Here are a few ideas for possible paper topics. A real topic would need to be more refined, of course; these are possible directions in which papers might go rather than focused topics.

1. It seems on the face of it extremely difficult to see how the nature of conscious experience can be accounted for on any materialist view (including behaviorism, the identity theory, and functionalism). Consider some objections to a particular attempt to analyze the nature of consciousness or of sensations, and whether these objections can be overcome. (The paper will be most interesting if you make a serious effort to overcome objections to a materialist account, since the objections are fairly obvious but it is not at all obvious how to get round them. So good tactical advice might be to pick a materialist view you are inclined to think is correct and try to defend it.) Suggestions on reading: Cooney has sections on the main materialist theories, and suggestions for additional reading. A very ambitious recent attempt to develop a materialist theory of consciousness is Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained.  One of the best recent sources for arguments against a materialist account of consciousness is David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind. (Note:  both Dennett's book and Chalmers' book have generated vast amounts of secondary literature that you might want to dip into.) 

2. You may have discussed the problem of personal identity in some other philosophy class. If so you might find it interesting to test some of the theories of the nature of mental states by applying them to that problem and seeing whether the answers they give are plausible. For instance, in his science fiction novel Beyond Rejection, the philosopher Justin Leiber envisions a world in which people periodically have all their memories, beliefs, wishes, etc. recorded in a computer. If they die unexpectedly and a spare body can be found, their memories etc. are transferred into the brain of this body. Suppose you die unexpectedly, and this procedure is performed. Someone wakes up in the spare body with all the beliefs, memories, etc. you had up until the last time you had yourself recorded. But is it you? On the assumption that it is you if and only if it has the same mind as you, the different theories we have considered about the nature of the mind will lead to different answers. Reading suggestions: a good introduction to the issue of personal identity is John Perry's introduction to a book he edited, Personal Identity. You might find it enjoyable and useful to read Leiber's novel mentioned above--it raises many interesting philosophical issues other than those mentioned here, and could be a good source of examples.

3. You could write on the possibility of machine intelligence. The first thing anyone interested in this topic should read is Alan Turing’s classic paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Other essential reading includes Searle's essay "Minds, Brains, and Programs" and Hubert Dreyfus' book What Computers Still Can't Do. Turing, Dreyfus, Searle, and lots of other relevant material is collected in John Haugeland's volume Mind Design and the updated version Mind Design II.  Another source of a lot of good stuff, including Turing and Searle,  is Margaret Boden, ed., The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. If you want a highly sophisticated and up-to-the-second survey of AI as a topic in computer science, see the second edition of Russell and Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. This is spectacularly good.

4. Many writers see the central claim of cognitive science as the claim that thinking, whether in humans or in machines, is computing. You might consider reasons for skepticism about this claim: good places to look are John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind; the last chapter of John Haugeland, Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea; and Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus, Mind Over Machine.

5. In this class, we discussed dualism briefly at the beginning of the semester, and have returned to it in connection with consciousness. Still, you may feel that dualism has received unduly short shrift; if so, you could write a paper defending dualism against the sort of objections we considered in class. (You might want to look at one or more overviews of criticisms of dualism; good discussions can be found in the early chapters of Churchland, Matter and Consciousness; Kim, Philosophy of Mind; Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson, Philosophy of Mind and Cognition; and other texts.) In my opinion, the best contemporary defense of dualism is David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, which defends a version of property dualism. You might find it interesting to look at The Self and its Brain, by Karl Popper (a philosopher) and Sir John Eccles (a Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist). The first half, which is by Popper, is especially relevant.

6. (Etc.) If some chapter or article we have read infuriates you, or anyway seems misguided to you, you might want to write a critical paper in which you first carefully set out the argument of the piece you wish to discuss, then show at what points you think the argument fails and why.

If you have a topic in mind other than those listed here, that's fine, provided that it is related to the issues discussed in this course and that you spend at least a part of the paper discussing some of the reading for this course (though you could bring in other material as well).

In grading these papers, I will be focusing primarily on clarity of organization and style, accuracy in your treatment of views and readings related to the class, and critical argument, i.e. a reasoned defense of your own views or criticism of those of others (or, of course, both). The paper should also include close attention to some of the reading for the class. See my "Information on the Paper" handout for more details. I will be happy to look at an outline or a rough draft and make suggestions; if you'd like me to do this give me the material well in advance of the due date and give me a few days to read it; then we'll set up an appointment to discuss it.