Nagel and Burge on Intentionality and Physicalism by Gregory Goodrich A
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ASU Digital Repository Nagel and Burge on Intentionality and Physicalism by Gregory Goodrich A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Approved November 2011 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Bernard W. Kobes, Chair Michael J. White Owen Anderson ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY December 2011 ABSTRACT Given the success of science, weak forms of mind-brain dependence are commonly treated as uncontroversial within contemporary philosophies of mind. More controversial are the different metaphysical claims inferred from this dependence, many ascribing ontological priority to the brain. Consider the following three propositions: (i) neurological events are essentially identified by their role in material systems, laws, and causes that are constitutively non- rational; (ii) at least some mental events are essentially identified in virtue of their role in the use of reason; (iii) all mental events are realized by, identical to, or composed out of, neurological events. (i) is uncontroversial. However, (iii) is strictly materialistic. (i), (ii) and (iii) taken together appear incoherent. A fruitful task for philosophy is to resolve this apparent incoherence. In his 1997 book The Last Word Thomas Nagel offers an explication of reason that conceptually transcends the nature of material substrate. In his 2010 article "Modest Dualism" Tyler Burge offers reasons to think of propositional thought as irreducible to the concepts of the material sciences. Both focus on rationality as a unique form of intentionality. Both philosophers also reject materialism (iii). On their accounts it's reasonable to take 'rational intentionality' as exhibiting a logical priority of the mind with respect to the brain in inquiries into the nature of mind. Granting this, the diminished conception of mind presupposed by prevailing contemporary theories is seen to be the result of a more general failure to recognize the logical priority and intricate nature of rationality. The robust views of rationality expressed by Nagel and Burge constitute grounds for argument against even the i weakest form of materialism. I develop such an argument in this thesis, showing that the propositional attitudes exhibited in thought and speech preclude all materialistic notions of mind. Furthermore, I take the nature of propositional attitudes to suggest a perspective for exploring the fundamental nature of mind, one that focuses not on composition but on rational powers. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER Page 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 Critical Analysis of Traditional Approaches to Argument in the Philosophy of Mind ............................................................................ 1 Base Intentionality vs. Rational Intentionality ................................... 5 The Ineluctable Presupposition of Thought and its Objectivity........ 6 Qualifying Objectivity as it Relates to My Position ........................ 11 2 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK OF NAGEL AND BURGE .......................................................................................... 16 3 A REVIEW OF EARLIER APPROACHES TO RATIONALITY AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE NATURE OF MIND 20 Historical Antecedents ...................................................................... 20 Recent Antecedents: C.S. Lewis, Plantinga, Reppert ...................... 26 4 NAGEL’S REASON-FOCUSED EPISTEMOLOGY ....................... 35 An argument for its Determinative Influence on His Non-Materialist Metaphysics ...................................................................................... 35 Tying It In: Epistemological Implications for the Nature of Mind . 44 5 BURGE’S VIEWS OF INTENTIONALITY ..................................... 47 On Origins of Objectivity ................................................................. 47 Does materialism offer a ground for mental functions? .................. 51 Delineating Burge’s Dualism ........................................................... 52 iii Can materialism ground causal features of propositional thought? 53 Can materialism ground the structure of propositional thought? .... 56 Kobes: On Whether it’s Conceivable that Mental Events be Independent from their Neural Correlates ....................................... 58 Burge: On Materialism and Its Interpretive Tendencies Against the Real Nature of Propositional Thought ............................................. 64 Objectivity Considered: Can the materialist relate? ........................ 66 Further Consideration of Origins of Objectivity .............................. 70 6 A CRITIQUE OF NAGEL’S MONISM .............................................. 72 7 COMPLEMENTARITY OF NAGELIAN AND BURGEAN VIEWS OF RATIONALITY ....................................................................... 80 Agreement Broadly Construed ......................................................... 80 The Brain as Local and its Referential Capacities as ‘Context- Bound’ ............................................................................................... 81 Remarks Concerning Rationality as Grounds for Dualism ............. 86 8 CAN MATERIALISM ACCOUNT FOR RATIONALITY? ............ 88 Materialistic Evaluations of Intentionality ....................................... 88 The Epistemological Status of the Claim “Materialism is true” ... 102 Salvaging Mental Objectivity within a Materialistic Framework . 106 Materialist Implications Derived .................................................... 109 Against Materialistic Dogmatism ................................................... 110 9 BRINGING THE STRANDS TOGETHER ..................................... 114 The Central Anti-Materialist Argument ......................................... 114 iv Self-Examination: Has this argument for dualism committed an intensional fallacy? ......................................................................... 116 A More Definitive Modest Dualism .............................................. 127 Qualifications for this Modest Dualism: Substance and Dependence ......................................................................................................... 128 Rational Intentionality Applied: Traditional Objections to Substance Dualism ........................................................................................... 132 Anticipating Future Developments ................................................ 137 A Recapitulation of the Epistemic Strength of this Approach to Substance Dualism .......................................................................... 139 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 142 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Critical Analysis of Traditional Approaches to Argument in the Philosophy of Mind In the philosophy of mind two positions stand at polar opposites: materialism (or physicalism)1 and substance dualism. Materialism, defined in the broadest sense, is the thesis that all substantial forms of being are materially composed. Although use of the term ‘matter’ may be rather ambiguous within the material sciences, materialism’s stance unequivocally precludes belief in any immaterial substance. For materialism, all phenomena are de jure explainable as necessitated by, or supervening on, matter and its active forces; there is no other substance that is ontologically equal in status to matter since all is fundamentally matter. All phenomena, however greatly they differ from their original source, are explainable by reference to that original source. As such, all philosophical explanation of mental phenomena must appeal to the material brain and/or its surrounding environment. This position, as will be discussed below, varies in breed. However, there are those who do not, or cannot, concede to this position due to their commitment to mental phenomena as fundamentally distinct from the physical. Incidentally, these persons differ amongst themselves about the nature of mental phenomena and their relation to matter. Two positions exhibiting this 1 I will use the term ‘materialism’ in the sense in which it is interchangeable with ‘physicalism’. 1 latter contention amongst non-materialists are property dualism and substance dualism. Property dualism holds that mental properties are novel states, or events, that arise out of the material substance of the brain. Substance dualism holds that the mind is a sui generis substance from the material body, interrelated perhaps, but existentially independent. Property dualism differs from substance dualism in more than one respect. The disagreement is not merely about theoretical inference, but about theoretical approach. Property dualism, like materialism, begins by approaching the inquiry into mind beginning with the physical, with emphasis on empirical phenomena. Having assumed that there are no immaterial substances or causal powers, all hope and burden is placed upon material science to offer evidence for a conclusion that is already assumed. My general assumption is that a necessary criterion for any theory of mind is as follows: if a theory of mind is to be considered a reasonable account of mental phenomena, it must initially provide rational warrant for its theoretical treatment of mental phenomena by containing all logical features necessary for inquiry. We naturally take ourselves