Dr Jason Alexander

The course is primarily intended for MSc Philosophy and History of Science, MSc Economics and Philosophy, MSc Philosophy of the Social Sciences and MSc Biomedicine, Bioscience and Society.

The biological and cognitive sciences have given rise to a number of important conceptual problems, many of which have also important implications for the social sciences and for public policy. In this course, the following topics will be considered: the logic of evolutionary explanations, adaptations and adaptationism, innateness and development in biology and psychology, mind and brain, consciousness, folk-psychology and human mindreading, evolutionary theories of human behaviour and human culture, the modularity of mind, the methodology of evolutionary psychology, the nature of emotions.

The main teaching for this course is the Core Seminar given every week by Matteo Mameli and David Papineau at King's College. The seminar is typically held in David Papineau’s office in the KCL Philosophy Department. (For details about the time and location of the seminar, please either contact Jason Alexander, the Teacher Responsible for PH411.) Students taking this course are also strongly advised to attend the intercollegiate MA Philosophy of Psychology lectures. Students may also find it useful to attend the intercollegiate MA Philosophy of Mind lectures.

Detailed reading lists are provided for each part of the course. The following is a list of key texts and preliminary readings which have been used in past years: K Sterelny and P Griffiths, Sex and Death (University of Chicago Press); E Sober, Philosophy of Biology (Westview); R Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype (OUP); D Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Penguin); P Richerson and R Boyd, Not By Genes Alone (University of Chicago Press); D Sperber, Explaining Culture (Blackwell); K Laland and D Brown, Sense and Non-Sense (OUP); R Dunbar and S Barrett (eds.) Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (OUP); D Buller, Adapting Minds (MIT); J Barkow, L Cosmides, J Tooby, The Adapted Mind (OUP); J Fodor, The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way (MIT).

A three-hour written examination in the ST.