課程簡介

有可能製造出一台會思考、甚至有情緒的機器人嗎？動物有心智活動嗎？我們該如何來思索這些問題？當代哲學與科學對於人類心與認知（心智）的研究已經相當令人印象深刻。事實上從笛卡爾的實體二元論開始，就已經對於心智提供了一套學說，影響至今。例如當代哲學家對於心智提供的幾種存有論主張，包括邏輯行為主義、心腦同一論、功能論（特別是算機功能論）、工具論、取消論等，有些學說是否認心智存在的，有些學說認為應該從腦神經科學著手來研究心智，有些學說主張心智就是計算機，並成為人工智能的理論基礎。本門課並將介紹這個領域的一些重大問題。例如知名的「心物問題」、意向性問題、主體性與物理論問題。

Is it possible to build a machine that thinks? Or even a machine that has feelings and emotions? Do animals have minds? How are we to explore these questions? Contemporary philosophical and scientific studies of mind and cognition have been very impressive. As a matter of fact, ever since Descartes proposed substance dualism, his philosophy has great impacts on how we approach the nature of mind. For example, contemporary philosophers have offered several doctrines: logical behaviorism, brain state type identity theory, functionalism (especially machine functionalism), instrumentalism, and eliminativism. Some of the positions deny the reality of mind, some think that the best way to understand mind is via neurosciences, still others think that the mind is just a machine/computer, this last becoming the theoretical foundation for artificial intelligence. This course will introduce some basic problems in this field such as the famous mind-body problem, the problem of intentionality, subjectivity and physicalism.