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Physicalism and the Challenge of Epiphenomenal Properties PHYSICALISM AND EPIPHENOMENAL PROPERTIES PHYSICALISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF EPIPHENOMENAL PROPERTIES By NEIL CAMPBELL, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University ©Copyright by Neil Campbell, August 1997 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ( 1997) McMaster University (Philosophy) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Physicalism and the Challenge of Epiphenomenal Properties. AUTHOR: Neil Campbell, M.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Professor Evan Simpson NUMBER OF PAGES: v, 149 ABSTRACT The following dissertation is an examination of arguments against physicalism. Physicalism is a thesis in the philosophy of mind that is constituted by two central claims: (1) the ontological claim that everything that exists is ontologically physical and that human beings are among such things; (2) the explanatory claim that all facts about human beings and all explanations of their behaviour are dependent on and determined by physical facts and explanations. It has frequently been asserted that there are properties that escape capture in physicalist accounts of human behaviour, thereby undermining (2). Such properties are usually thought to be lacking causal powers, and hence have been called "epiphenomenal." The epiphenomenalist objections have long been thought to represent a serious obstacle to physicalism. My aim is to show that the objections that are motivated by epiphenomena} properties are unconvincing. My discussion proceeds in two stages. In the first stage I examine the epiphenomenalist objections in detail and show that in their most persuasive forms they demonstrate that physicalism has certain explanatory inadequacies. The critics of physicalism believe that these shortcomings lead to the denial of the explanatory completeness of physicalism, and I try to make their case as charitably as I can. In the second stage of the argument I invoke the relation of psycho-physical supervenience and show that the desired conclusion does not follow, even if we admit that physicalism has ll certain explanatory failings. The overall conclusion ofthis dissertation is that the epiphenomenalist objections to physicalism are completely undermined and hence that properties which were thought to be epiphenomena! do not represent a serious obstacle to physicalisrn as was previously thought. My intention is that this discussion push forward work in the philosophy of mind and point the way to a more adequate articulation of physicalisrn. ill Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to those who have served on my thesis committee for their insightful comments, guidance, and support. This is especially true in the case of Evan Simpson, who has taken a great deal of care and thought in his criticisms of earlier drafts of this thesis, and for which I am extremely grateful. My work is much more precise and has taken more interesting directions as a result of Evan's suggestions. I would also like to thank Evan for the opportunity to serve as his research assistant in 1996. My work with Evan on the course in the philosophy of mind provided the occasion to develop some common philosophical ground between us and was very helpful to my research. I would also like to express my thanks to a very special circle of friends who have made my research at McMaster one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life.You all know who you are. Thanks also to my parents Janis Hoogstraten and Colin Campbell, and my adopted "Aunties" Jane and Sandy for their encouragement and all of those Thai dinners when the writing got to be too much. Special thanks to Stan Clarke, a dear friend and mentor. And thanks also to Melissa Otto, who happily entered my life toward the end of my research and played a significant role in sustaining my sanity throughout the stresses associated with the final stages of my Ph.D. Finally, I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for their financial support which made a tremendous difference to my ability to finish my research on time. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................... 1-16 Chapter 2: Anomalous Monism and Epiphenomenalism ................................... 17-57 1. The Standard Objection to Anomalous Monism ................................21-36 2. Reformulating the Epiphenomenalist Objection ................................ .36-57 Chapter 3: The Problem of Qualia ........................................................... .58-94 1. Inverted Qualia ......................................................................62-77 2. Jackson's Knowledge Argument ................................................78-94 Chapter 4: Supervenience ....................................................................95-132 1. Supervenience and Dependence ................................................99-118 2. Supervenience and Explanatory Completeness ...............................118-132 Chapter 5: Conclusions and Further Problems ........................................... 133-139 Bibliography ................................................................................. 142-149 v Chapter 1 Introduction The "mind-body problem" as such is no longer of great concern to contemporary philosophers. I suspect this is due to the growing consensus that some form of physicalism is true, and thus that questions about ontology are no longer of great interest.I However, this does not mean that philosophers have stopped worrying about the mind. On the contrary, the number of recent books and articles by philosophers on consciousness indicates that the "philosophy of mind" remains at the forefront ofAnglo-American analytic philosophy. Since most philosophers are convinced of the truth of physicalism much work in the philosophy of mind is concerned with working out the details of how conscious mental phenomena are physically realized. Generally speaking, among physicalists there are two attitudes toward this endeavor. On one side there are theories that claim conscious mental states can be incorporated into a broadly physical explanatory framework, while on the other side there are theories that deny this is possible. The first group is constituted by theories that show that mental states are identical with physical states of the brain or body (Type-Identity,2 Token-ldentity,3 and with some qualifications, Functionalism4). The I For an example of this attitude see William Seager, Metaphysics of Consciousness, Chapter 1. (New York: Routledge, 1991). 2 U. T. Place, "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?" British Journal of Psychology 47 ( 1956) pp. 44-50; J. J. C. Smart, "Sensations and Brain Processes," Philosophical Review 68 (1959) pp. 141-156. 3 Donald Davidson, (1970b) "Mental Events," in Davidson Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). 4 David Lewis, (1978) "Mad Pain and Martian Pain," in Readings in Philosophy of Psychology Vol. l, ed. Ned Block (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980). 1 2 second group, which denies there can be a physical understanding of the mind, divides into two categories. First, there are the proponents of Eliminative Materialism.5 They claim there is nothing to understand about the relationship between mental phenomena and the physical sciences because there are no such things as mental phenomena. Beliefs, desires and other mental states are theoretical entities belonging to a theory of behaviour known as "folk psychology." Since, in their view, folk psychology is a false and misleading theory of human behaviour its theoretical posits will be eliminated along with the theory when it is eventually replaced by a more accurate scientific account of behaviour. Therefore, rather than worry about how to render "facts" about our "mental" lives consistent with our physical understanding of the rest of Nature, we should instead appreciate that there are no such facts to begin with. At the other end of the spectrum is the "New Mysterianism" which claims that due to contingent facts about our cognitive capacities it is conceptually impossible for us to understand how mental states are physically realized, even though they are physical phenomena.6 The philosophical terrain of physicalism is thus variegated indeed, but despite the fact that these theories all have different approaches to the mind and therefore have different conceptions of how it is physically realized, they all agree with the basic premise that physicalism is true. The view that human beings are composed of completely physical substance and that their behaviour is explainable in terms of physical concepts has gained wide acceptance and (as the range of different forms of physicalism attests) has become much more complex than the early materialism of Descartes' critics. This is in no small part 5 Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984); William Ramsey, Stephen Stich, and Joseph Garon, "Connectionism, Eliminativism, and the Future of Folk Psychology," in The Future of Folk Psychology: Intentionality and Cognitive Science, ed. J. Greenwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ). 6 Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1991). 3 due to changes in what science countenances as physical phenomena. The world of contemporary physics, with its fields of force and quantum indeterminacies, is a long way from the material universe described by Newton or envisioned by LaPlace. This is why most
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