Materialism/physicalism that generally dominates in the contemporary analytic philosophy is challenged by fairly powerful anti-materialist arguments, notably the zombie argument (most influentially defended by David Chalmers) and the knowledge argument (the most widely discussed version of which was advanced and defended by Frank Jackson). These arguments highlight the explanatory gap from the physical (which, if materialism is true, should constitute everything that exists, including consciousness) to phenomenal mental states, the principal impossibility to explain the latter by the former, and from (...) this conclude that phenomenal consciousness is not physical, and so materialism is false. Materialist philosophers attempt to neutralize these arguments in several ways, the most influential of which is the strategy of phenomenal concepts. This article analyzes the main points of this debate with a focus on the knowledge argument, examines and responds to the main objections to the knowledge argument — that it should be mistaken because the alternative is epiphenomenalism, which is unacceptable; that no new knowledge but only new capacities and/or acquaintance are involved; that the knowledge is the same but in different forms; that the knowledge argument affects only type physicalism but not token physicalism. The case is made that psychophysical identities assumed by a posteriori physicalism are unexplainable in principle, and the postulation of brute unexplainable psychophysical identities glossed over by the strategy of phenomenal concepts amounts to dogmatic commitment (motivated by scientism) to a view despite its apparent falsity and its unintelligibility (the impossibility to explain how it can be true), made less unpalatable by offering an ad hoc theory about the mindbrain arrangement that makes us unable to see how the view can be true. As opposed to this, the position of the supporters of the knowledge argument and the zombie argument can be seen as guided by the principle of rational trust in obviousness and our capacities of judgement. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy of mind, the issue of consciousness has taken center stage. Broadly speaking, those who deal with consciousness fall into two camps: those who prioritize empirical work and those who favor conceptual investigation. One prominent argument has served to deepen the divide: the argument for the possibility of zombies. In this paper I intend to examine closely this argument, as it’s presented by David Chalmers, and some of the attempts to discredit it. In so doing, I present some (...) of my own arguments against it, as well as the claim that if it’s sound, then materialism is false. Finally, I present a sketch of a new way of thinking about consciousness that would, I argue, guard against the threat—real or merely apparent—of arguments such as the zombie-argument. (shrink)

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 (...) argument, but not vice versa. (shrink)

According to phenomenalism, physical things are a certain kind of possibility for experience. This paper clarifies the phenomenalist position and addresses some main objections to it, with the aim of showing that phenomenalism is a live option that merits a place alongside dualism and materialism in contemporary metaphysical debate.

Myšlenkové experimenty jsou populárním argumentačním nástrojem ve vědě i filosofii. Jejich kritika ze strany naturalistických a experimentálních filosofů vedla k vytvoření deflačních a minimalistických koncepcí, které oslabují epistemickou sílu myšlenkových experimentů a smiřují je s empirismem. Cílem článku je ukázat, že tyto pokusy nepřekonávají hlavní problémy, se kterými se myšlenkové experimenty ve filosofii střetávají. Omezená lidská racionalita a představivost znemožňují experimentátorům řešit nereálné scénáře spolehlivým způsobem. Myšlenkové experimenty se ve filosofii používají jinak než ve vědě, protože ty pravé jsou obvykle (...) neuskutečnitelné a uzavřené vůči možnosti empirické falsifikace. Navíc jsou založeny na vadných analogiích a neoprávněně přenášejí důkazní břemeno. Persvazivní úspěšnost myšlenkových experimentů je velmi nízká, a proto nedokáží přispět k řešení filosofických problémů. Závěrem článku je, že nejběžnější druhy myšlenkových experimentů by měly být odstraněny ze souboru filosofických metod. (shrink)

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".

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan perusteellisesti ja kriittisesti David Chalmersin vaikutusvaltaista fenomenaaliseen tietoisuuden liittyvää argumenttia materialismia vastaan. Argumentissa tunnistetaan useampikin kuin yksi heikko lenkki.

Some​ ​propositions​ ​are​ ​not​ ​only​ ​true,​ ​but​ ​could​ ​not​ ​have​ ​been​ ​otherwise. This​ ​thesis​ ​is​ ​about​ ​modality​ ​and​ ​the​ ​philosophy​ ​of​ ​language.​ ​Its​ ​centrepiece​ ​is​ ​a​ ​new​ ​account​ ​of the​ ​conditions​ ​under​ ​which​ ​a​ ​proposition​ ​is​ ​necessarily​ ​true​ ​in​ ​the​ ​above​ ​sense.

