PHIL 2500

This was Minds, Machines, and Persons with Professor Irving. It was a good class and Professor Irving was great. He was lighthearted and loved talking about weird philosophical concepts. (Sometimes his voice was way too quiet.) The material was pretty interesting—it was all about AI and consciousness and identity and what a "mind" is. While studying for the final (which, by the way, was fairly hard and left my hand in great pain after very vigorous handwriting) I realized that I had learned a lot and that the content structure was very smooth and sensible. The readings weren't as hard as some other philosophy texts, although that still means they're pretty dense. The essays were the right difficulty level and I felt proud of mine. I would recommend the class, at least to people interested in cognitive science or philosophy.

Professor Irving obviously is super passionate about the subject matter. He keeps lectures visually interesting and brings an energy to keep you engaged. Minds, Machines, and Persons felt like we were learning concepts and approaches in a conversation that is very much still happening, and he taught the course that way-there is room for your perspective. Also, as a cognitive science major, he introduces a number of foundational topics that helped ground or relate to other courses that I've taken in completing the major. It keeps things relevant and makes my learning feel more well-rounded overall. It is important to mention, though, that the topics and readings can feel dense or overwhelming at times, so it's important to talk to him or your TAs, who are also incredibly knowledgable, especially before tackling a paper.

Professor Irving does an amazing job at keeping lectures engaging. He takes the most important concepts from what are seemingly very, very dense readings and goes over EVERYTHING that you need to know. I didn't spend a single minute this semester reading any of the books, articles, or journals that come in the syllabus. All you need to do is attend every lecture/discussion and you will be more than equipped for the papers and final.

There is one logical argument analysis worth 15% of your grade, two short papers that are worth 25% of your grade each, participation for 15%, and a final that is worth 20% of your grade. The final is CUMULATIVE and covers all of the topics you will go over during the semester, but only tests you for the high-level and fundamental understanding of said topics, not the nitty gritty. Final: 50% short answer and 50% an essay, both are weighted equally I believe. You get to choose 10/14 prompts for the short answer portion and you will be provided all of the possible essay prompts for the second half in advance, so just prepare a few mental outlines for each topic and you will be fine.

Definitely go to discussion and engage with the material, it's very interesting and actually pretty intuitive as long as you don't fall behind. Again, the lectures are key to everything, take notes and make sure you take things verbatim from the slides/professor. I was extremely nervous because I have never taken a Philosophy class but it ended up being fine.

This course had a ton of reading, which was pretty difficult to get through as the topics were not something I was familiar with as a non-Philosophy major. As someone with no prior experience in philosophy I thought the concepts were challenging to follow along with, and the more basic concepts were not explained in much detail during lecture. It was often unclear how the different parts of the course related to each other, and how the different philosophers theories were connected. Aside from weekly reading there are three essays throughout the semester which required a lot of work as the topics were not super intuitive to me. However overall the class was pretty interesting and the Professor and TAs were very nice and understanding.

Those theories and arguments are fascinating and this class truly inspired me to pursue philosophy major and to learn more about the philosophy of mind and consciousness.
I genuinely look forward to his classes every other day and it is one of my favorite classes I've ever taken at UVA!
And Prof. Irving is a great professor -- he is apparently very passionate about the topic of intelligence, intentionality, and identity; he presented those arguments to us in an extremely interesting and clear way; and the structure of the class is very well-organized.
I feel really lucky that I have taken this class.

Super interesting class; this was my first philosophy class (I'm a STEM major) but we covered material that's relevant to technology. Professor Irving is super passionate about the topic and extremely accomodating, which was welcome during COVID. For example, we got free extension days on the papers and he lightened the exams for the online format.
There's a lot of reading but you can get away with focusing on the lectures and just referencing the readings when you're writing your papers.

Fantastic class and knowledgeable professor. I would recommend this class to anyone who likes to debate during class about uncommon ways of thinking about intelligence (in machines and in persons) and about personal identity. 1 Argument Response, 2 Short Papers (1500 words max) and a final.

Best philosophy course I have ever taken. Irving is the man! Really fun and clear lectures and engaging discussion is interwoven throughout the lecture. You'll learn a lot of fascinating theories and your writing skills will definitely improve. Readings were never an issue for the class as Irving explains the theories clearly during lecture. Definitely go to office hours for your papers, it helps a lot. Anyway, can't recommend this class enough Irving is the best and he brings the class food!!!

Minds, Machines, and Persons with Prof Irving is such an interesting topic! I took it to fulfill the cognitive science philosophy requirement, and I'm so glad I did. I had not thought about my own bias concerning machine intelligence and even consciousness, so it was eye-opening to discuss philosophers' viewpoints as well as our own. The final grade consisted of an argument analysis, two papers, a final, and participation in discussion. I struggle at writing philosophy papers, so I would definitely recommend GOING TO OFFICE HOURS REGULARLY. I only went a few times and regret it, because I could have gained more from the class if I had gone. However, Prof Irving and Nazim developed a very fair grading system -- half of the grade was based on your synopsis/explanation of a philosopher's argument, and the second half was your own response/argument to the topic. Even though my arguments were not the strongest, they didn't kill my overall grade. The readings were all very dense, and often written in a style that I struggled to understand. I would recommend that you read the material, but honestly if you miss a few it's not a big deal because the lectures and readings line up -- Prof Irving goes over the argument from the reading in class. My main frustration in this course was that Prof Irving would often plan too much material to cover for a single class period; however, he included overflow days in the schedule and by the end of the year, he had figured out how much material would fit into one lecture. Overall, I would definitely recommend taking this course!