Mind, Brain & Body

6 ECTS credits
150 h study time

Offer 2 with catalog number 1020826BER for all students in the 2nd semester at a (B) Bachelor - advanced level.

Semester

2nd semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Possible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

English

Faculty

Faculty of Languages & Humanities

Department

History, Archaeology, Arts, Philosophy and Ethics

Educational team

Francis Heylighen (course titular)

Activities and contact hours

26 contact hours Lecture
130 contact hours Independent or External Form of Study

Course Content

This course deals with the processes of desiring, thinking, feeling, perceiving and acting that characterize the human condition. These processes are presented in an integrated manner, as different aspects of an individual, seen as an autonomous agent interacting with its natural and social environment. This allows overcoming the dichotomies that have traditionally dominated Western thought:

mind / body,

reason / emotion,

culture / nature,

knowledge / values,

subject / object,

thought / action...

Humans are characterized as living, autopoietic beings that evolved from animals. These animals had the capacity to experience, act, learn and know, but not yet to think rationally. The original state of humanity is that of hunter-gatherers, living in small groups, in direct dependence on nature. With the origin of language, humans developed the ability to communicate symbolically, to register and transmit knowledge, and to reflect on as yet hypothetical situations. This gave them the ability to develop an ever-expanding culture, society and technology, thus however losing much of their connection with nature.

Human intelligence and consciousness are a combination of rational, symbolic reasoning, with subjective, intuitive, embodied experience. Science, art, philosophy and spirituality can be seen as attempts to transcend the shortcomings of purely rational cognition. People instinctively strive for the satisfaction of their basic needs, self-actualization, and happiness. They each have a unique personal and social identity, which together determine their self-concept. They search for meaning in their interactions with the world. This meaning may be provided to some degree by culture, in the form of a worldview.

Topics covered include:

• living beings as autonomous agents

• embodiment: sensing, acting, and interacting

• humans evolved as hunter-gatherers

• emergence of agriculture, societies and technology

• fundamentals of cognition: perception, knowledge, intelligence

• neural networks as model of processing in the brain

• rational symbol systems as substrate for reasoning

• limitations of rationality

• consciousness and subjective experience

• the role of emotions

• personality and intelligence

• individual vs. social identity

• the challenge model of health and fitness

• conditions for need satisfaction and happiness

• construction of meaning and worldviews

Course material

Digital course material (Required) : De titularis stelt teksten ter beschikking

Additional info

The students can download detailed lecture notes with illustrations, exercises and bibiography that covers all the material they need to know for the exam.

Learning Outcomes

Algemene competenties

Being able to independently develop a vision on the 'human condition', starting from an overview of the most important contemporary insights about human cognition, culture and consciousness.

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Oral Exam determines 100% of the final mark.

Within the Oral Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

examen mondeling with a relative weight of 1 which comprises 100% of the final mark.

Additional info regarding evaluation

The oral exam lasts about 25 minutes, and tests the student's understanding of the fundamental concepts (words in bold in the lecture notes), rather than knowledge of details.

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context