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  1. Are Phenomenal Zombies Really Conceivable?Murat Aydede - manuscript
    I argue that if we have a rich enough description of perceptual experiences from an information-theoretic viewpoint, it becomes surprisingly difficult (to put it mildly) to positively conceive philosophical zombies (as complete physical/functional duplicates that lack phenomenal consciousness). Hence, it is at best an open question whether zombies are positively conceivable. My argument requires paying close attention to the direct relation between phenomenology and information.
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  2. Chalmers and the Self-Knowledge Problem.Robert Bass - manuscript
    In _The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory_, David Chalmers poses an interesting and powerful challenge to materialism or physicalism. Further, he goes a long way towards providing a proof by example that the rejection of materialism need not commit one to scientifically suspicious “ghost in the machine” doctrines, but can be wedded to a generally naturalistic perspective. As an (as yet) unpersuaded physicalist and functionalist, his case against physicalism seems an appropriate target for criticism. However, it would (...)
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  3. The Obvious Argument for the Inconceivability of Zombies.Drew McDermott - manuscript
    Zombies are hypothetical creatures identical to us in behavior and internal functionality, but lacking experience. When the concept of zombie is examined in careful detail, it is found that the attempt to keep experience out does not work. So the concept of zombie is the same as the concept of person. Because they are only trivially conceivable, zombies are in a sense inconceivable.
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  4. Physicalism or Anti-Physicalism: A Disjunctive Account.Umut Baysan & Nathan Wildman - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-17.
    In this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness: consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are (...)
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  5. Type-R Physicalism.Will Moorfoot - forthcoming - Philosophical Psychology.
    In this paper, I argue for an often-neglected solution to the conceivability argument: the reconciliatory response. Its advocates state that, even if zombies are metaphysically possible, it does not follow that all versions of physicalism are false. To make the reconciliatory response, we must construct a theory that counts as a version of physicalism (because it makes higher-level facts count as physical) but also allows for the metaphysical possibility of zombies. Call any physicalist theory that can make the reconciliatory response (...)
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  6. Non-eliminative reductionism: the basis of a science of conscious experience?Dennis Nicholson - forthcoming - Philosophical Psychology.
    A physicalist view of qualia labelled non-eliminative reductionism is outlined. If it is true, qualia and physicalism can co-exist without difficulty. First, qualia present no particular problem for reductionist physicalism - they are entirely physical, can be studied and explained using the standard scientific approach, and present no problem any harder than any other scientists face. Second, reductionist physicalism presents no particular problem for qualia – they can be encompassed within an entirely physicalist position without any necessity, either to reduce (...)
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  7. Causalità del mentale: dall'argomento di Kim ai qualia in una prospettiva fisicalista.Leonardo Capitaneo - 2023 - Dissertation, Università Degli Studi di Torino
    Lo scopo dell’elaborato è presentare il problema della causalità del mentale e cercare di dare una soluzione fisicalista al problema che possa includere anche i qualia, da sempre considerati come l’ultima difesa a favore dell’irriducibilità della mente al fisico. Il primo capitolo ha il compito di trovare la teoria metafisica del mentale migliore che riesca sia a rendere conto della causalità del mentale e sia a resistere all’argomento di Kim. Dopo aver esposto in dettaglio l’argomento di Kim sono affrontati i (...)
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  8. Reflections on the Foundations of Russellian Physicalism.Mirza Mehmedovic - 2023 - Giornale di Metafisica. Nuova Serie Torino 1 (Il Processo e l'Idea):195-211.
    Russellian monism is the doctrine according to which physical properties, usually described as structural and dynamic, are grounded in categorical properties, often characterised as phenomenal or proto-phenomenal properties, of which physics leaves us ignorant, and therefore often called inscrutables or quiddities. Several authors claim that this doctrine derives its raison d’être from an attempt to overcome the insuperable difficulties posed to physicalism by the conceivability and knowledge arguments. There are several versions of this doctrine, the best known of which is (...)
