DOCSLIB.ORG

Mind-Body Dualism and Mental Causation

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Mind-Body Dualism and Mental Causation A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree by Examining Committee Members: ii ABSTRACT The Exclusion Argument for physicalism maintains that since every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and cases of causal overdetermination (wherein a single effect has more than one sufficient cause) are rare, it follows that if minds cause physical effects as frequently as they seem to, then minds must themselves be physical in nature. I contend that the Exclusion Argument fails to justify the rejection of interactionist dualism (the view that the mind is non-physical but causes physical effects). In support of this contention, I argue that the multiple realizability of mental properties and the phenomenal and intentional features of mental events give us reason to believe that mental properties and their instances are non-physical. I also maintain (a) that depending on how overdetermination is defined, the thesis that causal overdetermination is rare is either dubious or else consistent with interactionist dualism and the claim that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and (b) that the claim that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause is not clearly supported by current science. The premises of the Exclusion Argument are therefore too weak to justify the view that minds must be physical in order to cause physical effects as frequently as they seem to. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................ii LIST OF TABLES..............................................................................................................iv LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1. THE EXCLUSION PROBLEM......................................................................................1 2. HOW NOT TO SOLVE THE EXCLUSION PROBLEM............................................25 3. THE CASE FOR DUALISM AND THE NATURE OF REALIZATION...................57 4. THE MULTIPLE REALIZABILITY OF MENTAL PROPERTIES….....................100 5. THE NOMOLOGICAL IRREDUCIBILITY OF MENTAL PROPERTIES..............149 6. THE IMMATERIALITY OF MENTAL EVENTS....................................................198 7. MENTAL CAUSATION WITHOUT OVERDETERMINATION............................261 8. THE CAUSAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF THE PHYSICAL....................................292 9. THE CAUSAL EFFICACY OF THE MIND..............................................................344 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................391 iv LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Types of realization........................................................................................................95 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Spectral sensitivities of the three types of cone receptors in the human eye...............106 2. Wavelength distributions of two metameric lights......................................................107 3. Example of potential neural circuitry for opponent processing...................................112 4. Chromatic response curves for standard observer.......................................................113 5. Example of simultaneous chromatic contrast..............................................................115 6. Experimental set-up for the double slit experiment.....................................................329 7. Gradual accumulation of particles in the double-slit experiment................................330 8. Diagrammatic representation of the causation of lung cancer.....................................367 9. Diagrammatic representation of the causation of intentional action...........................372 1 CHAPTER 1 THE EXCLUSION PROBLEM It is a belief widely and firmly held that our minds have a causal impact on the world by affecting the motion of our bodies and thence the states of other physical objects in our surrounding environment. When a person gets up from the couch to rummage about in the fridge, it is, we say, their desire for food and belief that there is desirable food in the fridge (which are states of their mind) that cause them to stand up, walk to the kitchen, open the fridge, and have look around. Similarly, when one cuts one’s finger, it is, we say, the resulting sensation of pain (another mental state) that causes one to wince and say “Ow!” One of the most long-standing objections to mind- body dualism is that the assumption that the mind is non-physical makes it very difficult, if not impossible to see how the mind could play any role in the causation of such effects. In contemporary philosophy of mind, this objection has taken on the form of what is now arguably the main argument against any non-epiphenomenalist variety of dualism: the Exclusion Argument for physicalism. Roughly stated, the Exclusion Argument holds that since every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and the physical effects of mental events are not typically overdetermined (meaning that they do not normally have more than one sufficient cause), the fact that mental events cause physical effects entails that such events must themselves be physical in nature. Though often treated as a knock- down refutation of all forms of dualism that involve a commitment to the causal efficacy of mental events, I think that the Exclusion Argument fails to provide sufficient evidence 2 to justify belief in the falsity of such a position. The aim of this dissertation will be to substantiate this claim. The present chapter clears the way for the execution of this task by clarifying the central positions to be discussed in what follows and providing a more precise formulation of the Exclusion Argument along with a brief account of some of the historical trends that led to its emergence as one of the primary contemporary arguments against mind-body dualism. The chapter then closes with a short summary of the remaining chapters. 