Philosophy of Mind & Mental Health

Philosophy of Mind & Mental Health

On Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday evenings of 28 - 30 July and 4 - 6  August 2014
From 18:00 to 20:30

Venue: 215 Orion Avenue, Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria

Mon, 28 July 2014, 18:00 - 20.30
Mind-body distinctions defining mental health and within mental health practice
What does the distinction between psychiatry and neurology amount to? How are psychiatry, neurology and psychology related? How profound is the mind-problem within mental health practice? Mind-brain distinctions in somatoform disorders and psychiatric diagnostic classifications. What counts as “mental”?

Tue, 29 July 2014, 18:00 - 20.30
Mind-body debates and mental health
Dualism, monism and their varieties. Functionalism: are mental states merely functions of the brain? Neuropsychiatric correlations with mental content: what do they mean? 

Wed, 30 July 2014, 18:00 - 20.30
Reductionist approaches to mental content & mental health

Identity theories of mind and brain. Intentionality (aboutness) and cognitivism. Mental content: naturalized accounts, descriptive causal accounts, teleological causal accounts.
  Mon, 4 August 2014, 18:00 - 20:30
Non-reductionist approaches to mental content & mental health
Anomalous monism and supervenience. Wittgenstein, Kripke, McDowell & Davidson on mental content. Discursive psychology & Alzheimer’s disease. Intentional stance. The relation between language, mind and world. Ontological and epistemological pluralism.   Tue, 5 August 2014, 18:00 - 20:30
Agency & the knowledge of other minds
Neuropsychiatry and free will. Can reasons be causes? Event & agent causation in irrationality and avolition / akrasia. Beliefs about and 3rd person access to someone else’s mind - implications for expert testimony in courts of law. Autism and theories of theory-of-mind, simulation & inter-subjectivity. Rationality and direct access to mental states.   Wed, 6 August 2014, 18:00 - 20:30
Personal identity & the ‘self’ 
What is the self? Where is the self? : Philosophical and empirical issues in delusions of thought insertion, hallucinations, and in dissociative experiences including “multiple personality disorder”. Personal identity in gender identity disorder & Alzheimer’s disease.

Reserve your place at [email protected]    Enquiries: Professor CW (Werdie) van Staden Head: Division of Philosophy & Ethics of Mental Health School of Medicine, University of Pretoria [email protected]    

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