Assignment goals: This assignment is asking you to understand the differences between: Monism, Dualism and Functionalism (see Friedenberg & Silverman, 2012: 26-35 and/or my cited lecture slides).
This assignment is also asking you to think about who you are as a unique individual and whether you perceive: minds, bodies, and your reality though any one of these perspectives.
Your Task: In 500-1000 words containing: separate paragraphs, the first-person perspective, in-line-citations, and an academic writing style (topic sentence, developing paragraph(s), conclusion etc.)…
A – Quickly summarize by paraphrasing in your own words, the differences between: Monism, Dualism, and Functionalism.
When paraphrasing in your own words, be sure to provide full textbook citations (including page numbers) for each of these perspectives.
B – Then, pick one of the perspectives (Monism, Dualism, Functionalism) that best represents your personal viewpoint(s) and beliefs. From there, then pick the sub-perspective that you believe in and compare it to the other sub-perspectives underneath your category/perspective of choice…
IMPORTANT: You will also need to explicitly differentiate your sub-perspective apart from similar or nearly-identical sub-perspectives. For example, Physical Monism is almost identical to Property Dualism. Functionalism is almost identical to both Physical Monism and Neutral Monism.
C – Provide your own examples from your personal experience to help explain why you prefer this particular perspective (incl. the sub-perspective) over the other two.
D – A good essay (with more points in the rubric) will also discuss your epistemological approach. In other words, how and why do you believe what you believe when it comes to the mind? You might be inspired by a gut-feeling or intuition (Nativism) or, you might require sensory evidence to be convinced of a particular belief being true for you (Empiricism). Alternately, you might come to your beliefs through a reasoning process (Rationalism). Some of you might have an epistemology that combines any one or even all three of these perspectives (i.e. intuition and/or cultural conformity, sensory evidence, and a reasoning process)..
We expect at least the textbook (or the textbook citations on my slides) + 2 additional academic citations (one can be from a religious text)…
Check the slides for my teacher’s citations.
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