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Windows to the Social Mind
[undergraduate]

The human mind is a composite wonder from which all thought and experience originates. Tailored by millions of years of evolution, nurtured by culture, and subserved by an intricately multi-faceted brain, the mind is both the idea and embodiment of knowledge itself.

This ten-week course will unite studies from philosophy, psychology, political science, evolutionary biology, and the social and cognitive neurosciences to explore and understand the the social mind. The journey will include (but is in no way limited to!):

• The views of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Robin Fox,
  and Steven Pinker on human nature
• The evolutionary history of the hominid brain
• Macro- and micro-organization principles of the brain
• Brain and mind development of social cognition
• The adaptive unconscious
• Neurological disorders associated with social cognitive dysfunctions
• Psychiatric disorders with social cognitive dysfunctions
• Ethical and societal implications of current discoveries in the
  field of neuroscience

The mind is not a mystical structure. It is what the brain produces (there is no mind without a brain, but there can be a brain without a mind!). The brain is reproducibly and evolutionarily well organized for the purpose of maintaining and advancing both the individual and the species.

Course syllabus available on Chalk