Home Page of Susan Schneider

Department of Philosophy

University of Pennsylvania

423 Logan Hall

249 S. 36th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304  

Email: sls@sas[dot]upenn.edu

Research

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, at the University of Pennsylvania. I'm also an affiliated faculty member in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCN) and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (IRCS). My work is mainly in the philosophy of cognitive science (including philosophy of mind), metaphysics, and philosophy of science.  Here's a brief overview of my current research interests. My current work mainly concerns four topics:

1. The language, or format, of thought. 

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

3.  Metaphysical issues involving the nature of reality.

Books

(New) The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, (with Max Velmans), eds., Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Dec. 2006.

(Forthcoming) Science Fiction and Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, forthcoming in 2008.

Some Articles and Chapters

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

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

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

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

“Daniel Dennett’s Theory of Consciousness,” forthcoming in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness.

“Events”, for the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

“The Language of Thought”, for the Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology, John Symons and Paco Calvo, editors, forthcoming in 2008. (New)

"Personal Identity Puzzles: Radically Extended Minds, Teleportation, and the Matrix", for Science Fiction and Philosophy, Susan Schneider, (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell. Forthcoming in 2007.

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

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

"Transhumanism and Neural Enhancement" (a piece in neuroethics), for the Penn Guide to Bioethics, forthcoming in 2008.

Some Work In Progress

Meaning and the Computational Mind (Click here for project description) (Monograph in progress. Comments very welcome).

“The Nature of Primitive Symbols in the Language of Thought”

“Thinking the Same Thing: Can Different Individuals have the Same Symbol in the Language of Thought?

Some Talks

Scheduled invited talks: Ludwig Maximillians University, Munich, Germany (Sept. '08); Parmenides Foundation, Munich, Germany (Sept. '08); Temple University (Feb. ‘07); University of Maryland (Spring ‘07).

"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 fall, 2003 at Rutgers University and was an assistant professor at Moravian College from Fall, 2003 until Spring, 2006.  Before doing my PhD 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 UC Berkeley in economics. I spent my junior year of college at the Economics University, in Budapest, Hungary. 

Teaching 

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

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.

Metaphysics (graduate), Spring 2007.

Introduction to Philosophy, Fall, 2007.

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