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The McKelvy House Scholars invite the campus to join a dinner discussion about the relationship between mind and brain Sunday evening.
Dinner begins at 6 p.m. at McKelvy House, 200 High Street; no reservations are required. Trustee Scholar Joshua Garber ’06 (Staten Island, N.Y.) will lead the discussion at 6:30 p.m.
“My primary goal for this discussion will be to examine the relationship, if any, between mind and brain,” he says.
A neuroscience major, Garber poses the question of whether mental phenomena such as intentionality and desire are due to particular sequences of electrochemical events, or imply the existence of “an entity that extends beyond the reaches of physicality.”
As preparation for the discussion, he suggests reading chapter 9 (p. 211-216, 226-229) of Jaegwon Kim’s Philosophy of the Mind and chapter 2 (p. 34-62) of Tim Crane’s Elements of the Mind.
“My motivation for joining McKelvy grew largely out of a desire to find and partake in intellectual discussion with other Lafayette students,” he notes.
Since 1962, the McKelvy House Scholars program has brought together Lafayette students with a wide range of majors and interests to reside in a historic off-campus house and share in intellectual and social activities. Sunday dinner discussions that engage the students in debate and exchange of ideas are the hallmark of the program; several Wednesday discussions have been added this school year. Most members also contribute to the annual McKelvy Papers, written on a topic of each person’s choice. McKelvy Scholars participate in activities together such as field trips to plays, concerts, and exhibits, and sponsor events for the campus as well.
Previous discussions:
Nov. 21 – State of music industry
Nov. 14 – Consistent moral arguments
Nov. 7 – Privilege
Oct. 24 – Modern religion
Oct. 17 – Capital punishment
Oct. 3 – Revenge
Sept. 26 – Suicide
Sept. 22 – Sexual lust
Sept. 15 – Envy
Sept. 12 – Themes from A Clockwork Orange
Sept. 8 – Materialism, satisfaction, and poverty
Sept. 5 – Obesity in America
2003-04:
April 25 — Anti-foundationalist critique of philosophy
April 18 – Dark humor
April 11 — Cults
April 4 — Link between ethical behavior and intelligence
March 28 — Five Images of Man
March 7 — Idealized body forms
Feb. 22 — Countercultures
Feb. 15 — Eternity
Feb. 8 — Bisexuality
Dec. 7 — Anger toward computers and technology
Nov. 9 — “Unnecessary” crimes
Nov. 2 — Genetic alteration
Oct. 26 — Social construction of gender
Oct. 19 — Greed as an economic force
Sept. 28 — Value
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