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  9. Lightweight and Heavyweight Anti-physicalism.Damian Aleksiev - 2022 - Synthese 200 (112):1-23.
    I define two metaphysical positions that anti-physicalists can take in response to Jonathan Schaffer’s ground functionalism. Ground functionalism is a version of physicalism where explanatory gaps are everywhere. If ground functionalism is true, arguments against physicalism based on the explanatory gap between the physical and experiential facts fail. In response, first, I argue that some anti-physicalists are already safe from Schaffer’s challenge. These anti-physicalists reject an underlying assumption of ground functionalism: the assumption that macrophysical entities are something over and above (...)
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  10. The Inconceivability Argument.Brian Cutter - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9.
    This paper develops and defends a new argument against physicalist views of consciousness: the inconceivability argument. The argument has two main premises. First, it is not (ideally, positively) conceivable that phenomenal truths are grounded in physical truths. (For example, one cannot positively conceive of a situation in which someone has a vivid experience of pink wholly in virtue of the movements of colorless, insentient atoms.) Second, (ideal, positive) inconceivability is a guide to falsity. I attempt to show that the inconceivability (...)
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  11. Zombie intuitions.Eugen Fischer & Justin Sytsma - 2021 - Cognition 215 (C):104807.
    In philosophical thought experiments, as in ordinary discourse, our understanding of verbal case descriptions is enriched by automatic comprehension inferences. Such inferences have us routinely infer what else is also true of the cases described. We consider how such routine inferences from polysemous words can generate zombie intuitions: intuitions that are ‘killed’ (defeated) by contextual information but kept cognitively alive by the psycholinguistic phenomenon of linguistic salience bias. Extending ‘evidentiary’ experimental philosophy, this paper examines whether the ‘zombie argument’ against materialism (...)
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  12. If consciousness causes collapse, the zombie argument fails.Mousa Mohammadian - 2021 - Synthese 199:1599–1615.
    Many non-physicalists, including Chalmers, hold that the zombie argument succeeds in rejecting the physicalist view of consciousness. Some non-physicalists, including, again, Chalmers, hold that quantum collapse interactionism, i.e., the idea that non-physical consciousness causes collapse of the wave function in phenomena such as quantum measurement, is a viable interactionist solution for the problem of the relationship between the physical world and the non-physical consciousness. In this paper, I argue that if QCI is true, the zombie argument fails. In particular, I (...)
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  13. Modal arguments against materialism.Michael Pelczar - 2021 - Noûs 55 (2):426-444.
    We review existing strategies for bringing modal intuitions to bear against materialist theories of consciousness, and then propose a new strategy. Unlike existing strategies, which assume that imagination (suitably constrained) is a good guide to modal truth, the strategy proposed here makes no assumptions about the probative value of imagination. However, unlike traditional modal arguments, the argument developed here delivers only the conclusion that we should not believe that materialism is true, not that we should believe that it is false.
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  14. Moral zombies: why algorithms are not moral agents.Carissa Véliz - 2021 - AI and Society 36 (2):487-497.
    In philosophy of mind, zombies are imaginary creatures that are exact physical duplicates of conscious subjects but for whom there is no first-personal experience. Zombies are meant to show that physicalism—the theory that the universe is made up entirely out of physical components—is false. In this paper, I apply the zombie thought experiment to the realm of morality to assess whether moral agency is something independent from sentience. Algorithms, I argue, are a kind of functional moral zombie, such that thinking (...)
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  15. Fizikalizm, Bilgi Argümanı ve Felsefi Düşünce Deneyleri.Alper Bilgehan Yardımcı & Atilla Volkan Çam - 2021 - Nosyon: Uluslararası Toplum Ve Kültür Çalışmaları Dergisi 1 (8):1-11.
    Thought experiments, one of the most effective ways of acquiring knowledge, are an intellectual tool frequently used by scientists or thinkers in their fields of study. Thought experiments used to respond to scientific issues are considered scientific thought experiments, while thought experiments used for philosophical problems are called philosophical thought experiments. In this context, firstly, the differences between scientific and philosophical thought experiments are determined in the article. In particular, philosophical thought experiments are often needed in discussions within the field (...)
