Kripke's argument against the identity theory in the philosophy of mind runs as follows. Suppose some psychophysical identity statement S is true. Then S would seem to be contingent at least in the sense that S seems possibly false. And given that seeming contingency entails genuine contingency when it comes to such statements S is contingent. But S is necessary if true. So S is false. This entry considers responses to each of the three premises. It turns out that each (...) response does not fully withstand scrutiny, and so Kripke's conclusion is hard to resist. Section 1 lays out Kripke's argument, and Sections 2 to 4 then discuss responses to each of the three premises respectively. (shrink)

Recent discussions of physicalism have focused on the question how the physical ought to be characterized. Many have argued that any characterization of the physical should include the stipulation that the physical is non-mental, and others have claimed that a systematic substitution of ‘non-mental’ for ‘physical’ is all that is needed for philosophical purposes. I argue here that both claims are incorrect: substituting ‘non-mental’ for ‘physical’ in the causal argument for physicalism does not deliver the physicalist conclusion, and the specification (...) that the physical is non-mental is irrelevant to the task of formulating physicalism as a substantive, controversial thesis. (shrink)

From the perspective of many philosophers of mind in these early years of the 21st Century, the debate between dualism and physicalism has seemed to have stalled, if not to have come to a complete standstill. There seems to be no way to settle the basic clash of intuitions that underlies it. Recently however, a growing number of proponents of Russellian monism have suggested that their view promises to show us a new way forward. Insofar as Russellian monism might allow (...) us to break out of the current gridlock, it's no wonder that it's become "hot stuff." To my mind, however, the excitement about Russellian monism is misplaced. Though some version of Russellian monism might well be true, I do not believe that it enables us to break free of the dualism/physicalism divide. As I will argue, once we properly understand what's required to flesh out an adequate monistic story, we will see that we are in an important way right back where we started. (shrink)

My overall aim in this thesis is to elucidate the precise nature of Russell's mature 'neutral monist' metaphysic. I show how an understanding of it has been hampered by pervasive misunderstandings. The approach I take is an historical one, and my account reveals that, after his adoption of neutral monism in 1918, there were no radical changes in his worldview, and certainly no lurch from a supposed quasi-phenomenalistic system prior to 1921, to a causal theory of perception after 1927. Instead, (...) the earlier system is not as phenomenalistic as is sometimes supposed and his later philosophy is a development, not a repudiation, of the themes in the earlier. Russell sought to show how his metaphysic dovetails with the outcome of modern physics in his 1927 book The Analysis of Matter. I seek to show how a proper understanding of modern physics indeed leads to Russellian conclusions. I also discuss the implications of quantum mechanics for metaphysics – a task which Russell could not have performed when he wrote The Analysis of Matter, since QM was still very much in a state of flux. I show how Russell moved from empiricism to a naturalistic position in the theory of knowledge,and in doing so supplied a definitive solution to Hume's scepticism. Once again, the usual perception of him as an “empiricist” fails to do justice to the complexity and subtlety of his philosophy. Finally, I argue that Russell's solution to the mind-body problem is the only one with any chance whatsoever of being true. In all this I seek to show how Russell's philosophy has been unjustly neglected in contemporary debates and how it can provide elegant solutions to contemporary philosophical puzzles in the philosophy of science, epistemology and the mind-body problem. (shrink)

This paper discusses and evaluates a recent argument for the conclusion that an attractive variety of Russellian monism ought to be regarded as a form of physicalism. According to this line of thought, if the Russellian’s “inscrutable” properties are held to ground not only experience, but also the physical structure of the world—and in this sense are not “experience-specific”—they thereby have an unproblematic place in physicalist metaphysics. I argue, in contrast, that there can be a sense in which the Russellian’s (...) inscrutables are experience-specific in a way that a physicalist probably ought to find objectionable, even if they play some role other than grounding experience. This will be the case, I argue, if certain worlds are taken to be possible, as they sometimes have: worlds of “bare structure” and worlds with what might be called “swapped inscrutables”. In this way, I claim that accepting certain possibilities has consequences for how one should understand the nature of the Russellian’s inscrutables and the place they have in physicalist metaphysics. (shrink)