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Philosophical psychology
Eliminativism about the mind states that mental states do not actually exist and have no role to play in mature science of the mind. If eliminativism is true, then all that there is to understand about the psychological experience should be done so by the scientific method. This position raises many questions to the mind and brain research. Does eliminating mental life to neuronal activity and its understanding exclusively to the scientific method leave any role to clinical psychology? Should psychopathological treatment reduce to neuronal intervention? Should experiments in psychology eliminate mental life to neurobiological activity? Is the experimental method sufficient to understand all that there is to understand about the nature of the mind and psychological experience? If, on the contrary, eliminativism is wrong how then to set up experiments that do not eliminate the situated psychological experience? Do experimental settings imply eliminativism? In this course we will scrutinise these questions mostly from a Wittgensteinean perspective. By the end of the course students are expected to understand the complexity of the ontology of psychological experience and its philosophical implications to experimental and therapeutical settings in the mind and brain. Classes will be conducted as interactive lecture/discussions.