HippoCampusPhilosophySpiralIntermediate17 chapters
The big questions: free will, consciousness and identity
I'd like to explore philosophy's big questions: free will, the nature of consciousness, personal identity and the mind-body problem, with the main positions and the thought experiments behind them.
What you'll learn
17 chapters
- 1
Orienting the Big Questions: Mind, Self, and Agency
- Identify the central questions that organize the course.
- Distinguish between free will, consciousness, personal identity, and the mind-body problem while seeing their connections.
- Recognize why these questions have remained central across the history of philosophy.
- 2
Ancient Foundations: Soul, Reason, and Human Agency
- Describe how ancient philosophy framed the relation between soul, body, reason, and action.
- Recognize early approaches to selfhood and moral responsibility.
- Explain why Greek philosophy remains foundational for later debates.
- 3
Late Ancient and Medieval Perspectives: Will, Soul, and Responsibility
- Summarize how late ancient and medieval thinkers developed the concept of the will.
- Identify the influence of religious frameworks on views of freedom and personhood.
- Connect medieval discussions of soul and responsibility to later free will debates.
- 4
Early Modern Turning Point: Descartes and the Mind-Body Divide
- Explain why Descartes became a central reference point in the philosophy of mind.
- Describe substance dualism and its basic motivation.
- Recognize the interaction problem as an early challenge to dualism.
- 5
Modern Alternatives to Dualism: Monism, Materialism, and Idealism
- Compare major early responses to Cartesian dualism.
- Identify broad differences between monist, materialist, and idealist approaches.
- See how metaphysical views about reality shape theories of mind.
- 6
Free Will and Determinism in the Early Modern and Enlightenment Periods
- Define determinism and explain why it matters for human freedom.
- Introduce the broad divide between compatibilist and incompatibilist approaches.
- Place early modern debates about liberty and necessity in historical context.
- 7
The Self in Modern Philosophy: Memory, Continuity, and Personhood
- Explain how modern philosophers shifted identity debates toward psychological continuity.
- Describe Locke's memory-based approach to personal identity.
- Recognize tensions between bodily and psychological accounts of the self.
- 8
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Shifts: Psychology, Phenomenology, and Existentialism
- Identify broad shifts from metaphysical soul-talk to lived experience, psychology, and embodiment.
- Recognize how phenomenology and existentialism reframed consciousness and selfhood.
- Understand why first-person experience became philosophically central.
- 9
What Is Consciousness? From Awareness to Subjective Experience
- Define consciousness in broad philosophical terms.
- Differentiate consciousness from related ideas such as attention, intelligence, and self-awareness.
- Introduce why subjective experience is especially difficult to explain.
- 10
Contemporary Theories of Mind: Identity, Functionalism, and Beyond
- Survey leading twentieth-century theories about what mental states are.
- Compare mind-brain identity theory, behaviorism, and functionalism at a high level.
- See how these theories attempt to solve the mind-body problem.
- 11
The Hard Problem and Its Rivals
- Introduce the hard problem of consciousness and why it became influential.
- Recognize major responses from physicalist and non-physicalist perspectives.
- Understand the difference between explaining function and explaining experience.
- 12
Classic Consciousness Thought Experiments: Mary, Zombies, and Bats
- Explain how thought experiments are used to test theories of consciousness.
- Describe several landmark consciousness thought experiments and what they aim to show.
- Assess, at an overview level, why these cases remain controversial.
- 13
What Makes You the Same Person Over Time?
- Compare the main kinds of answers to the personal identity question.
- Distinguish bodily, psychological, and narrative approaches at a broad level.
- Relate identity over time to responsibility, survival, and practical concern.
- 14
Thought Experiments About Identity: Ship of Theseus, Teletransportation, and Fission
- Use classic thought experiments to see why personal identity is difficult to define.
- Recognize how puzzles about objects and persons intersect.
- Understand why branching and duplication cases pressure simple identity theories.
- 15
Contemporary Free Will: Compatibilism, Libertarianism, and Hard Determinism
- Compare the main contemporary positions in the free will debate.
- Understand how each position handles responsibility, choice, and causation.
- Recognize the strengths and costs of preserving or rejecting free will.
- 16
Responsibility, Manipulation, and the Challenge from Science
- Introduce major modern pressures on traditional ideas of free will.
- Explain how manipulation arguments and neuroscientific findings complicate responsibility.
- Distinguish philosophical claims from overextended scientific conclusions.
- 17
Where the Debates Meet: Mind, Self, and Agency Together
- Integrate the course's central debates into a connected map.
- Recognize how views about consciousness affect views about self and free will.
- Prepare for deeper later spiral passes by identifying the major crossroads among positions.
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