ABSTRACT The exclusion problem is meant to show that non-reductive physicalism leads to epiphenomenalism: if mental properties are not identical with physical properties, then they are not causally efficacious. Defenders of a difference-making account of causation suggest that the exclusion problem can be solved because mental properties can be difference-making causes of physical effects. Here, we focus on what we dub an incompatibilist implementation of this general strategy and argue against it from a non-reductive physicalist perspective. Specifically, we argue that (...) incompatibilism undermines either the non-reductionist or the physicalist aspirations of non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Externalism about colour phenomenology claims that the phenomenal character of colour experiences is determined by mind-independent properties of perceptual objects. The structural mismatch argument shows that physical properties of perceived mind-independent things are not similar in ways that correlate with the ways in which the phenomenal character of colour experiences are similar. Structural mismatch has thus been perceived by some to demonstrate that correlative externalism (which takes mind-independent physical properties to correlate systematically with colour phenomenology) is false. This argument is (...) defused if there are broad physical properties that can bear similarity relations that do correlate with those held by the phenomenal character of colour experiences. I defend the view that disjunctive properties can perform this role by showing that disjunctive properties can account for metamerism, the unique and binary hue distinction, and differences in perceived colours between subjects. Finally, I argue that correlative externalism is better placed than other views to explain why the physical properties identified by the physical sciences correlate with colour experiences with the particular phenomenal character they have. (shrink)

This paper defends the case against (sparse) disjunctive properties by means of four Armstrongian arguments. The first of these is a logical atomist argument from truthmaking, which is, broadly speaking, ‘Armstrongian’ (Armstrong 1997). This argument is strong – although it stands or falls with the relevant notion of truthmaking, as it were. However, three arguments, which are prima facie independent of truthmaking, can be found explicitly early in Armstrong’s middle period. Two of these early arguments face a serious objection put (...) forward forcefully by Louise Antony (2003) and Alan Penczek (1997), respectively. I consider these objections and argue that they fail. Thus, even if the argument from truthmaking is indecisive, disjunctive properties should be rejected. (shrink)

Meinertsen has recently put forward three arguments against disjunctive properties: the arguments from truthmaking, commonality, and causation. In this paper, I argue that all three arguments fail. The argument from truthmaking rests on the problematic notion of different types of truthmakers and is therefore itself problematic. The argument from commonality may hold but only at the cost of losing much of the philosophical significance of its conclusion. The argument from causation essentially collapses into the argument from truthmaking and is therefore (...) problematic for the same reason as the latter is. I conclude that Meinertsen has not made a case against disjunctive properties. (shrink)

Proportionality—the idea that causes are neither too general nor too specific for their effects—seems to recommend implausibly disjunctive causes (McGrath, 1998 ; Shapiro & Sober, 2012 ; Franklin-Hall, 2016 ). I argue that this problem should be avoided by appeal to the notion of cohesion. I propose an account of cohesion in terms of the similarity structure of property-spaces, argue that it is not objectionably mysterious, and that alternative approaches—based on naturalness, interventionism, and contrastivism—are inadequate without appeal to it. In (...) an appendix, I show how my proposal can be perspicuously formalized by adapting structural equation models. (shrink)

The extensions of Goodman’s ‘grue’ predicate and Kripke’s ‘quus’ are constructed from the extensions of more familiar terms via a reinterpretation that permutes assignments of reference. Since this manoeuvre is at the heart of Putnam’s model-theoretic and permutation arguments against metaphysical realism (‘Putnam’s Paradox’), both Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction and the paradox about meaning that Kripke attributes to Wittgenstein are instances of Putnam’s. Evidence cannot selectively confirm the green-hypothesis and disconfirm the grue-hypothesis, because the theory of which the green-hypothesis (...) is a part has an unintended model in which the grue-hypothesis is equally confirmed; and there are no meaning-facts that determine reference, because the objects referred to by the referring terms of any language or set of intentional mental states are permutable in a way that is consistent with the truth-values of all other sentences in that language or beliefs in that set. The upshot is that the three paradoxes need to be solved in a unified way. (shrink)