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  16. Can the Russellian Monist Escape the Epiphenomenalist’s Paradox?Lok-Chi Chan - 2020 - Topoi 39 (5):1093-1102.
    Russellian monism—an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (The analysis of matter, Routledge, London, 1927/1992)—is roughly the view that physics can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not their categorical (or intrinsic) properties, whereas our qualia are constituted by those categorical properties. In this paper, I will discuss the relation between Russellian monism and a seminal paradox facing epiphenomenalism, the paradox of phenomenal judgment: if epiphenomenalism is true—qualia are causally inefficacious—then any judgment (...)
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  17. The modal argument improved.Brian Cutter - 2020 - Analysis 80 (4):629-639.
    The modal argument against materialism, in its most standard form, relies on a compatibility thesis to the effect that the physical truths are compatible with the absence of consciousness. I propose an alternative modal argument that relies on an incompatibility thesis: The existence of consciousness is incompatible with the proposition that the physical truths provide a complete description of reality. I show that everyone who accepts the premises of the standard modal argument must accept the premises of the revised modal (...)
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  18. (1 other version) Dualism: How Epistemic Issues Drive Debates About the Ontology of Consciousness.Brie Gertler - 2020 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    A primary goal of this chapter is to correct a widespread misunderstanding about how epistemic issues shape the debate between dualists and physicalists. According to a familiar picture, dualism is motivated by armchair reflection, and dualists accord special significance to our ways of conceptualizing consciousness and the physical. In contrast, physicalists favor empirical data over armchair reflection, and physicalism is a relatively straightforward extension of scientific theorizing. This familiar picture is inaccurate. Both dualist and physicalist arguments employ a combination of (...)
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  19. (1 other version) Dualism: How Epistemic Issues Drive Debates About the Ontology of Consciousness.Brie Gertler - 2020 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    A primary goal of this chapter is to highlight neglected epistemic parallels between dualism and physicalism. Both dualist and physicalist arguments employ a combination of empirical data and armchair reflection; both rely on considerations stemming from how we conceptualize certain phenomena; and both aim to establish views that are compatible with scientific results but go well beyond the deliverances of empirical science. -/- I begin the chapter by fleshing out the distinctive commitments of dualism, in a way that illuminates the (...)
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  20. The Epistemic Approach to the Problem of Consciousness.Daniel Stoljar - 2020 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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  21. Epistemic Gaps and the Mind-Body Problem.Thomas Foerster - 2019 - Dissertation, Cornell University
    This dissertation defends materialism from the epistemic arguments against materialism. Materialism is the view that everything is ultimately physical. The epistemic arguments against materialism claim that there is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths (for example, that knowing the physical truths does not put you in a position to know the phenomenal truths), and conclude from this that there is a corresponding gap in the world between physical and phenomenal truths, and materialism is false. -/- Chapter 1 introduces (...)
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  22. Phänomenale Begriffe.Martina Fürst - 2019 - In Vera Hoffmann-Kolss & Nicole Rathgeb (eds.), Handbuch Philosophie des Geistes. J.B. Metzler. pp. 1-11..
    Viele unserer Bewusstseinszustände sind dadurch charakterisiert, dass es irgendwie für uns ist (Nagel 1974), in diesen Zuständen zu sein. In der Philosophie des Geistes werden derartige Zustände als ‚phänomenale Zustände‘ bezeichnet. ‚Phänomenale Begriffe‘ sind nun spezielle Begriffe, mittels derer wir uns auf phänomenale Zustände beziehen. Paradigmatische Beispiele für phänomenale Zustände, von denen wir einen phänomenalen Begriff besitzen können, sind das bewusste Erlebnis, die Farbe Blau zu sehen, den Klang einer Violine zu hören oder Schmerz zu fühlen. Zentral ist, dass sich (...)
