Homepage of Susan Schneider

Department of Philosophy

University of PennsylvaniaPicture of Computational Brain

423 Logan Hall

249 S. 36th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304                                  

Email: sls@sas[dot]upenn.edu

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm also a faculty member in Penn's new Center for Neuroscience and Society, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCN) and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (IRCS). My work is mainly in the philosophy of mind/ cognitive science, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and neuroethics.  My current work mainly concerns three topics:

1. The language, or format, of thought.  (I'm currently reframing the language of thought or symbol processing program).

2. The scope and limits of computational theories of the mind.

3. The metaphysics of mind. (I'm currently reworking the metaphysical commitments of different positions on the mind-body problem).

Here are some non-technical pieces on my work:

Discover Magazine;   Arts and Sciences Magazine;

Penn's SAS Frontiers

Books

The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, (with Max Velmans), eds., Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Dec. 2006. Click on the book cover to see inside the book at Amazon.

Science Fiction and Philosophy, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, June 2009. Click on the book cover to see inside the book at Amazon.com.

                                 Portuguese translation -- expected Nov. 2010.

                                 Arabic translation - expected in 2o11.

Reviews: Metapsychology;  Science Fiction and Fantasy Book  Review; Exploring Our Matrix (Prof. James McGrath's blog).

 

 

Book Cover

Pieces to Download

I. Computational Theories of Mind ("*" indicates LOT/CTM in particular):

The Central System as a Computational Engine (circulating draft - comments very welcome).* (New)

“The Nature of Symbols in the Language of Thought”, Mind and Language, Vol. 24, No. 4, Nov., 2009.*

"LOT, CTM, and the Elephant in the Room," Synthese, Winter, 2009.*

“Fodor’s Challenge to the Classical Computational Theory of Mind" (Formerly called "Fodor's Version of the Frame Problem: a Solution),” (with Kirk Ludwig).  Mind and Language, 2008.*

“Yes, It Does: A Diatribe on Jerry Fodor’s The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way,"” Psyche, 2007.*

“Direct Reference, Psychological Explanation, and Frege Cases,” Mind and Language, Sept., 2005.* 

“Daniel Dennett’s Theory of Consciousness," in my The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, 2007.

"Conceptual Atomism," Encyclopedia of Mind, Hal Pashler, Tim Crane, Fernanda Ferreira, Marcel Kinsborne (eds.), Sage Publications, forthcoming (1K only).*

“The Language of Thought," for the Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, John Symons and Paco Calvo, editors, 2009.*

“Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain," in Science Fiction and Philosophy, Susan Schneider, editor. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, May, 2009. (Note: this is written for a general audience).

                           Reprinted in Brain, Minds, Selves and Others: Neuroscience, Neurotechnology and Social Good.

                           James Giordano, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

II. Metaphysics (see also the above piece, which is on personal identity):

"Why Property Dualists Must Reject Physicalism about Substance" (Draft: Sept., 2009) (New)

"What is the Significance of the Intuition that Laws Govern?" Australasian Journal of Philosophy, June, 2007.

"Alien Individuals, Alien Universals, and Armstrong's Combinatorial Theory of Modality," The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Winter 2002. 

“Events”, for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, pp. 1-25 (a survey of Davidson, Kim and Lewis on the nature of events; from my PhD exam).

III. Book Introductions:

"Consciousness Studies: an Introduction to the Issues," (with Max Velmans), in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness.

"Thought Experiments: Science Fiction as a Window into Philosophical Puzzles."  Introduction to Science Fiction and Philosophy, Susan Schneider, editor. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, May, 2009. 

IV. Brain Enhancement, Personal Identity, and Computational Theories of Mind:

“Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain," in Science Fiction and Philosophy, Susan Schneider, editor. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, May, 2009. (Note to philosophers - this is written for a general audience).

               -Reprinted in Brain, Minds, Selves and Others: Neuroscience, Neurotechnology and Social Good.