In its recent history, the philosophy of mind has come to resemble an entry into the genre of Hammer horror or pulpy science fiction. These days it is unusual to encounter a major philosophical work on the mind that is not populated with bats, homunculi, swamp-creatures, cruelly imprisoned genius scientists, aliens, cyborgs, other-worldly twins, self-aware Computer programs, Frankenstein-monster-like ‘Blockheads,’ or zombies. The purpose of this paper is to review the role in the philosophy of mind of one of these fantastic (...) thought-experiments — the zombie — and to reassess the implications of zombie arguments, which I will suggest have been widely misinterpreted. I shall argue that zombies, far from being the enemy of materialism, are its friend; and furthermore that zombies militate against the computational model of consciousness and in favour of more biologically-rooted conceptions, and hence that zombie- considerations support a morereductivekind of physicalism about consciousness than has been in vogue in recent years. (shrink)

This paper addresses several objections that have been leveled against a behavioral approach to psychological categories. It reconstructs and critically assesses the so-called causal objection; alleged counterexamples whereby one can exhibit the typical behaviors associated with a psychological phenomenon without exhibiting the latter, including Lewis’ “perfect actor” case and Kirk’s “zombie”; alleged counterexamples whereby organisms can exemplify psychological phenomena without exhibiting any behavior associated with them, including Armstrong’s imagined brain in a vat, Putnam’s “super-super-spartans” scenario, and related cases; and the (...) holistic objection. Mistaken assumptions in each of these objections are pinpointed. The paper starts with a brief characterization of behaviorism about psychological categories and a summary of the particular version thereof supported here, which draws upon Ryle and Skinner, among others. (shrink)

The Two Selves takes the position that the self is not a "thing" easily reduced to an object of scientific analysis. Rather, the self consists in a multiplicity of aspects, some of which have a neuro-cognitive basis (and thus are amenable to scientific inquiry) while other aspects are best construed as first-person subjectivity, lacking material instantiation. As a consequence of their potential immateriality, the subjective aspect of self cannot be taken as an object and therefore is not easily amenable to (...) treatment by current scientific methods. -/- Klein argues that to fully appreciate the self, its two aspects must be acknowledged, since it is only in virtue of their interaction that the self of everyday experience becomes a phenomenological reality. However, given their different metaphysical commitments (i.e., material and immaterial aspects of reality), a number of issues must be addressed. These include, but are not limited to, the possibility of interaction between metaphysically distinct aspects of reality, questions of causal closure under the physical, the principle of energy conservation. -/- After addressing these concerns, Klein presents evidence based on self-reports from case studies of individuals who suffer from a chronic or temporary loss of their sense of personal ownership of their mental states. Drawing on this evidence, he argues that personal ownership may be the factor that closes the metaphysical gap between the material and immaterial selves, linking these two disparate aspects of reality, thereby enabling us to experience a unified sense of self despite its underlying multiplicity. -/- . (shrink)

In this article, I undertake the tasks: (i) of reconsidering Feigl’s notion of a ‘nomological dangler’ in light of recent discussion about the viability of accommodating phenomenal properties, or qualia, within a physicalist picture of reality; and (ii) of constructing an argument to the effect that nomological danglers, including the way qualia are understood to be related to brain states by contemporary dualists, are extremely unlikely. I offer a probabilistic argument to the effect that merely nomological danglers are extremely unlikely, (...) the only probabilistically coherent candidates being ‘anomic danglers’ (not even nomically correlated) and ‘necessary danglers’ (more than merely nomically correlated). After I show, based on similar probabilistic reasoning, that the first disjunct (anomic danglers) is very unlikely, I conclude that the identity thesis is the only remaining candidate for the mental–physical connection. The novelty of the argument is that it brings probabilistic considerations in favor of physicalism, a move that has been neglected in the recent burgeoning literature on the subject. (shrink)

This book contains a representationalist theory of self-consciousness and of the phenomenal first-person perspective. It draws on empirical data from the cognitive and neurosciences.

