Examination of Key Constructs in The Psychological & Brain Sciences Description

Catalog description

Since Psychologists reopened the black box of the mind in the early 1960s, mental state and mental faculty terms have proliferated. They routinely are used to motivate experiments and explain findings. However, a careful analysis of these terms is hard to find. We thus run the risk of populating the mind with entities that fail to adequately represent its workings. In this course we take aim at several key constructs found in contemporary Psychology e.g., mind, self, memory, consciousness and subject them to empirical and logical analysis. The result is that many of our favorite terms are found to be in need of serious and sustained conceptual analysis.