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  23. Essentialist modal rationalism.Philip Goff - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 8):2019-2027.
    It used to be thought that rational coherence and metaphysical possibility went hand in hand. Kripke and Putnam put a spanner in the works by proposing examples of propositions which seem to violate this principle. I will propose a nuanced form of modal rationalism consistent with the Kripke/putnam cases. The rough idea is that rational coherence entails possibility when you grasp the essential nature of what you’re conceiving of.
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  24. Mary does not learn anything new: Applying Kim's critique of mental causation to the knowledge argument and the problem of consciousness.Adam Khayat - 2019 - Stance 2019 (1):45-55.
    Within the discourse surrounding mind-body interaction, mental causation is intimately associated with non-reductive physicalism. However, such a theory holds two opposing views: that all causal properties and relations can be explicated by physics and that special sciences have an explanatory role. Jaegwon Kim attempts to deconstruct this problematic contradiction by arguing that it is untenable for non-reductive physicalists to explain human behavior by appeal to mental properties. In combination, Kim’s critique of mental causation and the phenomenal concept strategy serves as (...)
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  25. What Does the Zombie Argument Prove?Miklós Márton - 2019 - Acta Analytica 34 (3):271-280.
    In this paper, I argue that the first and the third premises of the zombie argument cannot be jointly true: zombies are either inconceivable beings or the possible existence of them does not threaten the physicalist standpoint. The tenability of the premises in question depends on how we understand the concept of a zombie. In the paper, I examine three popular candidates to this concept, namely zombies are creatures who lack consciousness, but are identical to us in their (a) functional (...)
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  26. Panpsychism’s Combination Problem Is a Problem for Everyone.Angela Mendelovici - 2019 - In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge. pp. 303-316.
    The most pressing worry for panpsychism is arguably the combination problem, the problem of intelligibly explaining how the experiences of microphysical entities combine to form the experiences of macrophysical entities such as ourselves. This chapter argues that the combination problem is similar in kind to other problems of mental combination that are problems for everyone: the problem of phenomenal unity, the problem of mental structure, and the problem of new quality spaces. The ubiquity of combination problems suggests the ignorance hypothesis, (...)
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  27. Panpsychism and Non-standard Materialism: Some Comparative Remarks.Daniel Stoljar - 2019 - In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. Routledge.
    Much of contemporary philosophy of mind is marked by a dissatisfaction with the two main positions in the field, standard materialism and standard dualism, and hence with the search for alternatives. My concern in this paper is with two such alternatives. The first, which I will call non-standard materialism, is a position I have defended in a number of places, and which may take various forms. The second, panpsychism, has been defended and explored by a number of recent writers. My (...)
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  28. Grounding, Conceivability, and the Mind-Body Problem.David Elohim - 2018 - Synthese 195 (2):919-926.
    This paper challenges the soundness of the two-dimensional conceivability argument against the derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths in light of a hyperintensional, ground-theoretic regimentation of the ontology of consciousness. The regimentation demonstrates how ontological dependencies between truths about consciousness and about physics cannot be witnessed by epistemic constraints, when the latter are recorded by the conceivability—i.e., the epistemic possibility—thereof. Generalizations and other aspects of the philosophical significance of the hyperintensional regimentation are further examined.
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  29. Necessariamente, Provavelmente não sou um Zumbi (Necessarily, Probably I am not a Zombie).Danilo Fraga Dantas - 2018 - Intuitio 11 (1):19-32.
    O argumento zumbi negativo parte das premissas de que p ∧ ¬q é idealmente negativamente concebível, de que o que é idealmente negativamente concebível é possível e de que o fisicalismo é incompatível com a possibilidade de p ∧ ¬q para concluir que o fisicalismo é falso. No argumento, p é a conjunção das verdades e leis físicas fundamentais e q é uma verdade fenomenal qualquer. Uma sentença φ é idealmente negativamente concebível sse um raciocinador ideal não acredita que ¬φ (...)
