Capstone Seminar: The Metaphysics of Consciousness

Capstone seminar for the major. Much of the debate surrounding consciousness has been over physicalism and its prospects. In the first part of this course, we will discuss the best way to frame the thesis of physicalism. What do we mean by "physical"? And what relation has to hold between conscious experience and the physical in order for physicalism to be true? In the second part of this course, we will discuss the arguments for and against physicalism, most notably the causal exclusion argument for physicalism and the explanatory gap argument against physicalism. In the third and final part of this course, we will discuss the various responses to this dilemma that have been offered. We will cover a priori and a posteriori physicalism, various flavors of dualism, and alternatives such as panpsychism and eliminativism.