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The Philosophy of Free Will (Intensive Course)
8.3229
Dozenten
Beschreibung
Course Description
“Free will” is one of the core topics in philosophy with significant implications for ethics, law, psychology, and cognitive science. Is what we do “up to us” in a sense that allows others to hold us accountable for our behavior or are we just the victims of forces beyond our control, be it our genes, our environments, our brains or the deterministic course of the universe? What do we respond to someone who did something morally wrong, but excuses themselves by saying “I could not have done otherwise!”?
This intensive course provides an introduction to the philosophical concept of free will and the problems regarding moral or legal responsibility or accountability related to it from both systematic and historical perspectives. We will (probably, see below) examine the major philosophical positions on free will, including libertarianism, compatibilism, and hard determinism, and discuss their relevance to human agency, moral responsibility, and scientific understanding of human behavior.
Importantly, the exact nature of the course will entirely be up to the students: We will use The Routledge Companion to Free Will as the main background reading, which contains 60 chapters, ranging from fundamental introductions to the major systematic and historic positions over chapters like “Empirical Perspectives on Consciousness and its Relationship to Free Will and Moral Responsibility” or “Addiction” to chapters like “Free Will and Criminal Law” or “A Feminist Approach to Moral Responsibility”. At the beginning of the course, a poll will select the 13 of the 60 chapters students are most interested in, and we will be discussing these throughout the course.
Learning Objectives
Throughout the course, students will engage with classical and contemporary debates regarding free will and moral responsibility, develop critical thinking skills, gain fundamental knowledge in a key area of theoretical philosophy and apply philosophical insights to cognitive science research. By the end of this course, students will be able to understand and articulate the main philosophical arguments concerning free will, critically evaluate different perspectives on the compatibility of free will and determinism, apply philosophical theories of free will to issues in cognitive science, develop and defend their own positions on free will and moral responsibility.
Prerequisites and Assessments
Students should have successfully completed the Philosophy of Cognitive Science lecture. Preference is given to BSc students who want to complete the Philosophy of Mind and Cognition module, but in principle everyone is welcome, space permitting.
Writing Exercises 15%:
Weekly Reading Responses: 15%
Mid-term Essay: 25%
Student Presentation: 15%
Final Paper: 20%
Note: This syllabus is subject to change based on the progress of the course and the needs of the students. Any changes will be communicated promptly.
Weitere Angaben
Ort: 50/E07
Zeiten: Mi. 10:00 - 12:00 (wöchentlich)
Erster Termin: Mittwoch, 30.10.2024 10:00 - 12:00, Ort: 50/E07
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar (Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen)
Studienbereiche
- Cognitive Science > Bachelor-Programm
- Cognitive Science > Master-Programm
- Human Sciences (e.g. Cognitive Science, Psychology)
Research Areas:
Algebraic geometry 14-XX
K-theory 19-XX
Algebraic topology 55-XX
Publications:
- Cellularity of hermitian K-theory and Witt-theory (with Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær)
- On the η-inverted sphere. K-Theory-Proceedings of the International Colloquium
- Gigantic random simplicial complexes Link (with Jens Grygierek, Martina Juhnke-Kubitzke, Matthias Reitzner and Tim Römer)
- On very effective hermitian K-theory Link (with Alexey Ananyevskiy and Paul Arne Østvær)
- The first stable homotopy groups of motivic spheres DOI (with Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær)
- Vanishing in stable motivic homotopy sheaves (with Kyle Ormsby and Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- The multiplicative structure on the graded slices of hermitian K-theory and Witt-theory (with Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- Slices of hermitian K–theory and Milnor's conjecture on quadratic forms (with Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- Calculus of functors and model categories, II (with Georg Biedermann) Link