The principle of functional invariance states that it is a natural law that conscious beings with the same functional organization have the same quality of conscious experience. A group of arguments in support of this principle are rejected, on the grounds that they establish at most only the weaker intra-subjective principle that any two stages in the life of a single conscious being that duplicate one another in terms of functional organization also duplicate one another in terms of quality of (...) phenomenal experience. (shrink)

At the phenomenal level, consciousness can be described as a singular, unified field of recursive self-awareness, consistently coherent in a particualr way; that of a subject located both spatially and temporally in an egocentrically-extended domain, such that conscious self-awareness is explicitly characterized by I-ness, now-ness and here-ness. The psychological mechanism underwriting this spatiotemporal self-locatedness and its recursive processing style involves an evolutionary elaboration of the basic orientative reference frame which consistently structures ongoing spatiotemporal self-location computations as i-here-now. Cognition computes action-output (...) in the midst of ongoing movement, and consequently requires a constant self-locating spatiotemporal reference frame as basis for these computations. Over time, constant evolutionary pressures for energy efficiency have encouraged both the proliferation of anticipative feedforward processing mechansims, and the elaboration, at the apex of the sensorimotor processing hierarchy, of self-activating, highly attenuated recursively-feedforward circuitry processing the basic orientational schema independent of external action output. As the primary reference frame of active waking cognition, this recursive i-here-now processing generates a zone of subjective self-awareness in terms of which it feels like something to be oneself here and now. This is consciousness. (shrink)

Metaphysicians eager to engage with substantive, thoughtful, and provocative issues will be happy with John Heil’s From an Ontological Point of View. The book represents not only a sustained defence of a specific metaphysical theory, but also of a specific way of doing metaphysics. Put ontology first, Heil urges us, in order to remember that the original fascination of metaphysics wasn’t the question ‘what must the world be like in order to correspond neatly to our use of language?’, but rather (...) the altogether more fundamental ‘what must the world be like?’. (shrink)

It has recently become quite fashionable for one to defend a functionalist theory of mental states. However, as with most trends, functionalism has come under fire in certain philosophical quarters. In this paper, I shall not take up the question of whether any version of functionalism is true. I shall instead discuss a particular objection to a specific brand of functionalism.

One of the most influential philosophical voices in the consciousness studies community is that of Daniel Dennett. Dennett's Consciousness Explained aimed to develop both a theory of consciousness and a powerful critique of the then mainstream view of the nature of consciousness, which Dennett called “The Cartesian Theater View”. This chapter focuses on Dennett's influential critique of the Cartesian Theater View, as well as his positive view on the nature of consciousness, called the “Multiple Drafts Model”. It also discusses Dennett's (...) views on the hard problem of consciousness. Dennett's contributions to consciousness studies are quite extensive. In addition to offering a critique of Cartesian Materialism and the Multiple Drafts Model, Dennett has attacked certain thought experiments, problems, and arguments that are commonly thought to lend support to the idea that consciousness is an irreducible feature of the world, going beyond the physical realm that science investigates. (shrink)

This paper re-evaluates Derek Parfit’s attack on the commonly held view that personal identity is necessarily determinate and that it is what matters. In the first part we first argue against the Humean view of personal identity; secondly, we classify the remaining alternatives into three kinds: the body theory and the brain theory, the quasi-Humean theory, and the soul theory, and thirdly we deploy Parfit’s arguments and related considerations to the point that none of the materialistic alternatives is consistent with (...) the commonly held view. This leaves us with the alternative: either we accept the radical and highly implausible materialistic view Parfit calls ‘Reductionism’, or we accept the view that we are nonphysical indivisible entities—Cartesian egos, or souls. The second part of the paper discusses Parfit’s objections against the Cartesian view: that there is no reason to believe in the existence of such nonphysical entities; that if such entities exist, there is no evidence that they are enduring ; that even if they exist and are enduring, they are irrelevant for the psychological profile and temporal continuity of a person; that experiments with ‘brain-splitted’ patients provide strong evidence against the Cartesian view. We argue that these objections are in part mistaken, and that the remaining part is not strong enough to make the Cartesian view less plausible than Reductionism. (shrink)

