Showing papers on "Physicalism published in 2001"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that truths about water and about life are not entailed a priori by microphysical truths, but that this is no bar to the reductive explanation and physical constitution of water and of life.
Abstract: Is conceptual analysis required for reductive explanation? If there is no a priori entailment from microphysical truths to phenomenal truths, does reductive explanation of the phenomenal fail? We say yes (Chalmers 1996; Jackson 1994, 1998). Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker say no (Block and Stalnaker 1999). A number of issues can be distinguished: (1) Is there an a priori entailment from microphysical truths to ordinary macroscopic truths? (2) If there is no a priori entailment from microphysical truths to phenomenal truths, does reductive explanation of the phenomenal fail? (3) If there is no a priori entailment from microphysical truths to phenomenal truths, is physicalism about the phenomenal false? (4) Is there an a priori entailment from microphysical truths to phenomenal truths? We hold that the first three questions should be answered positively (with some qualifications to be outlined). Block and Stalnaker hold that the first three questions should be answered negatively. Their central strategy is to argue for a negative answer to the first question, and to use this conclusion to argue for a negative answer to the second and third questions. They argue that truths about water and about life, for example, are not entailed a priori by microphysical truths, but that this is no bar to the reductive explanation and physical constitution of water and of life. In this paper, we will address Block and Stalnaker's arguments for a negative answer to the first three questions, while remaining neutral on the fourth. We will proceed by first giving an independent defense of a positive answer to the first question. This makes the ensuing reply to Block and Stalnaker more straightforward, and also makes the discussion accessible to those unfamiliar with the literature.
501 citations
Book•
1 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Perry as mentioned in this paper defends a view that he calls antecedent physicalism and takes on each of three major arguments against physicalism, showing that they pose no threat to antecedENT physicalism.
Abstract: Physicalism is the idea that if everything that goes on in the universe is physical, our consciousness and feelings must also be physical. Ever since Descartes formulated the mind-body problem, a long line of philosophers has found the physicalist view to be preposterous. According to John Perry, the history of the mind-body problem is, in part, the slow victory of physical monism over various forms of dualism. Each new version of dualism claims that surely something more is going on with us than the merely physical. In this book Perry defends a view that he calls antecedent physicalism. He takes on each of three major arguments against physicalism, showing that they pose no threat to antecedent physicalism. These arguments are the zombie argument (that there is a possible world inhabited by beings that are physically indiscernible from us but not conscious), the knowledge argument (that we can know facts about our own feelings that are not just physical facts, thereby proving physicalism false), and the modal argument (that the identity of sensation and brain state is contingent, but since there is no such thing as contingent identity, sensations are not brain states).
426 citations
1 Nov 2001
TL;DR: Wolff, J. and Stone, M. as mentioned in this paper, "Proper Ambition of Science" (2000), also printed in Wolff et al. (2000).
Abstract: Article (also printed in Wolff, J. & Stone, M. (eds.), "Proper Ambition of Science" (2000))
385 citations
TL;DR: The debate over physicalism in philosophy of mind can be seen as concerning an inconsistent tetrad of theses: (1) if physicalism is true, epiphenomenality is true; (2) a priori physicalisms is false; (3) if the physicalist is false, epi-phenomenalism is real; (4) epi-, epiphysics is false. as discussed by the authors argues that one may resolve the debate by distinguishing two conceptions of the physical: on the theory-based conception, it is plausible that (2).
Abstract: The debate over physicalism in philosophy of mind can be seen as concerning an inconsistent tetrad of theses: (1) if physicalism is true, a priori physicalism is true; (2) a priori physicalism is false; (3) if physicalism is false, epiphenomenalism is true; (4) epiphenomenalism is false. This paper argues that one may resolve the debate by distinguishing two conceptions of the physical: on the theory-based conception, it is plausible that (2) is true and (3) is false; on the object-based conception, it is plausible that (3) is true and (2) is false. the paper also defends and explores the version of physicalism that results from this strategy.
300 citations
1 Jan 2001
TL;DR: The authors argue that the metaphysics of the traditional doctrine of emergence is the same as that of non-reductive physicalism; but the doctrines differ in their explanatory ambitions. But they are not sure that this is the right way to think about the difference between emergentism and non-Reduction physicalism, and hope to give a better account in some forthcoming work.
