any questions or responses to the instructors via jwp e-mail or hbs e-mail. In any e-mail, please put on the subject line 391, your name, and a descriptive subject.