Philosophical psychology can refer to diverse enterprises, but this
time around I have in mind a course on core issues in philosophy of
psychology, centered on the nature of psychological explanation.
This would cover the psychological explanation of human behavior, the
explanation of psychological capacities and states, and the
explanatory status of psychological laws.  This subject is most
easily studied by beginning with folk psychological explanation --
our everyday psychological explanations of human behavior and
thought -- and then proceeding to scientific psychological
explanation.

Are folk psychological concepts adequate for scientific purposes?  To
appreciate these matters, we must have some grounding in the mind-
body problem -- whether mental states/ properties are bodily states/
properties (materialism) or not (dualism).  Our initial focus will be
on varieties of materialism - the psychophysical identity theory,
functionalism, and eliminative materialism.  One question is whether
psychology in some way reduces to neurophysiology and thus inherits a
structure of causal relations and laws from neurophysiology, or
whether there is no such reduction and psychological causal relations
and laws take a different form.

There are few remaining adherents of reduction to neurophysiology and
we will spend most of our time on alternative approaches --
functionalism, supervenience - that nevertheless try to hang onto the
label "materialist."  Related to this is the question whether we
should think of folk psychological attributions as merely
instrumental to prediction, or as attributing states really involved
in causal relations.

Yet another question is whether mental states supervene on
neurophysiological states or other material states, and what would
explain supervenience.  In the course of considering these questions,
we will discuss the nature of consciousness and qualia.  We will
spend time on propositional attitudes and their contents.  We will
discuss the semantics of propositional attitudes - covariational and
teleosemantical approaches, functional and conceptual role semantics,
and interpretationism.  We will explore whether contents are wide or
narrow, and whether narrow contents are sufficient for psychological
explanation.  There will be attention to the role of semantics vs.
syntax in psychological laws and to the question of whether there is
a language of thought. We will discuss classical vs. connectionist
architecture.  We will also consider computationalist vs. dynamical
systems approaches to cognition.  Another issue is whether the mind
is modular.

If any time remains, we can treat one or two other issues. For
example, we can discuss whether thinkers must be rational and whether
human irrationality can be experimentally demonstrated.  Or we can
explore how people know their own minds and those of others, and the
relation between folk knowledge of psychology and scientific
knowledge.  Or we can discuss questions of the innateness of
cognitive dispositions.

For texts, I am inclined to focus on the most concentrated
theoretical statements of major contributors to the field - Daniel
Dennett's The Intentional Stance, Jerry Fodor's Psychosemantics and a
Theory of Content, possibly Stephen Stich's From Folk Psychology to
Cognitive Science and Fodor's The Modularity of Mind.  We will
possibly discuss David Chalmers' The Conscious Mind.  There will be
articles by authors including some of John Searle, Robert Stalnaker,
Robert Cummins, Ruth Millikan, Fred Dretske, and Jaegwon Kim.