ONLINESTUDIES

What is a Mind? Course - University of Cape Town

General

2 locations available
Read more about this program on the school's website

Program Description

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Explore the most pertinent scientific and philosophical concepts for understanding our own minds with this free online course.

Why join the course?

This free online course will bring together learners and practitioners interested in how the mind works. It aims to build bridges between traditionally antagonistic approaches to understanding the mind.

What is a mind?

This question has perplexed philosophers, scientists, historians and ordinary people across time and cultures.

While advances in the medical understanding of how the brain functions can shed light on neurological functions and disorders, the essential question of "what the mind is" speaks to a different problem.

This problem cannot be answered by a purely scientific understanding of the brain, nor by a purely philosophical or psychological approach. Many disciplines have attempted to address the question, resulting in multiple and sometimes antithetical answers.

New understandings of the mind

On this course, Professor Mark Solms, Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town, will adopt a multidisciplinary approach.

He will bring in perspectives from a range of disciplines, to explore four specific aspects of the mind- subjectivity, intentionality, consciousness and agency. Together, these will help us think about the fundamental questions: what it is to be a mind, why we have a mind and what it feels like to have a mind.

What topics will you cover?

  • Understanding the Mind.
  • Subjectivity.
  • Consciousness.
  • Intentionality and the Unconscious.
  • Agency.
  • Changing the Mind.

When would you like to start?

Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts.

  • Available now

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to:

  • Explore scientific and philosophical concepts for understanding our own minds.
  • Discuss four aspects of the mind, namely subjectivity, intentionality, consciousness and agency.
  • Reflect on what it is to be a mind, why we have a mind and what it feels like to have a mind.

Who is the course for?

This course is aimed at anyone with an interest in psychology and the mind. The course will also appeal to practitioners, students and researchers from a range of disciplines, whose work directly or indirectly looks at the mind and the brain. This includes, but is not limited to neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychiatry and neurology.

Who will you learn with?

Mark Solms

Chair of Neuropsychology at UCT, founder of Neuropsychoanalysis which encompasses the integration of psychoanalytic theories and modern neuroscience.

Who developed the course?

University of Cape Town

The University of Cape Town is one of the leading higher education and research institutions on the African continent and has a tradition of academic excellence that is respected worldwide.

Join this course

Free
$0

Upgrade
$49

Unlimited
$259.99 for one year

Join free and you will get:

  • Access to this course for 8 weeks

Upgrade this course and you will get:

  • Access to this course for as long as it’s on FutureLearn
  • Access to this course’s tests as well as a print and digital Certificate of Achievement once you’re eligible

Buy Unlimited and you will get:

  • Access to this course, and hundreds of other FutureLearn short courses and tests for a year
  • A printable digital Certificate of Achievement on all short courses once you’re eligible
  • The freedom to keep access to any course you've achieved a digital Certificate of Achievement on, for as long as the course exists on FutureLearn
  • The flexibility to complete your choice of short courses in your own time within the year
Last updated Oct 2020

About the School

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