COURSES

1. PHIL A499 Connectionism & the Mind (Spring 2008)
Supervised an undergraduate philosophy major in an independent study of connectionism (parallel distributed processing) and its implications for philosophy and cognitive science. Text: W. Bechtel and A. Abrahamsen, Connectionism and the Mind, 2nd ed., 2002 as well as selected additional readings (Loyola University).

2. PHIL H295  Philosophy of Perception Seminar: Seeing & Thinking  (Spring 2008)

An intermediate level seminar focusing on the recent debate about nonconceptual content in the philosophy of perception. After a careful examination of John McDowell’s Mind and World, the course will examine competing philosophical conceptions of the representational content of visual perception, the role of inference in visual processing, and the relation between visual awareness and visually guided action. Additional readings by Clark, Davidson, Kanizsa, Millikan, Peacocke, Pylyshyn, Rock, and others (Loyola University Honors Program).

3. PHIL H235  Epistemology: Other Minds & Other Kinds of Minds  (Spring 2006, 2007, and 2008)

A intermediate level course in epistemology focusing on the problem of other minds and the problem of other kinds of minds. Topics include psychological explanation and social cognition, autism as a form of “mind-blindness” (Baron-Cohen), the role of language in acquiring a “theory of mind,” and philosophical approaches to mental representation in non-human animals. Readings by Austin, Baron-Cohen, Davidson, Dennett, Heck, Malcolm, Tomasello, Tye, and others (Loyola University Honors Program).

4. PHIL A307  Philosophy of Mind: Consciousness & Visual Experience  (Fall 2006)

An upper level course in the philosophy of mind focusing on the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness. Topics include the mind-body problem, epiphenomenalism, representationalism about qualia, the relation between visual attention and visual consciousness, Dennett’s “multiple drafts” theory of consciousness, and Noë’s “enactive” account of visual perception. Readings by Chalmers, Dennett, Dretske, Jackson, Noë, Rensink, and others (Loyola University).

5. PHIL V177  Minds & Machines  (Fall 2007, Spring 2008)

An intermediate level course in the philosophy of mind dealing with the problem of mental representation in relation to recent work in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Topics include: Turing machines, connectionism, the relationship between language and thought, and embodied/environmentally situated cognition. Readings by Churchland, Clark, Crane, Dennett, and Searle (Loyola University).

6. PHIL A206 & PHIL 360  Logic  (Spring 2004, Spring 2006, Fall 2007)

An intermediate level undergraduate course in formal logic covering semantics and proof systems for truth-functional and first-order predicate logics, concluding with a demonstration of the completeness of the first-order proof system. Text: J. Barwise and J. Etchemendy, Language, Proof, and Logic, 2002. (Boston University and Loyola University).

7. PHIL T122  Introduction to Philosophy  (Fall 2006)

An introductory level undergraduate course surveying core topics and themes in the Western philosophical tradition. Topics covered include: the existence of God, the mind-body problem, personal identity, freedom of the will, the basis of ethical normativity, the theory of justice, and the nature of art (Loyola University).

8. PHIL A201  Critical Thinking  (Spring 2006, Spring 2007)

An introductory level undergraduate course focusing on the acquisition of critical thinking skills. After a brief introduction to the logical and non-logical fallacies, students are assigned between 50-100 pages of reading per meeting and are quizzed on their comprehension of content and argumentation the beginning of each class. Texts include: Crimes Against Logic (Whyte), The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan), Collapse (Diamond), Freakanomics (Levitt), and The Tipping Point (Gladwell), as well as selected articles. This course was taught as a topically organized alternative to the traditional, text-book based approach to critical thinking (Loyola University).

9. Tufts Undergraduate Research Grant Program Supervised Study (Summer 2005)

Supervised an undergraduate student in an intensive summer study of recent work on change blindness, visual attention, and visual consciousness in philosophy, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. Readings by Dennett, Dretske, Lamme, Noë, Rensink, Simons, Tye, and others (Tufts University).

10. PHIL 1  Introduction to Philosophy: Personal Identity & the Mind-Body Problem  (Fall 2004, Spring 2005)

An introductory level undergraduate course thematically organized around two topics: personal identity and the mind-body problem. Readings by Plato, Descartes, Locke, Hume, and others. Students had the opportunity to watch and write papers on the films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry) and Blade Runner (Scott). The course was designed to meet a university undergraduate intensive writing requirement (Tufts University).