Philosophical Psychology

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Level: 
Doctoral
Course Status: 
Elective
CEU credits: 
4
ECTS credits: 
8
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Fall
Host Unit: 
Department of Philosophy
Academic Program: 
Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy
CEU Instructor(s): 
Ferenc Huoranszki
Learning Outcomes: 
Students are expected to acquire the ability to reconstruct and analyze philosophical arguments or positions. These involve the understanding of validity and soundness of the arguments, the ability to identify background principles and assumptions as well as the ability to draw out the consequences of certain philosophical commitments. They are also expected to acquire certain oral communication skills such as the ability to formulate arguments concisely and accessibly in words and to give short critical comments. They should also learn how to identify and execute an appropriate writing project. Finally, they should be familiarized with the main contemporary views and debates about the nature of cognitive and conative attitudes, intentions and irrationality. Learning outcomes shall be measured by term papers and oral presentations on the relevant topics.
Assessment : 
Students’ performance shall be evaluated on the following grounds. First, students are required to attend classes regularly and to participate actively in seminar discussions. They should be able to make comments on the texts they have read and respond to the presentations of other student. 30 % of their final grade shall be given on the basis of this in-class activity. Second, students are required to give one or two short presentations of some chosen topic(s) which must include the logical reconstruction of the main arguments of the relevant article/chapter and, possibly, critical remarks or questions for discussion. They are also expected to prepare and distribute a maximum two page long hand-out tha they distribute before their presentation. The choice of topic is optional, but overlap should be avoided. This will make up another 30 % of their final grade. Thirdly, students are required to submit a max. 4 000 word long term-paper. The topic of the paper can be either a careful critical reconstruction of a particular and important argument for some position discussed in the course; or a comparison between competing arguments about alternative solutions to a problem; or a defense of some particular position/argument against some relevant criticism. The chosen topic should be approved by the instructor and presented in the last class of the course. References can, but need not, go beyond the material included into the compulsory readings. The term paper’s contribution to the final assessment of students’ performance is 40 %. Deadline for submitting term-papers: January 11, 2009. Study questions: 1. Is intention a form of belief or desire? How can we understand the role of agent’s intention in their mental life? 2. Are desires and beliefs necessarily ‘distinct existences’? What distinguishes them? 3. How can one act intentionally against one’s better judgment? Do we need to introduce ‘the strength of the will’ as a special mental capacity? 4. Is self-deception intentional?
Full description: 

Topics:

 I. Intentions, Desires, and Beliefs

Week 1 and 2:  We start the course with reading two very influential articles on intentional action and intentions: Donald Davidson’s account of action as the causal consequence of the agent’s beliefs and ‘pro-attitudes’ and his later account of intending as a peculiar form of judgment.

Week 3:  We shall discuss Gilbert Harman’s functionalist account of intention as a non-reducible type of mental state. 

Week 4:  We shall turn to the issue of desire: whether desire is a particular kind of value judgment and how it figures in agents’ practical reasoning.

Week 5 and 6:  We shall discuss the most influential attempt to distinguish beliefs from desires with reference to the so-called direction of fit. We shall start with Micheal Smith’s Humean account of motivation and then discuss an alternative understanding of direction of fit together with some criticisms of the idea.

III. Irrationality

Week 7: In the second part of the course we turn to the issue of irrationality. First we shall discuss two classic understandings of weakness of the will: Davidson’s account about the possibility of intentionally acting against one’s better judgments and Watson’s account which denies the possibility of akrasia so understood.

Week 8: We shall discuss two fundamentally different approaches to the rationality of weakness of the will: one that understands weakness as a failure of rational capacity and another which argues that weakness is not necessarily irrational.
Week 9:  We shall discuss an alternative account of weakness of will according to which it does not imply that agents act intentionally against their own better judgment. Weakness should be understood rather as a lack of resolution to one’s intention.

Week 10: Finally we shall turn to the difficult issue concerning the nature and possibility of self-deception. First we shall discuss two views according to which self-deception is literary possible and requires some division of the agent’s mind.

Week 11: Next we shall discuss a view according to which self-deception is not literary possible in the sense that an agent cannot intentionally deceive herself; rather self-deception is a particular form of motivated judgmental irrationality (like wishful thinking).

Week 12:  Summary of the course: discussion of the main problems and their interconnections.

Compulsory readings:

Week 1: Davidson, D. ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes,’ in Essays on Actions and Events, OUP, 1980: 3–20.

Week 2: Davidson, D. ‘Intending’, in Essays on Actions and Events, OUP, 1980: 83–102.

Week 3: G. Harman ‘Practical Reasoning’, in A. R. Mele (ed.) Philosophy of Action (OUP, 1997): 149 – 177.

Week 4: D. Stampe ‘The Authority of Desire’, The Philosophical Review, 1987: 335–381.

Week 5: M. Smith ‘The Humean Theory of Motivation’, Mind, 1987: 36–61; Price, H. ‘Defending Desire-as-Belief’, Mind, 1989: 119-21.

Week 6: S. Humberstone, I., ‘Direction of Fit’, Mind, 1992: 59–87; Sobel, D. – Copp, D. ‘Against direction of fit accounts of belief and desire’, Analysis, 2001: 44–53.

Week 7: Davidson ‘How is Weakness of the Will Possible?’ in his Essays on Actions and Events, OUP, 1980: 21–42; G. Watson ‘Skepticism about the Weakness of Will,’ Philosophical Review 83, 1977: 316 – 339.

Week 8: Smith, M. ‘Rational Capacities, or: How to Distinguish Recklessness, Weakness, and Compulsion’, in S. Stroud and C. Tappolet (eds.), Weakness of the Will and Practical Irrationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 17–38; A. McIntyre ‘Is Akratic Action always Irrational?’ In O. Flanagan – A. O. Rorty Identity, character, and morality: essays in moral psychology Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997: 379–400.

Week 9: Holton, R. ‘Intention and Weakness of the Will’, The Journal of Philosophy, 1999: 241–62; Holton, R. 2003 ‘How Is the Strength of Will Possible?’ In S. Stroud and C. Tappolet (eds.), Weakness of the Will and Practical Irrationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 39–67.

Week 10: Davidson, D. ‘Deception and Division’, in Problems of Rationality, Oxford: Clarendon, 2004: 199–212; Audi, R. ‘Self-Deception, Action, and the Will’, Erkenntnis, 1982: 133–158.

Week 11: Johnston, M. ‘Self Deception and the Nature of Mind’, in B. McLaughen and A. Rorty (eds.), Perspectives on Self-Deception, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988: 63–91. 

Suggested further readings: 

 

G.M.E. Anscombe: Intentions, Oxford: Blackwell, 1957.

A. R. Mele (ed.): The Philosophy of Action, OUP, 1997.

S. Stroud and C. Tappolet (eds.): Weakness of the Will and Practical Irrationality, OUP, 2003.

O. Flanagan – A. O. Rorty: Identity, character, and morality: essays in moral psychology, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997.

D. Velleman: The Possibility of Practical Reason, OUP, 2000.