How does the modern scientific conception of time constrain the project of assigning the mind its proper place in nature? On the scientific conception, it makes no sense to speak of the duration of a pain, or the simultaneity of sensations occurring in different parts of the brain. Such considerations led Henri Poincaré, one of the founders of the modern conception, to conclude that consciousness does not exist in spacetime, but serves as the basic material out of which we must (...) create the physical world. The central claim of Sensorama is that Poincaré was substantially correct. The best way to reconcile the scientific conception of time with the evidence of introspection is through a phenomenalist metaphysic according to which consciousness exists in neither time nor space, but serves as a basis for the logical construction of spacetime and its contents. (shrink)

The book offers a novel approach to the idea of divinity in guise of a philosophical doctrine called 'Logical Pantheism', according to which the only way to establish the existence of God undeniably is by equating God with Logical Space.

Dennett (_Synthese,_ _53_(2), 159–180, 1982, 1991, _Journal of Consciousness Studies,_ _10_(9–10), 19–30, 2003, _Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,_ _6_, 247–270, 2007 ) proposes and defends a method called _heterophenomenology_. Heterophenomenology is a method to study consciousness _from a third-person objective point of view_ as opposed to a first-person subjective point of view or (auto)-phenomenology. The method of heterophenomenology serves a necessary role in Dennett’s schema of bridging the gap between the manifest and the scientific image of the world. In this (...) paper, I attempt to present a limited critique of the method of heterophenomenology. The objection raised in this paper is limited to one of the steps involved in the method, i.e., the interpretation of the heterophenomenological text as analogous to novelist fiction. I attempt to show that the assumptions made by Dennett about the interpretation of fiction are contradictory in nature and therefore the same cannot be applied to the interpretation of a heterophenomenological text. The assumptions fail in justifying the interpretation of fiction itself and hence exporting them by analogy to interpret a heterophenomenological text is a mistake. (shrink)

According to panpsychists, physical phenomena are, at bottom, nothing but experiential phenomena. One argument for this view proceeds from an alleged need for physical phenomena to have features beyond what physics attributes to them; another starts by arguing that consciousness is ubiquitous, and proposes an identification of physical and experiential phenomena as the best explanation of this alleged fact. The first argument assumes that physical phenomena have categorical natures, and the second that the world’s experience-causing powers or potentials underdetermine its (...) physical features. I argue that panpsychists are not entitled to these assumptions. (shrink)

This book is about the idea that some true statements would have been true no matter how the world had turned out, while others could have been false. It develops and defends a version of the idea that we tell the difference between these two types of truths in part by reflecting on the meanings of words. It has often been thought that modal issues—issues about possibility and necessity—are related to issues about meaning. In this book, the author defends the (...) view that the analysis of meaning is not just a preliminary to answering modal questions in philosophy; it is not merely that before we can find out whether something is possible, we need to get clear on what we are talking about. Rather, clarity about meaning often brings with it answers to modal questions. In service of this view, the author analyzes the notion of necessity and develops ideas about linguistic meaning, applying them to several puzzles and problems in philosophy of language. Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic. [See my homepage for a sample chapter.]. (shrink)

This work gives a new argument for ‘Empirical Philosophy of Mathematical Practice’. It analyses different modalities on how empirical information can influence philosophical endeavours. We evoke the classical dichotomy between “armchair” philosophy and empirical/experimental philosophy, and claim that the latter should in turn be subdivided in three distinct styles: Apostate speculator, Informed analyst, and Freeway explorer. This is a shift of focus from the source of the information towards its use by philosophers. We present several examples from philosophy of mind/science (...) and ethics on one side and a case study from philosophy of mathematics on the other. We argue that empirically informed philosophy of mathematics is different from the rest in a way that encourages a Freeway explorer approach, because intuitions about mathematical objects are often unavailable for non-mathematicians. This consideration is supported by a case study in set theory. (shrink)