Abstract: I argue that the metaphysics of the traditional doctrine of emergence is the same as that of non-reductive physicalism; but the doctrines differ in their explanatory ambitions. I am now (2006) not so sure that this is the right way to think about the difference between emergentism and non-reductive physicalism, and I hope to give a better account in some forthcoming work.Article; written in 1997
83 citations
1 Jan 2001
59 citations
Book•
1 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Modal Realism and Humean Supervenience: Some Essays on David Lewis's Philosophy.
Abstract: Part 1 Modal Realism Chapter 2 Island Universes and the Analysis of Modality Chapter 3 Time Travel Fiction Chapter 4 Counting the Cost of Modal Realism Chapter 5 Against Against Overlap and Endurance Chapter 6 The Case for Perdurance Part 7 Physicalism, Causation, and Conditionals Chapter 8 Naturalism for the Faint of Heart Chapter 9 Going through the Open Door Again: Counterfactual vs. Singularist theories of Causation Chapter 10 On Forward and Backward Counterfactual Conditions Part 11 Reduction of Mind Chapter 12 Multiple Reference, Multiple Realization, and the Reduction of Mind Chapter 13 Knowing What It Is like: The Ability Hypothesis and the Knowledge Argument Chapter 14 Index Chapter 15 Reality and Humean Supervenience: Some Essays on David Lewis's Philosophy
45 citations
1 Jan 2001
43 citations
1 Nov 2001
41 citations
TL;DR: A number of attempts to specify what is to count as physical for the purposes of debates concerning either physicalism or completeness of physics have been made, e.g. as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This paper concerns the question of how to specify what is to count as physical for the purposes of debates concerning either physicalism or the completeness of physics. I argue that what is needed from an account of the physical depends primarily on the particular issue at stake, and that the demand for a general a priori specification of the physical is misplaced. A number of attempts to say what should be counted as physical are defended from recent attacks by Chris Daly, and a specific proposal due to David Papineau developed and extended. I argue that this approach is more than suitable for the debates for which it is intended.
1 Jan 2001
TL;DR: This paper critiques new wave materialism's strategy to explain the a posteriori nature of mind-body identities by attributing it to differences in mental concepts, arguing that this approach is self-defeating and fails to account for the intentional connection between concepts and properties.
Abstract: 1980) convinced the philosophical community that true identity statements involving names and natural kind terms are necessarily true and furthermore, that many such necessary identities can only be known a posteriori. Kripke also offered an explanation of the a posteriori nature of ordinary theoretical identities such as that water = H2O. We identify the kinds and substances involved in theoretical identities by certain of their contingent properties. What we discover when we discover a theoretical identity is the underlying nature of the kind that we identify by those contingent properties. Now, of course, it was being a posteriori, not being contingent, that mattered to the identity theorists anyway, so the necessity of identity is not, in itself, damaging to mind-brain identity theories. However, Kripke also argued persuasively that the alleged mind-brain identities could not be treated in the same way as ordinary theoretical identities. We "identify" pain by feeling it, and surely how it feels is an essential property of pain, not a contingent property. Thus, a mind-body identity theory must provide a different explanation of why its identities are a posteriori. A new wave of materialists has appeared on the scene with a new strategy for explaining the a posteriori nature of its alleged identities. 1 The strategy is to locate the explanation for the a posteriori nature of mind-body identities, not on the side of the world, but on the side of the mind-in different ways of thinking about or imagining, or in different concepts. Thus, on this new view, there is only one property—this brain process type, which is identical with this pain type—but we conceive of it under two different concepts, one phenomenal, one theoretical. 2 And these concepts are of such different types that it is not possible to know a priori that they are concepts that pick out the very same thing, and furthermore, it is not surprising that it is not possible to know this a priori. We believe that this on-the-side-of-the-mind strategy is self defeating. As far as we can see, differences on the side of the mind of the sort that the new wavers invoke imply different properties on the side of the world. At any rate, the new wavers have not given us an account of the intentional connection by virtue of which a concept or way of conceiving is of one property rather than another. Giving such an account …
TL;DR: The spirit of Ross’s rejection of arguments against color physicalism based on metamerism is agreed, though a different way of casting the issues is urged, as it is argued that his rejection of color subjectivism does not give us reason to endorse colorPhysicalism.
1 Nov 2001
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the mind-body problem is not really a single problem; it is a cluster of connected problems about the relationship between mind and matter, and that the two problems are interconnected, and this makes it all the more difficult to unsnarl either of them.