                 James Giordano, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

"Future Minds: Cognitive Enhancement and the Nature of Persons," for the University of Pennsylvania Bioethics Reader, Art Caplan and Vardit Radvisky, eds., 2009, pp. 844-856. (This is an introductory piece on a progressive bioethics position called "transhumanism", that adopts a computational approach to the mind (see, e.g., Nick Bostrom's work). Transhumanism of currently of great interest to bioethicists and is gaining attention in philosophy of mind as well).

V. In progress:

"Token Identity is no Physicalism Worth Having"; "Physics is not Physicalistic" (I am now reframing the metaphysical commitments of some commonly held positions on the mind-body problem. E.g., see my circulating draft, "Why Property Dualists Must Reject Physicalism about Substance", posted above).

Some Recent Invited Talks

"Mental Representation and Computational Theories of Mind", Interdisciplinary Panel on Mental Representation,  Penn Linguistics Colloquium (PLC). Program.

Washington University at St. Louis, PNP and Philosophy Program, Colloquium, Fall, 2009.

 "Science Fiction and Philosophy", (neuroscience education workshop that featured my recent book), sponsored by the Dana Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, Fall, 2009.

Georgetown-Oxford-Nour Foundation Symposium (on philosophical issues in cognitive science), Georgetown University, Spring, 2009.

University of South Carolina, Dept. Colloquium, Spring, 2009.

"Transcending and Enhancing the Human Brain”, Media Seminar organized by the University of Pennsylvania, Office of Communications, New York, New York, Sept. 2008. (Attendees included major networks and newspapers, e.g., PBS, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal and US News and World Report).

"Dynamical Systems Theory and the Problem of Mental Causation", Workshop on Dynamical Systems Theory, Parmenides Foundation, Elba, Italy, Summer 2008.

"Neurophilosophy", Ludwig Maximillians University, Munich, Germany, Sept. 2007.

"The Computational Mind?" Parmenides Foundation, Munich, Germany, Sept. 2007.

Temple University, "The Language of Thought" (Feb., 2007).

"The Language of Thought", University of Maryland, Spring, 2007.

"Fodor's Version of the Frame Problem, a Solution" (with Kirk Ludwig), symposium paper, Eastern APA (Dec., 2005).

“On the Nature of Primitive Symbols in the Language of Thought”, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Cincinnati (Oct., 2005).

"The Philosopher's Frame Problem", Android Science: a Cognitive Science Society Workshop, Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Stressa, Italy (July, 2005).

"Fodor vs. the Interactivist" (debate with Mark Bickhard) Interactivist Summer Institute, Clemson, Ohio (Sept., 2005).

“Yes, It Does: a Reaction to Jerry Fodor's Mind Doesn't Work that Way,” Lehigh University, Department of Philosophy, (April, 2005).

Background

I took my Ph.D. in philosophy in the winter of 2003 at Rutgers University and was an assistant professor at Moravian College from Fall, 2003 until Spring, 2006.  Before doing my Ph.D. I was a pre-doctoral fellow with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spending a year at the University of Rochester exploring philosophy and cognitive science. I am a native Californian, and my undergraduate degree is from U.C. Berkeley in economics. I spent my junior year of college at the Economics University, in Budapest, Hungary.  I have an eight year old daughter, Ally. 

Teaching

I'm on leave in the fall of 2009 and will only teach one class in the spring (a graduate seminar in mind).

My students should read the following pieces by Professor Jim Pryor:

"Guidelines to Writing a Philosophy Paper", "Guidelines on Reading Philosophy", and

"Philosophical Terms and Methods"

Courses

Introduction to Philosophy, Fall, 2007, Spring, 2009.

Problems in Philosophy of Cognitive Science (graduate), Spring, 2008. (Click here for course description).

Computation and Consciousness (Spring, 2008). (Click here for course description).

Epistemology (undergraduate), Spring 2007, Spring, 2009.

Philosophy of Mind,(grad./undergrad) Fall, 2008.

Metaphysics (graduate) , Spring 2007, Fall  2008 (grad./undergrad).

Philosophy and Science Fiction, (undergraduate), Fall, 2007.