The superfunctionality claim is that phenomenal experiences are more than functional (objective, causal) relations. This is one of the most widely used but least attacked claims in the anti-physicalist literature on consciousness. Coupled with one form of structuralism, the view that science only explains functional relations, the superfunctionality claim entails that science will not explain phenomenal experience. The claim is therefore essential to many anti-physicalist arguments. I identify an open question argument for the superfunctionality claim that expresses an intuition deserving (...) of explanation. Using the experience of fear as an example, I show that this intuition cannot distinguish between whether conscious experiences are more than functional relations, or whether instead they are just very complex (including, constituted by very complex functional relations). I give reasons to suspect that the latter is more likely the case. This renders physicalism safe from the superfunctionality claim. This also provides a challenge to the proponents of the superfunctionality claim: they should explain why paradigmatically mysterious phenomenal experiences are correlated with extensive and complex physical correlates. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Qualia, the subjectively known qualities of conscious experience, are judged by many philosophers and scientists to lie beyond the domain of scientific explanation, thus making the conscious mind partly incomprehensible to the objective physical sciences. Some, like Kripke and Chalmers, employ modal logic to argue that explanations of qualia are impossible in principle. I argue that there already exist perfectly normal scientific explanations of qualia, and rebut the arguments of those who deny this possibility.

John Heil’s From an Ontological Point of View (Heil 2003) is a tremendous philosophical work. The neo-Lockean ontology the reader finds within its 267 pages is a sensible and refreshing alternative to the neo-Humean ontologies which presently occupy the vast majority of the metaphysical literature. What Heil offers is a much needed change in perspective. Nor are the strengths of the book limited to Heil’s willingness to approach central metaphysical problems in largely untried and unpopular way; the book is very (...) clear in its presentation, accessible to wide readership, and tightly argued throughout. Heil’s efforts in this book are to be applauded, and the result is one that warrants serious consideration by all those interested in serious metaphysics. But the interest should not end there: the lessons of Heil’s book are ones that almost all philosophers ought to take seriously. Despite the criticism that follows, my overall position should not be taken as anything short of a whole-hearted endorsement of Heil’s book. Nonetheless, when philosophy is one’s trade, there is always going to be something to disagree about, however much one is amenable to a view. (shrink)

This dissertation is devoted to dual-process theories, widely discussed in the recent literature in cognitive science. The author argues for a significantly modified version of the account suggested by Samuels (2009), replacing the distinction between ‘Systems’ with a distinction between ‘Types of processes,’ which allows a critique of both the (only) modularist accounts and the accounts describing a deep difference between two systems each having their specificities (functional, phenomenological and neurological). In the account of dual-process theories developed here, the distinction (...) between ‘Types of processes’ is considered, a priori, only as a heuristic distinction allowing to better understand the mind and to explain some of its properties. The main idea defended in this dissertation is that cognitive processes should be distinguished by their position in a multidimensional conceptual space allowing researchers to consider all of the characteristics and peculiarities attributed to a process, which is preferable to accounts forcing the process into either ‘System’ or either ‘Type’ identified in the most influential approaches (cf. Evans, 2008). Once this research program is in place, it will become possible to revise the concepts used and the categories defined to ground anew some of the notions we find in the literature (‘module,’ ‘System 1 / 2,’ etc.). The argument is made in three steps: -/- 1) The first chapter aims at a clarification of the notion of ‘module’ commonly used in cognitive science. Against the accounts aiming at a weakening of the notion in order to classify all of the mind’s processes as modular, the author – following most notably Faucher and Poirier (2009) and Samuels (2006) – casts doubt on how this notion is used by many influential authors, particularly in evolutionary psychology (e.g. Barrett, Carruthers, Cosmides, Tooby). -/- 2) The objective of the second chapter is to present, examine and criticize many dual-process theories and to suggest that no theory currently discussed is adequate to describe the architecture of mind. The accounts, especially influent or representative, suggested by Stanovich (1999; 2004; 2009), by Evans (2008; 2009), by Lieberman (2007; 2009) and by Carruthers (2006; 2009), are examined. -/- 3) In the third chapter, the author criticizes the framework developed by Samuels (2009) before developing his own account of dual-process theories and discussing some of its advantages. (shrink)

And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work on one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.Gottlieb Leibniz, The Mondadology, Section 17Functionalism, as it is currently understood, is the view that each type (...) of mental state is identical with a state that is a causal consequent of certain kinds of inputs and other mental states and which, in turn, causally brings about certain kinds of outputs and other mental states. (shrink)

It has recently become quite fashionable for one to defend a functionalist theory of mental states. However, as with most trends, functionalism has come under fire in certain philosophical quarters. In this paper, I shall not take up the question of whether any version of functionalism is true. I shall instead discuss a particular objection to a specific brand of functionalism.