HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: E. Safra

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Eliezer Zilberfenig

Coordinator Email: zilberfenig@gmail.com

Coordinator Office Hours: to be determined later

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Eliezer Zilberfenig

Course/Module description:
Paradoxes are often considered to be clever logic puzzles that are not relevant to our daily live, while existential and ethical dilemmas are part of our every day discourse. The course will deal with the connection between paradoxes and dilemmas. The central hypothesis we will address is that dilemmas are actually based upon paradoxes, which explains their persistent and frustrating character

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. to identify the underlying paradoxes inherent in existential dilemmas.
2. to differentiate between local and general arguments
3. to develop tolerance and moderate skepticism in relation to cont

Attendance requirements(%):
50

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
1. General introduction: definitions and explanation about the main concepts in the course (lecture #1)
2. Sorites Paradoxes: Logical analysis and different methods of arriving at solutions (lecture #2&3)
3. Applying Sorite Paradoxes to existential and ethical problems (lecture 4&5).
4.The Liar paradox: historical and logical description (lecture #6)
5. Implications of the Liar Paradox for psychological concepts such as self understanding and self deception (lecture #7).
6. The Surprise Exam Paradox (lecture #8).
7. The paradox of divergent opinions: logical analysis, including political and religious examples, different approaches for accommodating the paradox (relativism, pluralism etc.) (lecture # 9-11)
8. Examination of situations involving concurrent multiple paradoxes (lecture #12).
9. Summary and conclusions (lecture#13).

Required Reading:
to be determined

Additional Reading Material:

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 100 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information:
Assignments may be done individually or by pairs of students.

Attendance of at least 50% of the classes is mandatory. Students who do not attend classes will not receive a grade.