The Nature of Human Minds: From Neurons to Culture

The ways in which societies operate and human history unfolds hinges on the cognitive abilities and dispositions of single individuals. In this course, we will focus on the question of how human minds work, and what the workings of individual minds can and cannot explain about human societies. We will move between different levels of explanation, ranging from single neurons to group-level social processes and compare cognition of humans and other species. The course will cover a broad range of topics, including free will, social learning, shared intentionality, cooperation, decision making, moral reasoning, group identification, stereotyping, communication, rituals and religious beliefs. We will discuss how cognitive and emotional processes operate in concert, and consider how our understanding and predictions of human behavior can benefit from different theories on the nature of human minds.