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Led by Aristotle Natural Philosophy Simulacrum
The philosophy of mind from Aristotle's De Anima through Descartes' dualism, materialism, functionalism, embodied cognition, and the implications of AI for understanding the nature of mind.
Led by Aristotle Natural Philosophy Simulacrum
The question
Aristotle did not think the soul was a ghost trapped in a machine. For Aristotle, the soul (psyche) is the form of a living body — it is what makes a body alive, what organises its matter into a functioning organism. The eye sees because its soul (its form) is the capacity to see. The soul is not separable from the body any more than the shape of a statue is separable from the bronze.
Outcome
The student can describe hylomorphism and the soul as form, describe the three levels of soul (nutritive, sensitive, rational), and explain the nous problem. (De Anima)
Sub-units
Led by Aristotle Natural Philosophy Simulacrum
The question
René Descartes split the world in two: mind (res cogitans — the thinking thing) and body (res extensa — the extended thing). The mind is immaterial, indivisible, and conscious. The body is material, extended in space, and mechanical.
Outcome
The student can describe the Cogito and why the mind is known first, describe substance dualism, state the interaction problem, explain the conceivability argument, and explain why dualism persists as folk psychology. (Descartes and dualism)
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Led by Aristotle Natural Philosophy Simulacrum
The question
If dualism fails (the interaction problem is insoluble), then mind must be something physical. But what? The identity theory says: mind is the brain — mental states are identical to brain states (pain = C-fibre firing). Functionalism says: mind is what the brain does — mental states are defined by their functional role (pain is whatever state is caused by bodily damage and causes avoidance behaviour), regardless of what physical substance implements it.
Outcome
The student can describe the identity theory and the multiple realisability objection, describe functionalism and why it is more liberal than the identity theory, describe the Chinese Room argument, and evaluate the systems and robot replies. (Materialism and functionalism)
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Led by Merleau-Ponty Simulacrum
The question
The tradition from Descartes through the identity theory to functionalism treats the mind as something in the head — whether it is an immaterial substance, a brain state, or a computational programme. Embodied cognition challenges this assumption: the mind is not in the head; it is in the body and in the world. Cognition is not abstract symbol manipulation — it is the organism's active engagement with its environment through perception and action.
Outcome
The student can describe Merleau-Ponty's embodied perception, define affordances, describe the extended mind thesis, and explain the embodied AI question. (Embodied cognition)
Sub-units
Led by Aristotle Natural Philosophy Simulacrum
The question
The history of AI is also a history of the philosophy of mind — because every attempt to build a thinking machine is an implicit theory of what thinking is. Symbolic AI (the 1950s-80s) assumed thinking is rule-following and symbol manipulation — and when it failed to produce general intelligence, the failure taught us that thinking may not be rule-following.
Outcome
The student can describe what each AI paradigm taught us about mind (symbolic → rule failure, neural → pattern recognition, LLMs → next-token prediction vs. understanding), and evaluate four philosophical implications. (The mind in the AI age)
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