Open Seminar 31 Oct - 4 Nov 2011 

 Philosophy of Mind & Mental Health

Venue: Auditorium Building, Weskoppies Hospital, Ketjen Road, Pretoria-West
 

Time: Monday to Friday from 14:00 till 17:00

Monday 31 October

Mind-body problem in mental health

Neuropsychiatric correlations with mental content: what do they mean? Functionalism: are mental states merely functions of the brain? Dualism, monism and pluralism in their varieties – how are psychiatry, neurology and psychology related?

Tuesday 1  November
Reductionist approaches to mental content & mental health

Mind-brain distinctions in somatoform disorders and psychiatric diagnostic classifications. Intentionality (aboutness) and cognitivism. Mental content: naturalized accounts, descriptive causal accounts, teleological causal accounts.

Wednesday 2 November

Non-reductionist approaches to mental content & mental health

Identity theories of mind and brain. Anomalous monism and supervenience. Wittgenstein, Kripke, McDowell & Davidson on mental content. Discursive psychology & Alzheimer’s disease. Intentional stance. The relation between language, mind and world.

Thursday 3 November

Agency & the knowledge of other minds

Neuropsychiatry and free will. Can reasons be causes? Event & agent causation in irrationality and avolition / akrasia. Beliefs about and 3^rd person access to someone else’s mind - implications for expert testimony in courts of law. Autism and theories of theory-of-mind, simulation & inter-subjectivity. Rationality and direct access to mental states.

Friday 4  November

Personal identity & the ‘self’ 

What is the self? Where is the self? : Philosophical and empirical issues in delusions of thought insertion, hallucinations, and in dissociative experiences including “multiple personality disorder”. Personal identity in gender identity disorder & Alzheimer’s disease.

Reserve your place for free at erna.fourie@up.ac.za