Topic

This will be a course on the nature of phenomenal properties, like those that subjects instantiate when they have typical perceptual experiences and bodily sensations. We will investigate the prospects for a reduction of phenomenal properties to representational properties, and a reduction of representational properties to functional properties or other physicalistically-acceptable properties. Some of the reading here will be from a book ms. of mine on the topic, though, fortunately for students, there will be other readings as well.

Format

The course meets in 220 Malloy on Mondays, from 9:00-11:30. The course is a seminar rather than a lecture. Students are welcome, but not required, to present their work to the class at any time during the semester.

Texts

All of the readings will be made available in PDF form via links from the syllabus.

Assignments

Everyone taking the course for a grade will write a term paper. The paper should approximate a journal article. Just as there are many kinds of journal articles, there can be many sorts of term papers. The paper could, for example, be a very short Analysis-style paper, or it could be a longer piece which gets heavily into the literature on your chosen topic. It (hopefully) goes without saying that the papers must be clear, well-argued, and make an original contribution to the subject you're discussing. I'm very happy to read drafts of term papers, or drafts of fragments of term papers.

Grading

The midterm exam and (non-cumulative) final exam will each be worth 35% of the final grade; short take home assignments will, collectively, be worth 10%. The remaining 20% of the final grade will be given on the basis of class attendance and participation.

Each assignment is required, in the sense that failure to complete one or more assignments is sufficient to fail the course.

Notre Dame has no official way of indexing numerical grades to letter grades. This is the system that will be used in this course:

A	94+
A-	90-93
B+	87-89
B	83-86
B-	80-82
C+	77-79
C	73-76
C-	70-72
D	60-69
F	59-

Honor code

In all of their assignments, students are responsible for compliance with the University’s honor code, information about which is available here. You should acquaint yourself with the policies and penalties described there.

Sometimes, it can be hard to know what, exactly, the honor code implies with respect to different disciplines. For this reason, the philosophy department has prepared a document explaining, using examples, what the honor code requires of students when writing a philosophy paper. I strongly recommend that you read this document, which is available here. It is possible to violate the honor code without intending to do so; the best way to avoid this is to carefully read through the philosophy department's guidelines.

If you are in doubt about what the honor code requires of you in a particular case, please ask me.