The following will be among the central themes of the course:

1. The views of Charles Darwin on the mind and evolution, and his differences on this issue with Alfred Russel Wallace.

2. Teleological theories of evolutionary development in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

3. The twentieth century neo-Darwin synthesis and its implications for evolution of mind.

4. Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett: mechanistic theories of the evolution of mind.

5. Thomas Nagel, Jerry Fodor, Piattelli-Palmarini: Doubts about the mechanistic explanation.

6. Panpychism and emergence.

7. The problem of epistemic boundedness for evolutionary theory of mind: Charles Pierce, Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, Alvin Plantinga.

8. Is intelligent design really an alternative?