GED 234

Course Code: GED 234
Course Name:
Introduction to Mind and Behavior
Credit Hours:
3.00
Detailed Syllabus:

This course will investigate the puzzling relationship between mind and matter. Most people can see the plausibility of two different institutions: (i) our minds and our bodies are different (our minds just don’t seem physical as our bodies do, even to the extent that the laws of physics do not apply); (ii) brains are the seats of minds, which makes minds very much material. To accept one option and take it that our minds are material means we have to explain how the world of matter can generate mental phenomena; and this is no easy task. The other option is also problematic: if we take mind and matter to be entirely separate substances, the how and why of their interaction is just mysterious. Indeed, the explanational gap is very similar in either case.