- The Arone-Goodwillie spectral sequence for Σ∞Ωn and topological realization at odd primes (with Sebastian Buescher, Fabian Hebestreit und Manfred Stelzer) Link
- Motivic slices and coloured operads (with Javier Gutierrez, Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær) Link
- Motivic strict ring models for K-theory (with Markus Spitzweck and Paul Arne Østvær) PDF
- Theta characteristics and stable homotopy types of curves DOI
- A universality theorem for Voevodsky's algebraic cobordism spectrum (with Ivan Panin and Konstantin Pimenov) Link
- On the relation of Voevodsky's algebraic cobordism to Quillen's K-theory DOI (with Ivan Panin and Konstantin Pimenov)
- On Voevodsky's algebraic K-theory spectrum BGL (with Ivan Panin and Konstantin Pimenov)
- Rigidity in motivic homotopy theory DOI (with Paul Arne Østvær)
- Calculus of functors and model categories DOI (with Georg Biedermann and Boris Chorny)
- Motivic Homotopy Theory Link (with B.I.Dundas, M.Levine, P.A.Østvær and V.Voevodsky)
- Motives and modules over motivic cohomology Link (with Paul Arne Østvær)
- Modules over motivic cohomology DOI (with Paul Arne Østvær)
- Enriched functors and stable homotopy theory Link (with Bjørn Ian Dundas and Paul Arne Østvær)
- Motivic functors Link (with Bjørn Ian Dundas and Paul Arne Østvær)
Preprints and Talks:
Projekte
- DFG-Sachbeihilfe "Algebraic bordism spectra: Computations, filtrations, applications" (DFG-RSF-Antrag mit Alexey Ananyevskiy)
- DFG-Sachbeihilfe "Applying motivic filtrations" (mit Marc Levine und Markus Spitzweck) im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786
- DFG-Sachbeihilfe "Operads in algebraic geometry and their realizations" (mit Jens Hornbostel,
Markus Spitzweck und Manfred Stelzer) im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786 - DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Operad structures in motivic homotopy theory'' im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786 ``Homotopy theory and algebraic geometry'' (mit Markus Spitzweck)
- DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Motivic filtrations over Dedekind domains'' im DFG Schwerpunktprogramm 1786 ``Homotopy theory and algebraic geometry'' (mit Marc Levine und Markus Spitzweck)
- DFG Graduiertenkolleg 1916 ``Combinatorial structures in geometry''
- DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Goodwillie towers, realizations, and En-structures''
- Graduiertenkolleg ``Combinatorial structures in algebra and topology'' (mit H. Brenner, W. Bruns, T. Römer und R. Vogt)
- DFG Sachbeihilfe ``Combinatorial structures in algebra and topology'' (mit H. Brenner, W. Bruns, T. Römer und R. Vogt)
Supervision
PhD
Philip Herrmann: Stable equivariant motivic homotopy theory and motivic Borel cohomology, 2012
Florian Strunk: On motivic spherical bundles, 2013
Master/Diplom
Markus Severitt: Motivic Homotopy Types of Projective Curves, 2006 PDF
Philip Herrmann: Ein Modell für die motivische Homotopiekategorie, 2009
Florian Strunk: Ein Modell für motivische Kohomologie, 2009
Sebastian Büscher: Anwendung der F2-kohomologischen Goodwillie-Spektralsequenz für iterierte Schleifenraeume, 2010
Fabian Hebestreit: On topological realization at odd primes, 2010
Katharina Lorenz: Darstellung unterschiedlicher mathematischer Rekonstruktionen von Größen, 2012
Jana Brickwedde: Fehlvorstellungen zum Grenzwertbegriff, 2015
Lena-Christin Müller: Penrose-Parkettierungen und ihre Eigenschaften, 2015
Larissa Bauland: Der Satz von Seifert-van Kampen und einige seiner Anwendungen, 2018
Nikolaus Krause: Eine algebraische Einfuehrung in die Milnor-Witt K-Theorie, 2019
Bachelor
Ein Spezialfall des letzten Satzes von Fermat, 2010
Transzendente Zahlen, 2010
Zur Gruppe des Rubik-Wuerfels, 2011
Einige Betrachtungen zum letzten Satz von Fermat, 2012
Die Involution auf algebraischer K-Theorie, 2012
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Platonische und Archimedische Körper, 2012
Klassifikation regulärer Polyeder, 2013
Grundbegriffe der Trigonometrie und ihrer Umsetzung in der gymnasialen Sekundarstufe I, 2014
Die Riemann’sche Zetafunktion und der Primzahlsatz, 2014
Konstruktion der klassischen Zahlbereiche, 2014
Eigenschaften und spezielle Werte der Riemann'schen Zetafunktion, 2015
Das quadratische Reziprozitätsgesetz und dessen Bedeutung in der Kryptographie, 2015
Graphen färben, 2015
Klassifikation und Visualisierung von Koniken, 2016
Konstruktion von Polygonen mit einem einzigen Schnitt, 2016
Parkettierungen der Ebene durch kongruente konvexe Fuenfecke, 2019
Die klassischen Hopf-Faserbuendel und einige ihrer Eigenschaften, 2019
Einige Anmerkungen mathematischer und historischer Natur zu Fermats Letztem Satz, 2019
