Lässt sich der Geist mitsamt Verstand, Gefühlen und Sinneseindrücken auf physische Gehirnaktivität reduzieren? Oder ist der Geist mehr als das Feuern von Neuronen?
Dieses Seminar bietet eine Einführung zu lang diskutierte sowie gegenwärtige Probleme und Positionen der Philosophie des Geistes. Wir befassen uns mit dem oben skizzierten Leib-Seele Problem, streifen die Themen von Bewusstsein sowie freiem Willen, und enden mit der Frage von persönlicher Identität.
Das Lernziel des Kurses ist es, die unterschiedlichen Probleme sowie Positionen kennenzulernen und sich mit einer Position im Rahmen einer Kursarbeit vertieft zu beschäftigen.
Vorkenntnis wird nicht vorausgesetzt.

Perceiving together is fundamentally different from perceiving alone. Traditionally, perception and cognition have been discussed and understood as individual processes. Attending a lecture, in this sense, only depends on the individual functioning of the attendee. However, findings from neuroscience and psychology have initiated a 'social turn' in understanding perception and cognition as something fundamentally social – attending a lecture with others in a lecture hall differs from attending a lecture at home.

This research seminar explores a recent trend in philosophy to distinguish individual from social forms of perception. It addresses questions like: What makes attention and perception social? What is a we-mode of perception? How do we arrive at perceptual common knowledge?

In this seminar, we will engage with current papers and positions substantiating the social turn in philosophy of mind to address the questions sketched above.

In this course we will look at a selection of some well-known as well as some fairly new topics at the intersection of philosophy, game theory, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI). Is technology merely a tool we use or does it shape our lives in more profound ways? ▪ Can persons exist as digital entities? ▪ Will people cooperate with or exploit artificial agents? ▪ Can recommendation engines lie? ▪ How can the use of drones in warfare affect how wars are waged? ▪ Should we develop sex robots? ▪ How to reconcile privacy, liberty, and the benefits of facial recognition technology? 

These are the type of the questions that we'll look at in this course. An interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy, psychology, game theory, and computer science, with a good dash of science fiction, to study these questions is gaining popularity. This course will invite students to explore how these disciplines mingle in tackling the above questions and why tackling them is important in the first place. We will cover topics ranging from some of the well-known philosophical and ethical concerns regarding our use and reliance on technology to very recent developments at the intersection of behavioural game theory and human-AI interaction.

Is there a formal way to study our decisions and tell if and when our choices are rational? ▪ What does game theory have to say about how we interact with others and what can we learn about our behaviour from game theory experiments? ▪ How do social norms shape our behaviour and what insights can we draw from models of biological and cultural evolution? ▪ Should governments use experimental psychology research to “nudge" people into eating healthy, saving for retirement, donating organs, and other forms of seemingly desirable behaviour? ▪ Why do we sometimes lack self-control and what do we do about it?

These are some questions that we'll look at in this course. An interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy, economics, psychology, and computer science in the study of these questions is presently gaining popularity. This course will introduce students to decision-theoretic and game-theoretic study of rational choice and social interaction. We will cover topics ranging from well known philosophical riddles concerning the foundations of rational choice theory to very recent developments in behavioural game theory concerning modes of reasoning that people use in interactive decision-making.

The course is aimed at upper level undergraduate and postgraduate students in philosophy, economics, and other areas of research that have an interest in formal analysis of human decision making. The course doesn't require prior knowledge of decision theory, game theory, or economics, and all key concepts will be introduced and explained in course meetings. Basic knowledge of introductory material in these fields will help as well as a general aptitude for working with numbers and probabilities (basic math).