Abstract: Mental Causation and Consciousness Schopenhauer famously called the mind-body problem a “world-knot,” or “Weltknoten,” and he was surely right. However, the mind-body problem is not really a single problem; it is a cluster of connected problems about the relationship between mind and matter. What these problems are depends, of course, on a broader framework of philosophical and scientific assumptions and presumptions in which the questions are posed and potential solutions are formulated. For the contemporary physicalist, I believe that there are two problems that truly make the mind-body problem a Weltknoten, an intractable and perhaps ultimately insoluble puzzle. These problems concern mental causation and consciousness. The problem of mental causation is to answer this question: How can the mind exert its causal powers in a world that is fundamentally material? The second problem, that of consciousness, is to answer the following question: How can there be such a thing as a mind, or consciousness, in a material world? Moreover, as I will argue, the two problems are interconnected – the two knots are intertwined, and this makes it all the more difficult to unsnarl either of them. Giving an account of mental causation has been, for the past three decades, one of the main preoccupations of philosophers of mind who are committed to physicalism in one form or another. The problem, of course, is not new: As every student of western philosophy knows, Descartes, who arguably invented the mind-body problem, was confronted forcefully by his contemporaries on this issue. But this does not mean that Descartes's problem is our problem.
TL;DR: A novel account of the subjectivity of consciousness is developed by explicating the ways in which mental representations may be perspectival, and it is argued that the resultant account of subjectivity provides a basis for the strongest response physicalists can give to the knowledge argument.
Abstract: Many have urged that the biggest obstacles to a physicalistic understanding of consciousness are the problems raised in connection with the subjectivity of consciousness. These problems are most acutely expressed in consideration of the knowledge argument against physicalism. I develop a novel account of the subjectivity of consciousness by explicating the ways in which mental representations may be perspectival. Crucial features of my account involve analogies between the representations involved in sensory experience and the ways in which pictorial representations exhibit perspectives or points of view. I argue that the resultant account of subjectivity provides a basis for the strongest response physicalists can give to the knowledge argument.
TL;DR: In this paper, a non-naturalist conception of mental causation is shown to be compatible with a plausible kind of physicalism, thus undermining the idea that mental causes must be naturalizable in order to be legitimate.
Abstract: The central problem for a realist about mental causation is to show that mental causation is compatible with the causal completeness of physical systems. This problem has seemed intractable in large part because of a widely held view that any sort of systematic overdetermination of events by their causes is unacceptable. I account for the popularity of this view, but argue that we ought to reject it. In doing so. I show how we thereby undermine the idea that mental causes must be naturalizable in order to be legitimate. Thus I argue that a non-naturalist conception of mental causation is compatible with a plausible kind of physicalism.
TL;DR: Benacerraf, P. Fodor, J. Grice, H. Putnam, and E. Lepore as discussed by the authors have discussed the theory of content in the philosophy of language.
Abstract: Benacerraf, P. and H. Putnam. 1964/1983. Introduction. In Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, ed. P. Benacerraf & H. Putnam, 1-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boghossian, P. 1997. Analyticity. In A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, eds., B. Hale and C. Wright, 331-68. Oxford: Blackwell. Fodor, J. 1990. A theory of content, II. In Fodor's A Theory of Content, and Other Essays, 89-136. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Fodor, J. and E. Lepore. 1992. Holism: A Shopper's Guide. Oxford: Blackwell. Grice, H. P. and P. F. Strawson. 1956. In defense of a dogma. Philosophical Review 65: 141-58.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that even consciousness must be considered a brain-based phenomenon and suggest that a modification of the classical image of God may be inevitable, without necessarily compromising more traditional views of humanity.
Abstract: Recently, some philosophers of religion have suggested that a reduction of the classical image of humanity may jeopardize classical theism. To obstruct reductionism, some theologians have argued for dualism on the basis of the argument of consciousness. In this essay, I argue that even consciousness must be considered a brain-based phenomenon. This does not commit one to reductionism, however. Nonreductive physicalism appears to offer a promising alternative to either dualism or reductionism, without necessarily compromising more traditional views of humanity. I do suggest that a modification of the classical image of God may be inevitable.
1 Jan 2001
TL;DR: The claim that human persons are physical objects does not, of necessity and all by itself, render personal immortality problematic as mentioned in this paper, but it does not seem to be a problem with the mere idea of a physical thing, even a living physical thing that lasts forever.
Abstract: The claim that human persons are physical things does not, of necessity and all by itself, render personal immortality problematic. After all, there doesn’t seem to be a problem with the mere idea of a physical thing, even a living physical thing, that lasts forever. Nevertheless, the physicalist who believes in immortality has a worry that her dualist counterpart does not. This worry is grounded in a bit of empirical, contingent fact: If human persons are physical objects, then they die and, as a result, cease to exist. Exactly how death results in a physical person’s ceasing to exist does not matter for our purposes. It could be that everyone ceases to exist immediately upon dying, because the atoms they comprise cease to be caught up in a life and so cease to compose anything at all. Or perhaps the mummified linger longer than the cremated. Or perhaps there is some other story to be told here. The details about how and when death results in ceasing to exist are not important for our purposes. All that matters here is that human persons, if physical, cease to exist as a result of dying. (If, on the other hand, human
TL;DR: The application of quantum-theoretic models to the explanation of chemical structure and bonding is one of the great twentieth-century stories of interaction among disciplines Some philosophers have found in this interaction both evidential support and historical explanation as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The application of quantum-theoretic models to the explanation of chemical structure and bonding is one of the great twentieth-century stories of interaction among disciplines Some philosophers have found in this interaction both evidential support and historical explanation The evidential support is for the philosophical doctrine of physicalism, the thesis that everything is, or depends in some way on, the physical The historical explanation concerns the fall of emergentism, and in particular its doctrines concerning the independence of chemical law With the emergence of quantum chemistry, the physicalists argue, chemical structure and bonding was explained in terms of physical laws, and the hitherto popular and plausible philosophical view that chemical laws were in some sense sui generis was rendered less popular and plausible, at least among scientifically oriented philosophers
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for a theory of consciousness that contains a priori synthetic truths about the ontological nature and causal powers of consciousness and the indispensable role that it plays in our lives.
Abstract: Dualists need to change their argumentative strategies if they wish to make a plausible case for dualism. In particular, dualists should not merely react and respond to physicalist views and arguments; they need to develop their own positive agenda. But neither should they focus their energies on constructing a priori arguments for dualism. Rather, dualists should acknowledge that what supports their view that consciousness exists and is a nonphysical phenomenon is observation, not argumentation. What is needed is a positive account of the nature of consciousness and the indispensable role that it plays in our lives, for it is only by showing the explanatory utility of the nonphysical that dualists can begin to discredit those who would deny its existence. In this paper, I try to give some idea of what such a positive theory of consciousness would look like. In particular, I argue for a theory of consciousness that contains a priori synthetic truths about the ontological nature and causal powers of consciousness.
TL;DR: In this article, the ontology of the world coincides with physics, and physicalism implies a straightforward ontological reductionism; hence, on an ontological reading, non-reductive physicalism is a contradiction in terms.
Abstract: Physicalism claims that the ontology of the world coincides with the ontology of physics. My paper offers a discussion and assessment of this claim. First, I explain why physicalism implies a straightforward ontological reductionism; hence, on an ontological reading, ‘non-reductive physicalism’ is a contradiction in terms. Second, I argue that, without further specification, the content of ‘the ontology of physics’ is completely undefined. Since this content is usually taken for granted in the philosophy of psychology and the philosophy of mind, the notion of physicalism has no positively determinable meaning. Third, by taking into account the full particulars of how observations of physical phenomena are realized in practice, I question the claim that reductive physicalism is confirmed by the cognitive achievements of connectionist networks. © 2001, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that if the reality behind the appearance of ordinary waking experience is not dream images or illusions created by an evil genius, but is instead the computer stimulation of neurons, then our inability to rule this out would give us no reason to deny (with Vasubandhu) the existence of physical objects, or to affirm (with Descartes) the presence of the mental as something distinct from the physical.
Abstract: Indian Buddhism is decidedly anti-physicalist in outlook. While the Buddha himself seems to have left open the nature of the relation between the bodily and mental constituents of persons (the rOpa and nama skandhas), the Abhidharma schools clearly espouse a dualism' about the mental and the physical, and the idealist Yogacdra of course denies that there exists anything other than mental events. But recent developments in material culture seem to threaten the availability of any view about mentality other than the physicalist one that the mind is just a sophisticated program running on the wetware of the brain. These developments include advances in neuroscience and in the computer modeling of various cognitive activities. But perhaps more important than these is the proliferation throughout the culture of the metaphor of mind as computer. Several recent films, for instance, have featured the conceit that what we take for reality might in fact be virtual reality, with the role of deceiver played by some form of artificial intelligence.2 In the philosophy classroom we may be tempted to rely on these devices when we teach the arguments found in such texts as Descartes' Meditations or Vasubandhu's Vimnatikj. But while they do help students see that reality might be quite different from what we ordinarily take it to be, they cannot convey the anti-physicalist force of these arguments. For if the reality behind the appearance of ordinary waking experience is not dream images (as in Vasubandhu's version) or illusions created by an evil genius (as in Descartes' version), but is instead the computer stimulation of neurons, then our inability to rule this out would give us no reason to deny (with Vasubandhu) the existence of physical objects, or to affirm (with Descartes) the existence of the mental as something distinct from the physical. Spiritual traditions such as Buddhism have confronted the specter of physicalism in the past. Often the threat is seen as stemming from the development of new technologies that make physicalism seem more plausible. The premise of this essay, though, is that the current form of techno-physicalism may prove more difficult to resist than earlier episodes.3 Of course, it might be that when intricate clockwork mechanisms first became widely available in the seventeenth century, people found the metaphor of mind as clockwork equally persuasive. But suppose that this is not so, and that the computer metaphor is especially powerful, so that any other view about persons besides the one that we are just our bodies and brains comes to seem implausible to most people. Would this prove especially damaging to the Indian Buddhist tradition? In answering this question we should be careful to distinguish between physicalism and what is sometimes popularly called materialism. On the use of
Book•
24 Apr 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, Descartes discusses the Cartesian soul and the Paranormal Other Minds Mind and Behaviour The Material Mind Mental Causation, Supervenience and Physicalism Human Beings The Identity of the Self Freedom and Science.
Abstract: Acknowledgements Preface Analytical Table of Contents Descartes: The Self and the World The Cartesian Soul and the Paranormal Other Minds Mind and Behaviour The Material Mind Mental Causation, Supervenience and Physicalism Human Beings The Identity of the Self Freedom and Science Postscript: The Self and the World Bibliography Index
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a survey of the characteristics of the attributes of a person and their relationship with a specific person, including the following attributes: (1) % % %, *( % % +! %! %% # % % \") % +% %% / # %% % \" (2) %% +%% % %% 1.
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that certain so-called conceivability arguments fail to show that a currently popular version of physicalism in the philosophy of mind is false, and they also argue that Chalmers misrepresents the relation between concealability and possibility.
Abstract: In this paper I argue that certain so-called conceivability arguments fail to show that a currently popular version of physicalism in the philosophy of mind is false. Concentrating on an argument due to David Chalmers, I first argue that Chalmers misrepresents the relation between conceivability and possibility. I then argue that the intuition behind the conceivability of so-called zombie worlds can be accounted for without having to suppose that such worlds are genuinely conceivable. I conclude with some general remarks about the nature of conceivability.
TL;DR: It is claimed that Ross’s way out of his subjectivism argument carries equally unacceptable costs, and that there are more attractive ways of avoiding color subjectivism than those he considers.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, a natural, non-reductive, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world is proposed. But it is not a complete model of the human brain.
Abstract: Physicalists commonly argue that conscious experiences are nothing more than states of the brain, and that conscious qualia are observer-independent, physical properties of the external world. Although this assumes the mantle of science, it routinely ignores the findings of science, for example in sensory physiology, perception, psychophysics, neuropsychology and comparative psychology. Consequently, although physicalism aims to naturalise consciousness, it gives an unnatural account of it. It is possible, however, to develop a natural, nonreductive, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and the physical world. This paper introduces such a model and how it construes the nature of conscious experience. Within this model the physical world as perceived (the phenomenal world) is viewed as part of conscious experience not appart from it. While in everday life we treat this phenomenal world as if it is the physical world, it is really just one biologically useful representation of what the world is like that may differ in many respects from the world described by physics. How the world as perceived relates to the world as described by physics can be investigated by normal science (e.g. through the study of sensory physiology, psychophysics and so on). This model of consciousness appears to be consistent with bith third-person evidence of how the brain works and with first-person evidence of what it is like to have a given experience. According to the reflexive model, conscious experiences are really how they seem.