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2019/2020

Philosophy of Cognitive Sciences

Code: 100318 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500246 Philosophy OT 3 0
2500246 Philosophy OT 4 0

Contact

Name:
Jordi Vallverdú Segura
Email:
Jordi.Vallverdu@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Teachers

Jordi Vallverdú Segura

Prerequisites

No theoretical prerequisite is required. It is only necessary to keep in mind that most of the bibliographies and works in cognitive sciences carried out during the last decades are in English language; therefore it is strongly recommended to have a willingness to read and consult such documents in that language.

Objectives and Contextualisation

The subject consists of a critical review of the main schools and philosophical figures that have analyzed and / or explore the phenomenon of cognition, as well as the analysis in detail of real examples of many cognitive processes. We will pay particular attention to the latest theoretical results from the various disciplines that make up the academic sphere the cognitive sciences.

Competences

    Philosophy
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Recognising and interpreting topics and problems of philosophy in its various disciplines.
  • Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Ability to maintain an appropriate conversation.
  2. Accurately using the specific lexicon of science history.
  3. Analysing and summarising information.
  4. Analysing historical cases about scientific facts.
  5. Carrying out a planning for the development of a subject-related work.
  6. Carrying out oral presentations using an appropriate academic vocabulary and style.
  7. Communicating in the studied language in oral and written form, properly using vocabulary and grammar.
  8. Correctly, accurately and clearly communicating the acquired philosophical knowledge in oral and written form.
  9. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  10. Engaging in debates about philosophical issues respecting the other participants' opinions.
  11. Establishing relationships between science, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc.
  12. Explaining aspects of the history of science by using the discipline's specific terminology.
  13. Explaining the specific notions of the History of Philosophy.
  14. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  15. Identifying the main ideas of a related text and drawing a diagram.
  16. Leading working groups, overseeing collective tasks and working with commitment in order to bring together various positions.
  17. Mastering the relevant languages to the necessary degree in the professional practice.
  18. Organizing their own time and work resources: designing plans with priorities of objectives, calendars and action commitments.
  19. Producing an individual work that specifies the work plan and timing of activities.
  20. Reading basic philosophical text thoroughly.
  21. Recognising and implementing the following teamwork skills: commitment to teamwork, habit of cooperation, ability to participate in the problem solving processes.
  22. Recognising, with a critical eye, philosophical referents of the past and present and assessing its importance.
  23. Reflecting on their own work and the immediate environment's in order to continuously improve it.
  24. Relating the characteristic elements and factors of the philosophical tradition.
  25. Solving problems autonomously.
  26. Submitting works in accordance with both individual and small group demands and personal styles.
  27. Using computing tools, both basics (word processor or databases, for example) and specialised software needed in the professional practice of archaeology.
  28. Using specialized knowledge acquired in an interdisciplinary context when debating.
  29. Using suitable terminology when drawing up an academic text.

Content

  1. Which are the cognitive sciences? A defense of interdisciplinarity.
  2. Philogenesis of biological cognition: life, autopoiesis and minimal cognitions.
  3. Descartes, the Great Fake: nor tabula rasa, nor res cogitans vs. res extensa. The emotions in cognition.
  4. The geographies of cognition and common sense.
  5. Bye, bye Chomsky! Social cognition and language games
  6. Warming up motors: functionalism, structuralism, conductism, psychoanalysis, Gestalt.
  7. Current theories, modes and tendencies: computationalism, extended cognition, cognition embodied, enactivity, grounded cognition, situated cognition, bounded rationality.
  8. Errors, biases or forms of being? From Grandin to Thaler.
  9. The kingdom of heuristics: from Kahneman to Blended Cognition.
  10. Artificial cognitions: hypercognition, biomimetic cognition.
  11. Bonus track: causality, ontology, mental, body swapping, and possible non-diadic logics.

Methodology

It is considered that the students must prepare the sessions by doing the readings / activities / exercises proposed by the teacher, which will allow him to participate in the active debates of the course.

Group work will be carried out (minimum and maximum of two people) supervised by the teacher.

Critical summaries of specific readings determined by the teacher will be made.

A continuous analysis of the main concepts of the course that will be crystallized in the writing of a personal dictionary will be carried out.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Classes of text analysis and PPT assignment 20 0.8 3, 8, 13, 9, 15, 14, 22, 24
Theoretical classes 25 1 3, 8, 13, 9, 15, 14, 22, 24
Type: Supervised      
Tutorials 23 0.92 3, 8, 13, 9, 15, 14, 22, 24
Type: Autonomous      
Study of texts to comment 21 0.84 4, 3, 8, 28, 17, 19, 11, 5, 12, 13, 9, 7, 6, 29, 15, 14, 16, 20, 1, 18, 10, 26, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 2, 27
Text Readings 30 1.2 4, 3, 8, 28, 17, 19, 11, 5, 12, 13, 9, 7, 6, 29, 15, 14, 16, 20, 1, 10, 26, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 2, 27
Writing a dictionary 15 0.6 8, 13, 7, 24

Assessment

The final grade is obtained from the sum of 5 activities:

  1.      [30%] Development of Dictionary on Cognition, minimum 30 entries of 5 lines each with a bibliographical reference for each concept, to be delivered as a PDF file via @ on April 20.
  2.      [20%] Completion of PPT on a subject assigned to schools (Themes 4 and 5). The group will have to suggest a text related to its subject. It will be assigned by the teacher at the end of February. To be delivered on March 30th.
  3.      [20%] Written exam on Lesson 3 (Emotions and cognition).
  4.      [20%] Critical review of thematic reading indicated via Moodle during the course. To be delivered on May 15th.
  5.      [10%] Active participation in classes.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Active participation in class debates 10% 3 0.12 7, 1, 23
Fundamental reading summary 20% 1 0.04 3, 8, 13, 9, 15, 14, 24
Group making of PPT 20% 5 0.2 3, 8, 28, 17, 13, 9, 7, 15, 14, 16, 20, 10, 26, 21, 22, 24, 27
Writing a dictionary 30% 6 0.24 4, 3, 13, 9, 7, 6, 29, 15, 14, 20, 18, 26, 22, 24, 25, 2
Written exam on Leson 3 (Emotions) 20% 1 0.04 4, 3, 8, 28, 19, 11, 5, 12, 13, 9, 29, 15, 14, 10, 22, 23, 24

Bibliography

 

Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(August), 617–645. 

Brooks, R. A. (1990). Elephants don’t play chess. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 6(1), 3–15. 

Clark, A. (2003). Natural-born cyborgs : minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence. Oxford University Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Creativity : the psychology of discovery and invention. NY: Harper Perennial.

Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, rationality and the human brain. New York: Putnam, 352.

Everett, D. L. (2005). Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã. Current Anthropology, 46(4), 621–646. 

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking fast, thinking slow.  Tavistock, London.

Minsky, M. (2006). The emotion machine. New York: Pantheon, 1–7. 

Nisbet, R. E. (2003). The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why: Richard E. Nisbett: 9780743255356: Amazon.com: Books. New York: Free Press (Simon & Schuster, Inc.).

Pfeifer, R., Bongard, J., & Grand, S. (2007). How the body shapes the way we think : a new view of intelligence. MIT Press.

Schroeder, M. J., & Vallverdú, J. (2015). Situated phenomenology and biological systems: Eastern and Western synthesis. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 119(3), 530–537. 

Vallverdú, J. (2017). Brains, language and the argumentative mind in Western and Eastern societies. The fertile differences between Western-Eastern argumentative traditions. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. 

Vallverdú, J., Castro, O., Mayne, R.,Talanov, M., Levin, M., Baluška, F., Adamatzky, A. (2018). Slime mould: The fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition. BioSystems, 165, 57–70. 

Vallverdú, J., & Trovato, G. (2016). Emotional affordances for human–robot interaction. Adaptive Behavior, 24(5). 

Vallverdú, J. (2019). Blended Cognition: The Robotic Challenge. In Blended Cognition (pp. 3-21). Springer, Cham.

 

Taking into account that this subject constitutes the main specialty of Prof. Dr. Vallverdú, it is recommended that those who wish to follow their latest research activities consult the following electronic spaces:
https://uab.academia.edu/JordiVolve the https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jordi_Vallverdu