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  30. Consciousness and the End of Materialism: Seeking identity and harmony in a dark era.Spyridon Kakos - 2018 - International Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Science 2 (2):17-33.
    “I am me”, but what does this mean? For centuries humans identified themselves as conscious beings with free will, beings that are important in the cosmos they live in. However, modern science has been trying to reduce us into unimportant pawns in a cold universe and diminish our sense of consciousness into a mere illusion generated by lifeless matter. Our identity in the cosmos is nothing more than a deception and all the scientific evidence seem to support this idea. Or (...)
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  31. Chalmersin argumentti materialismia vastaan.Panu Raatikainen - 2018 - Ajatus 75 (1):401-444.
    Artikkelissa tarkastellaan perusteellisesti ja kriittisesti David Chalmersin vaikutusvaltaista fenomenaaliseen tietoisuuden liittyvää argumenttia materialismia vastaan. Argumentissa tunnistetaan useampikin kuin yksi heikko lenkki.
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  32. How Mary defeated the Zombies; Destabilizing the Modal argument with the Knowledge argument.Amber Ross - 2018 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61 (5-6):499-519.
    Several of the most compelling anti-materialist arguments are motivated by the supposed existence of an unbridgeable epistemic gap between first-person subjective knowledge about one’s own conscious experience and third-personally acquired knowledge. The two with which this paper is concerned are Frank Jackson’s ‘knowledge argument’ and David Chalmers’s ‘modal argument’. The knowledge argument and the modal argument are often taken to function as ‘two sides of the same coin … in principle each succeeds on its own, but in practice they work (...)
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  33. Consciousness, Conceivability, and Intrinsic Reduction.Jonathon VandenHombergh - 2018 - Erkenntnis 85 (5):1129-1151.
    Conceivability arguments constitute a serious threat against reductive physicalism. Recently, a number of authors have proven and characterized a devastating logical truth centered on these arguments: namely, that their soundness entails the inconceivability of reductive physicalism. In this paper, I demonstrate that this is only a logical truth when reductive physicalism is interpreted in its stronger, intrinsic sense, as opposed to its weaker—yet considerably more popular—extrinsic sense. The basic idea generalizes: perhaps surprisingly, stronger forms of reduction are uniquely resistant to (...)
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  34. The Inconceivable Popularity of Conceivability Arguments.Douglas I. Campbell, Jack Copeland & Zhuo-Ran Deng - 2017 - Philosophical Quarterly 67 (267):223-240.
    Famous examples of conceivability arguments include (i) Descartes’ argument for mind-body dualism, (ii) Kripke's ‘modal argument’ against psychophysical identity theory, (iii) Chalmers’ ‘zombie argument’ against materialism, and (iv) modal versions of the ontological argument for theism. In this paper, we show that for any such conceivability argument, C, there is a corresponding ‘mirror argument’, M. M is deductively valid and has a conclusion that contradicts C's conclusion. Hence, a proponent of C—henceforth, a ‘conceivabilist’—can be warranted in holding that C's premises (...)
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  35. Ideal Reasoners don’t Believe in Zombies.Danilo Fraga Dantas - 2017 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 21 (1):41-59.
    The negative zombie argument concludes that physicalism is false from the premises that p ∧¬q is ideally negatively conceivable and that what is ideally negatively conceivable is possible, where p is the conjunction of the fundamental physical truths and laws and q is a phenomenal truth (Chalmers 2002; 2010). A sentence φ is ideally negatively conceivable iff φ is not ruled out a priori on ideal rational reflection. In this paper, I argue that the negative zombie argument is neither a (...)
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  36. "Арґумент зомбі" проти матеріалізму: основи та перспективи подальшого дослідження.Andrii Leonov - 2017 - Філософська Думка 3 (3):57-77.
    The paper deals with the main argument against the doctrine of Materialism and the heart of the mind-body problem — the Zombie argument. The main proponent of the idea of philosophical zombies is the Australian philosopher David Chalmers, whose main opus 'The Conscious Mind' is wholly based on the idea of conceivability and logical possibility of zombies. The author aims to show that for the adequate analysis of Chalmers' zombie argument, the frame of the Analytic philosophy alone is not sufficient, (...)
