– Due: By May 20 ^th at 5:00 PM.

– Grading is anonymous: Include only your student ID number.

– 8-10 pages. Typewritten, double spaced in a 12-point font. 1 inch margins. Your paper should have a title, but no title page (and no fancy binding). 30% of final grade.

The final paper is an opportunity for you to pursue an extended treatment of some of the Philosophy of Mind themes of our seminar. The suggested length of the paper is designed to give you enough space to develop your ideas, but is also intended to force you to focus your thoughts. At the end of page 10, I will simply stop reading, and will grade the material accordingly. You are allowed to include a 11^th page for references.

You are not required to seek additional sources for final papers, though you may. The additional readings suggested by Kim are the best place to start if you are seeking additional material.

I do not have a preference with respect to your writing on these topics or your own. If you do elect to write on your own topic, please discuss it with me beforehand. One way to continue to preserve anonymity in grading will be to present me with several topics of your own, but not to specify which you intend to write on. Another would be to present the suggestion in writing with only your student ID.

SUGGESTED TOPICS

1. Respond to Kripke’s critique of the identity theory of mind. This requires that you offer a clear explication of Kripke’s argument. Along the way, you will want to relate Kripke’s discussion of mind to his defense of rigid designation, which will likely require a significant foray into his contributions to the philosophy of language.
   
   
2. Paul Churchland argues that functionalism could have rescued alchemy or even the phlogiston theory of combustion. Thus, he writes, "…it is at least possible for the constellation of moves, claims, and defenses characteristic of functionalism to constitute an outrage against reason and truth, and to do so with a plausibility that is frightening" (Rosenthal, 1991, p. 607). Assess Churchland’s eliminativist argument against functionalism. Of course, this will require that you offer a detailed discussion of functionalism.
   
   
3. Dennett is an instrumentalist with respect to mental states. Critically evaluate this instrumentalism by attending to the question of whether Dennett needs to have specific commitments in the philosophy of language. Must instrumentalists be use theorists, or might Dennett maintain his instrumentalist views while still subscribing to, say, a truth-conditions approach to meaning?
   
   
4. Craft an eliminativist or representationalist response to Frank Jackson’s ‘Mary’ argument. One thing that you will want to think about is whether Jackson’s argument is solely an epistemological point. If it is, does that show that it has nothing to do with the concerns of the philosophy of mind?
   
   
5. Discuss the importance of Putnam’s Twin-Earth cases. Attend specifically to this apparent dilemma: Suppose meanings are not in the head. That would seem to put the representational theory of mind as a foundation for psychology in jeopardy, since mental states would have their meanings bound up with external factors, and psychologists do not, in general, study the environment to see what mental states mean. On the other hand, suppose meanings are in the head. Something would have to be wrong with Putnam’s argument. Arbitrate.
   
   
6. Discuss (and take a stand on) John Searle’s critique of the computational theory of mind.
   
   
7. Respond to this argument: A robot hooked up to a Turing machine that computes the functions characteristic of human minds would, as a result, have a mind. This is because the meaning of our various words having to do with minds are determined by their use, and, by hypothesis, such a robot would exhibit all the public factors that govern our use of mental words. Obviously, this topic requires that you discuss Turing machines and that you discuss use theories. If you accept the argument, you may have to discuss why we should therefore reject Searle’s position. If you reject the argument, you may have to discuss why use theories fail.
   
   
8. Verificationist accounts of meaning, logical behaviorism, and psychological behaviorism are clearly bound up with one another. Discuss the relationship between these themes, and critically evaluate the commitments involved. To the extent that the representational theory of mind is an answer to psychological behaviorism, what must the semantic commitments of representationalists be?