Professor Johannes Mahr
jmahr@yorku.ca
Office Location:  N824 Ross Building
Office Hours:  Thursdays 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. (online via Zoom)

Philosophy of neuroscience investigates how neuroscience and philosophy can mutually enrich each other. On the one hand, it concerns questions in the philosophy of science: how does neuroscience explain, what is the relationship between psychological and neuroscientific explanation, and how should we explain phenomena in these domains?

On the other hand, many neuroscientific advances have relevance for traditional philosophical questions: what is the ontological status of folk psychology, how can neuroscience help us understand the contents of mental representations, and how do contemporary models of neural computation illuminate the nature of the human mind?

In this course we will dip our toes into each of these questions and many more, hoping to emerge with a better understanding of the methods, problems, and promises of neuroscience and how it might explain the mind.

As a seminar class, students are expected to attend and participate regularly in class discussions. Students may be required to lead 1-2 class discussions on the readings. Moreover, students will be asked to regularly submit short discussions of weekly readings to eClass and write a final paper at the end of the course

Technical requirements for taking the course: This course will be in-person. Students should be prepared for the possibility that the some or all meetings in the course become fully remote, with meetings being hosted on Zoom, as circumstances require. In order to fully participate in Zoom meetings, students should ensure that they have access to a stable, higher-speed internet connection, as well as a computer with a webcam and microphone, and/or a smart device with these features.

All assignments, the schedule of readings and seminar meetings, course announcements, and course policies will be posted to the eClass site for this course. All assignments will either be submitted via eClass or completed within the eClass interface (e.g. posting on discussion forums). The instructors will also use eClass as their primary way of communicating with students.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Moodle

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.]

Times and locations: Except where otherwise noted, meetings will be held in-person and on-campus on Mondays 2:30pm – 5:30pm EST at ACW 302, Keele Campus.

Virtual office hours: The instructor will be available to meet with students for scheduled office hours both in-person and virtually through Zoom (Thursday 4 – 5pm). All students are encouraged to attend office hours, individually or as a group, and discuss assignments and, more generally, topics related to the course that are of interest to the students. Individual meetings can also be scheduled by appointment.

Readings will be made available online through the eClass website.

1. Participation in class discussion and presentation 25%
2. Reading responses 30%
3. Final paper outline 15%
4. Final paper 30%

(Specific breakdown and weighting of assignments is tentative and subject to change.)

TBA

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Understand and evaluate some of the major contemporary controversies within the philosophy of neuroscience.
2. Understand some of the major contemporary controversies around the question of how we might explain the mind through studying the brain.
3. Have learned to critically analyse and evaluate research in the philosophy of neuroscience.

Course policies

Attendance

Attendance will be checked at the beginning of every class and awarded with a pass/fail grade. You will be allowed three unexcused absences over the course of the term. Any further absences need to be excused with a doctor’s note or through the university’s accommodations services.

Assignment Submissions

Assignments will be submitted via eClass. As the short written reading responses will help form the content of the seminar meetings, no late responses are accepted for any reason. Students will have the opportunity to submit 6 reading responses over the course of the term but only their 4 best ones will count towards their final grade. If you need an extension on a paper or paper planning assignment, please make the request before the due date. Reasonable extensions will be granted.

Contacting instructors

You should contact the instructor via email. Please note that I will be responding to messages only during working days (i.e. not on weekends or holidays).

Course recordings:

Any recordings for this course should be used for educational purposes only and as a means for enhancing accessibility. Students do not have permission to duplicate, copy and/or distribute the recordings outside of the class (these acts can violate not only copyright laws but also FIPPA).

Academic honesty and integrity

In this course, we strive to maintain academic integrity to the highest extent possible. All submitted coursework must be an expression of the student’s own understanding and ideas. Please familiarize yourself with the meaning of academic integrity by completing SPARK’s Academic Integrity module at the beginning of the course. Breaches of academic integrity range from cheating to plagiarism (i.e., the improper crediting of another’s work, the representation of another’s ideas as your own, etc.). All instances of academic dishonesty in this course will be reported to the appropriate university authorities, and can be punishable according to the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty.