Grad Seminar: Non-canonical Thought: Structure and Processes

Here’s the description for my spring grad seminar at the GC

This class will examine thought in dark places. We'll start with some canonical modes of thought, and then focus on the patterns of deviation, investigating how thought and reasoning works in infants, animals, and the unconscious mind. Topics include reasoning in chimps, baboons and parrots; signaling in whales, dolphins, monkeys, and bees; the question of plant cognition; the evolution of reasoning and higher order thought; tool use in birds; honeybee navigation and math; the role of phonetics in expressing meaning in slurs and in the evolution of language; the role of thought under duress; unconscious belief acquisition and propaganda transmission; and unconscious logic and economic behavior. Readings will be taken from philosophy, cognitive psychology, comparative psychology, evolutionary and developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and social psychology. In the end we should have a firmer grasp on the nature and structure of our concepts, beliefs, and supposedly dumb system 1 faculties, as well as a fuller understanding of the cognitive achievements of our evolutionary ancestors.