Language & Cognition

Module code: 7AAN2091
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  written examination/s;  coursework; 

Formative assessment: one x 3,000-word essay, due by end of semester or as otherwise instructed
Summative assessment: one x two-hour end of year examination

The course will provide an overview of theories of formal syntax, considered from the perspective of logic, linguistics, and philosophy of language. It will introduce students to the formulation of a grammar as a formal system of rules and constraints. It will give students essential background in formal language theory, current grammar formalisms, and the computational properties of different theories of grammar. The course will provide an introduction to formal syntax, considered from the perspective of logic, linguistics, and philosophy of language. It will introduce students to the formulation of a grammar as a formal system of rules and constraints.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2091.aspx

Module code: 7AAN2092
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one -hour seminar
Assessment:  written examination/s;  coursework; 
Formative assessment: 1 x 3,000-word essay.  Summative assessment: 1 x 2-hour end of year examination.

The course will provide an overview of theories of formal semantics, focussing on the application of proof theory and model theory to the representation of meaning in natural language. Students will receive essential background in the methods and theoretical perspectives that provide the basis for contemporary linguistic semantics. This module will look at the central philosophical questions that formal semantic methods raise in the interpretation of natural language expressions. For instance, it will cover the use of proof and model theoretic techniques for representing the meanings of sentences in a natural language; the relationship between syntax and semantics in the theory of formal grammar; and the application of generalized quantifier theory to the analysis of noun phrases in natural language.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2092.aspx

Teaching staff: Dr Maria Alvarez
Module code: 7AAN2062
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  coursework 
Formative assessment: 1 x 2,000–3,000-word essay; Summative assessment: 1 x 4,000-word essay.

This module will be specifically concerned with topics in the Philosophy of Action. Possible topics may include the nature of actions and omissions in general, and more specifically of intentional actions and omissions; reasons for action, intentions, and the explanation of action; the mind-body problem or more generally the relationship between the physical and the mental; the nature of consciousness; the relevance of empirical results for the Philosophy of Mind

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2062.aspx

Teaching staff: Dr Nick Shea
Module code: 7AAN2066
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  coursework 
Formative assessment: 1 x 2,000–3,000-word essay; Summative assessment: 1 x 4,000-word essay.

Philosophical issues about the nature of representational content have become pressing in recent years with the rise of cognitive neuroscience, which appears to go further and locates representations in concrete processes in the brain. This course will explain the foundational principles underlying these psychological sciences and examine the central philosophical questions they raise about what representations are and how information-processing explanations work.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2066.aspx

Teaching staff: Dr Matteo Mameli
Module code: 7AAN2067
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  coursework 
Formative assessment: 1 x 2,000–3,000-word essay; Summative assessment: 1 x 4,000-word essay.

This year’s course will focus on some of the questions listed below:What is the nature of subjectivity and of the freedom that characterizes it? How does one “constitute oneself as an ethical subject”? Is the self a “center of narrative gravity”? In what sense, if any, does the self have a narrative structure? How are self-conceptions, conceptions of the self and conceptions of types of people related to behaviours, experiences and relationships? How are they affected by cognitive and emotional constraints, by discursive practices, by institutions and cultural processes? What are, in this context, the possibilities for change and for action? What is the “specter of creeping exculpation” and how can we avoid it? What are the implications for psychology and for the human sciences in general?

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2067.aspx

Module code: 7AAN2059
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  written examination/s;  coursework; 
Formative assessment: 2 x 1,500–2,000-word essays; Summative assessment: 1 x 2-hour end of year examination

This module will introduce students to recent topics in the philosophy of language and discuss, among other things, which basic concepts (truth, use, relevance) are needed in understanding what we do with language. Possible topics include:Theories of the use of language in fiction and figurative languageThe debate between contextual and non-contextual theories of meaning.The theory of speech actsThe theoretical framework for studying meaning: use theories of meaning and truth-conditional theories of meaningThe distinction between semantics and pragmaticsThe sense and reference of names, definite descriptions (if any) and natural kind terms

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2059.aspx

Teaching staff: Professor Bill Brewer
Module code: 7AAN2061
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  coursework 

Formative assessment: Two x 1,500-2,000-word essays, due by end of semester or as otherwise instructed
Summative assessment: One x two-hour end of year examination

The primary focus of this module will be issues in the metaphysics of mind: what is the relation between the bearers of mental and physical properties; what is the relation between mental and physical properties themselves; are various mental properties categorical or dispositional; do they supervene upon what is ‘internal’ to the subject? There will also be discussion of the nature and explanation of consciousness, the normativity of the mental, and the rational explanation of behaviour.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2061.aspx

Module code: 7AAN2075
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Teaching pattern: one weekly one-hour lecture and one weekly one-hour seminar
Assessment:  written examination/s;  coursework; 

Formative assessment: two x 1,500–2,000-word essays, due by end of semester or as otherwise instructed

Summative assessment: one x two-hour end of year examination

This course will focu s primarily on questions raised by twentieth century 'general' philosophy of science. Questions examined will include: What is science, and how do we differentiate science from pseudo-science? Do we choose theories rationally? Does science aim to tell us about the unobservable world, and, if it does, does it succeed? What do key scientific concepts, like explanation and natural law, mean? What is the relationship between the different levels of, or theories of, science?

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level7/7aan2075.aspx