The aim of this course is to acquaint students with the newest trends in cognitive science research. Its units are drawn from the four domains in which contemporary work on cognition is concentrated – humans, animals, plants and fungi, and machines – each of which a cognitive scientist may take as a field of specialisation, and in all of which research has turned increasingly towards non-standard modes of cognition.
The competence the course builds is evaluative. Students acquire the means to assess the claim that some creature or artefact has a mind: to establish what has in fact been measured, to weigh competing explanations, to state what evidence would support the claim, and to proceed responsibly where the evidence is inconclusive. These are the skills required for a master's thesis and for subsequent critical work in the field, as well as for the everyday assessment of claims reported in the media.
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Each student presents one paper from the reading list in the week in which its unit falls, setting out what the researchers did and how they reached their conclusions, where the evidence is strongest and where weakest, and closing with questions put to the class.
Participation is assessed throughout the semester. Students come to each class having read one paper of the unit in full and the abstracts of the remainder; a presenter reads the paper in full.
The final examination is an oral defence. The candidate is given a dossier on an organism of undetermined status and must judge, from evidence drawn from the course, whether it is cognitive, sentient or conscious, what protection it warrants, and on what grounds that judgement would be revised.
