Philosophy - Philosophy of Psychology

Catalog description

The philosophy of psychology is a relatively new field of inquiry in philosophy and so the question of what the philosophy of psychology is remains an open question. In this course, we will understand the philosophy of psychology in two ways. First, it is the study of the nature of psychology and the various capacities and mechanisms that make cognition possible. We will consider whether there is a unique psychological level of explanation or whether psychology ultimately reduces to the brain. We will also explore various philosophical puzzles raised by consideration of psychological abilities like memory, attention, and emotion. Second, philosophy of psychology is a subfield of philosophy of science, where we examine a particular science-here, experimental psychology-as a way to explore broader questions about what science is, how science explains phenomena, and how values intersect with its investigations. All of this makes it an exciting time to study the philosophy of psychology-as students in this course, student's interests will play a role in selecting topics and shaping the direction of our inquiry. (Same as PSYC 323.)