Course first offered: 2025. Only available to students in the Bachelor of Philosophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology.
What is a mind? How do brains give rise to thoughts, feelings, and conscious experiences? And how can different research traditions interact fruitfully to help explore one of the last great mysteries? This course will provide a general introduction to Philsophy, Neuroscience, and Psychology. It will introduce students to the promise and challenges of studying the mind from multiple disciplinary perspectives, giving students access to the basic vocabulary, methods, and constructs of the three component fields. It will also expose students to different views about the relationship between the component fields, covering basic topics in scientific inquiry, levels of analysis, and different descriptive perspectives. Through the laboratory component, students will have the opportunity to work on a variety of simulated and practical experiments, connecting their in-class learning to hands-on transdisciplinary experiences.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion, students will have the knowledge and skills to:
- Understand core topics at the intersection of philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology.
- Apply discipline-specific skills from all three disciplines to transdisciplinary research.
- Execute basic lab techniques and simulation experiments, and analyse data.
- Discuss and justify complex concepts and results clearly and effectively.
Indicative Assessment
- Weekly lab exercises (hurdle requirements) (35) [LO 1,2,3]
- Written reflections (approx 10) (20) [LO 4]
- Final Exam (45) [LO 1,2,4]
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Workload
The expected workload will consist of approximately 130 hours throughout the semester including:
• Face-to face component of 2 hour weekly seminars and 2 hour weekly labs through the semester (36 hours total)
• Approximately 82 hours of self-directed study which will include reading and preparation for other assessment tasks.
Inherent Requirements
No specific inherent requirements have been identified for this course.
Requisite and Incompatibility
Prescribed Texts
None specified
Fees
Tuition fees are for the academic year indicated at the top of the page.
Commonwealth Support (CSP) Students
If you have been offered a Commonwealth supported place, your fees are set by the Australian Government for each course. At ANU 1 EFTSL is 48 units (normally 8 x 6-unit courses). More information about your student contribution amount for each course at Fees.
- Student Contribution Band:
- 2
- Unit value:
- 6 units
If you are a domestic graduate coursework student with a Domestic Tuition Fee (DTF) place or international student you will be required to pay course tuition fees (see below). Course tuition fees are indexed annually. Further information for domestic and international students about tuition and other fees can be found at Fees.
Where there is a unit range displayed for this course, not all unit options below may be available.
| Units | EFTSL |
|---|---|
| 6.00 | 0.12500 |
Offerings, Dates and Class Summary Links
ANU utilises MyTimetable to enable students to view the timetable for their enrolled courses, browse, then self-allocate to small teaching activities / tutorials so they can better plan their time. Find out more on the Timetable webpage.