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  37. Phenomenal, Normative, and Other Explanatory Gaps: A General Diagnosis.Neil Mehta - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (3):567-591.
    I assume that there exists a general phenomenon, the phenomenon of the explanatory gap, surrounding consciousness, normativity, intentionality, and more. Explanatory gaps are often thought to foreclose reductive possibilities wherever they appear. In response, reductivists who grant the existence of these gaps have offered countless local solutions. But typically such reductivist responses have had a serious shortcoming: because they appeal to essentially domain-specific features, they cannot be fully generalized, and in this sense these responses have been not just local but (...)
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  38. On a Confusion About Which Intuitions to Trust: From the Hard Problem to a Not Easy One.Miguel Ángel Sebastián - 2017 - Topoi 36 (1):31-40.
    Alleged self-evidence aside, conceivability arguments are one of the main reasons in favor of the claim that there is a Hard Problem. These arguments depend on the appealing Kripkean intuition that there is no difference between appearances and reality in the case of consciousness. I will argue that this intuition rests on overlooking a distinction between cognitive access and consciousness, which has received recently important empirical support. I will show that there are good reasons to believe that the intuition is (...)
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  39. Vagueness and Zombies: Why ‘Phenomenally Conscious’ has No Borderline Cases.Jonathan A. Simon - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (8):2105-2123.
    I argue that there can be no such thing as a borderline case of the predicate ‘phenomenally conscious’: for any given creature at any given time, it cannot be vague whether that creature is phenomenally conscious at that time. I first defend the Positive Characterization Thesis, which says that for any borderline case of any predicate there is a positive characterization of that case that can show any sufficiently competent speaker what makes it a borderline case. I then appeal to (...)
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  40. Inconceivable physicalism.Jonathon VandenHombergh - 2017 - Analysis 77 (1):116-125.
    Using his two-dimensional semantics, I demonstrate that David Chalmers’s 2010 ‘two-dimensional argument against materialism’ is sound only if a wide swath of reductive physicalist theses – crucially, those involving identity and other intrinsic reductive relations – are inconceivable. 2DA therefore begs the question against its opponents and undermines its argumentative relevance. Comparisons are drawn to similar arguments in Marton and Sturgeon; the present account differs in its formal and philosophical simplicity, as well as its specific application to reductivist doctrines beyond (...)
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  41. Illusionism's discontent.Katalin Balog - 2016 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (11-12):40-51.
    Frankish positions his view, illusionism about qualia (a.k.a. eliminativist physicalism), in opposition to what he calls radical realism (dualism and neutral monism) and conservative realism (a.k.a. non-eliminativist physicalism). Against radical realism, he upholds physicalism. But he goes along with key premises of the Gap Arguments for radical realism, namely, 1) that epistemic/explanatory gaps exist between the physical and the phenomenal, and 2) that every truth should be perspicuously explicable from the fundamental truth about the world; and he concludes that because (...)
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  42. An Emergentist Argument for the Impossibility of Zombie Duplicates.Reinaldo Bernal - 2016 - Working Papers Series - FMSH.
    Some influential arguments in the metaphysics of consciousness, in particular Chalmers’ Zombie Argument, suppose that all the physical properties of composed physical systems are metaphysically necessitated by their fundamental constituents. In this paper I argue against this thesis in order to debate Chalmers’ argument. By discussing, in non-technical terms, an EPR system I try to show that there are good reasons to hold that some composed physical systems have properties which are nomologically necessitated by their fundamental constituents, i.e., which emerge (...)
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  43. Embodied Conceivability: How to Keep the Phenomenal Concept Strategy Grounded.Guy Dove & Andreas Elpidorou - 2016 - Mind and Language 31 (5):580-611.
