PHIL 3870 Mind in Evolution

PHIL 3870 Mind in Evolution
Mind in Evolution
As any biological capacity, the mind must have evolved. Can evolution explain its design? The mind has many components, from perception to language and thinking. Are they all products of natural selection, of other evolutionary forces, or of no such forces at all? Can evolution explain the uniqueness of the human mind? What could be the factors that explain this uniqueness: tool making, language, social life? In attempting to answer these questions, the class brings an evolutionary perspective to some important topics in philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology and offers a multidisciplinary introduction to the emerging but rapidly developing field of evolutionary cognitive science.
credit hours: 3