    The Phenomenal Concept Strategy offers the physicalist perhaps the most promising means of explaining why the connection between mental facts and physical facts appears to be contingent even though it is not. In this article, we show that the large body of evidence suggesting that our concepts are often embodied and grounded in sensorimotor systems speaks against standard forms of the PCS. We argue, nevertheless, that it is possible to formulate a novel version of the PCS that is thoroughly in (...)
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  44. Роберт Кірк: засновник філософських зомбі.Andrii Leonov - 2016 - Філософська Думка 2 (2):71-77.
    At first, I shortly analyze the origins of Kirk's zombie argument (I'm talking about Descartes and epiphenomenalism). Then, I analyze his 1974 papers "Sentience and Behaviour" and "Zombies v. Materialists". And, in the end, I conclude that nevertheless Robert Kirk is the founder of a zombie argument and defended the view according to which zombies are logically possible, aftewards he became an "anti-zombist".
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  45. Gappiness and the Case for Liberalism About Phenomenal Properties.Tom McClelland - 2016 - Philosophical Quarterly (264):536-558.
    Conservatives claim that all phenomenal properties are sensory. Liberals countenance non-sensory phenomenal properties such as what it’s like to perceive some high-level property, and what it’s like to think that p. A hallmark of phenomenal properties is that they present an explanatory gap, so to resolve the dispute we should consider whether experience has non-sensory properties that appear ‘gappy’. The classic tests for ‘gappiness’ are the invertibility test and the zombifiability test. I suggest that these tests yield conflicting results: non-sensory (...)
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  46. Illusionism and the Epistemological Problems Facing Phenomenal Realism.Amber Ross - 2016 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (11-12):215-223.
    Illusionism about phenomenal properties has the potential to leave us with all the benefit of taking consciousness seriously and far fewer problems than those accompanying phenomenal realism. The particular problem I explore here is an epistemological puzzle that leaves the phenomenal realist with a dilemma but causes no trouble for the illusionist: how can we account for false beliefs about our own phenomenal properties? If realism is true, facts about our phenomenal properties must hold independent of our beliefs about those (...)
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  47. A Note on the Definition of Physicalism.Ben Blumson & Weng Hong Tang - 2015 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4 (1):10-18.
    Physicalism is incompatible with what is known as the possibility of zombies, that is, the possibility of a world physically like ours, but in which there are no conscious experiences. But it is compatible with what is known as the possibility of ghosts, that is, the possibility of a world which is physically like ours, but in which there are additional nonphysical entities. In this paper we argue that a revision to the traditional definition of physicalism designed to accommodate the (...)
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  48. Phenomenal Concepts.Andreas Elpidorou - 2015 - Oxford Bibliographies Online.
    Phenomenal concepts are the concepts that we deploy when – but arguably not only when – we introspectively examine, focus on, or take notice of the phenomenal character of our experiences. They refer to phenomenal properties (or qualities) and they do so in a subjective (first-personal) and direct (non-relational) manner. It is through the use of such concepts that the phenomenal character of our experiences is made salient to us. Discourse about the nature of phenomenal concepts plays an important role (...)
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  49. Does Conceivability Entail Metaphysical Possibility?Moti Mizrahi & David R. Morrow - 2015 - Ratio 28 (1):1-13.
    In this paper, we argue that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’, which is the view that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary metaphysical possibility, is self-defeating. To this end, we outline two reductio arguments against ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’. The first reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that conceivability both is and is not conclusive evidence for possibility. The second reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that it is possible (...)
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  50. What panpsychists should reject: on the incompatibility of panpsychism and organizational invariantism.Miguel Ángel Sebastián - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (7):1833-1846.
    Some philosophers, like David Chalmers, have either shown their sympathy for, or explicitly endorsed, the following two principles: Panpsychism—roughly the thesis that the mind is ubiquitous throughout the universe—and Organizational Invariantism—the principle that holds that two systems with the same fine-grained functional organization will have qualitatively identical experiences. The purpose of this paper is to show the tension between the arguments that back up both principles. This tension should lead, or so I will argue, defenders of one of the principles (...)
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