1. A taxonomy of dualisms and definition of physicalism While mind-body dualism comes in many different forms, the Exclusion Argument really only applies to those varieties of dualism that reject epiphenomenalism. This, however, leaves a number of different views open to the Argument that seem to have little in common other than their shared commitment to the idea that the mind is non-physical, the most prominent among these being: Substance Dualism, Neutral Monism, Dual-Aspect Theory, Materialistic Panpsychism, and Emergentism. All five of these positions hold (or are at least consistent with the view) that the mind is causally efficacious. Of these five, only the first (Substance Dualism) holds that mental and physical properties are properties of distinct kinds of substances. The remaining four positions are all substance monistic forms of property dualism. The first two (Neutral Monism and Dual-Aspect Theory) hold that the only substances are neither physical nor mental, while the last two (Materialistic Panpsychism and Emergentism) hold that all 3 substances are physical.1 Partly to simplify matters, and partly because I find it to be the most plausible of the various forms of dualism threatened by the Exclusion Argument, I’ll largely limit my attention in what follows to Emergentism, understood as the conjunction of the following five theses: (a) Mental properties (i.e., properties that things exemplify insofar as they are endowed with intentionality and/or consciousness) and their instances are entirely distinct from, irreducible to, and incapable of being fully explained in terms of physical properties2 and their instances. (b) Instances of mental properties have a causal impact on events in the physical world. (c) There is only one kind of substance in which both mental and physical of properties inhere. (d) All substances are physical substances. (e) Mental properties are exemplified only by aggregates of physical substances that satisfy certain conditions, such as exhibiting a certain complexity of structural and/or functional organization, or standing in certain causal relations to the surrounding environment. 1 In its classical, Spinozistic form, Dual-Aspect Theory is the view that the mental and the physical are two distinct attributes or aspects of a single substance that is intrinsically neither physical nor mental. It is distinguished from Neutral Monism by the fact that the latter allows that a substance may exemplify physical properties without exhibiting any mental properties (or vice versa), whereas according to Dual- Aspect Theory, all finite modes (or substances, if one parts with Spinoza’s belief that substance is one in both kind and number) have both a mental and physical aspect. Dual-Aspect Theory is hence a form of Panpsychism. It is distinguished from Materialistic Panpsychism by the fact that the latter holds that all substances are physical. 2 I.e., those properties that, in Jackson’s (1998, p.8) words, “are those that [(barring panpsychism)] we need to handle the non-sentient, they are broadly akin to those that appear in current physical science, [and] they are those we need to handle the relatively small.” 4 (a)-(e) exemplify a progressive winnowing of the various strains of dualism mentioned above. (a) is a statement of mind-body dualism; as such it is an essential commitment of any dualist view, including epiphenomenalism.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Block.What.Psch.States.Not.1972.Pdf
    Philosophical Review What Psychological States are Not Author(s): N. J. Block and J. A. Fodor Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 1972), pp. 159-181 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2183991 Accessed: 08/09/2009 16:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=duke. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Review.
    [Show full text]
  • Mind Body Problem and Brandom's Analytic Pragmatism
    The Mind-Body Problem and Brandom’s Analytic Pragmatism François-Igor Pris [email protected] Erfurt University (Nordhäuserstraße 63, 99089 Erfurt, Germany) Abstract. I propose to solve the hard problem in the philosophy of mind by means of Brandom‟s notion of the pragmatically mediated semantic relation. The explanatory gap between a phenomenal concept and the corresponding theoretical concept is a gap in the pragmatically mediated semantic relation between them. It is closed if we do not neglect the pragmatics. 1 Introduction In the second section, I will formulate the hard problem. In the third section, I will describe a pragmatic approach to the problem and propose to replace the classical non-normative physicalism/naturalism with a normative physicalism/naturalism of Wittgensteinian language games. In subsection 3.1, I will give a definition of a normative naturalism. In subsection 3.2, I will make some suggestions concerning an analytic interpretation of the second philosophy of Wittgenstein. In the fourth section, I will propose a solution to the hard problem within Brandom‟s analytic pragmatism by using the notion of the pragmatically mediated semantic relation. In the fifth section, I will make some suggestions about possible combinatorics related to pragmatically mediated semantic relations. In the sixth section, I will consider pragmatic and discursive versions of the mind-body identity M=B. In the last section, I will conclude that the explanatory gap is a gap in a pragmatically mediated semantic relation between B and M. It is closed if we do not neglect pragmatics. 2 The Hard Problem The hard problem in the philosophy of mind can be formulated as follows.
    [Show full text]
  • Mind/Body Overview
    Mind/Body Overview 1. Physics and Folk Psychology a. Physics: hard-nosed, particles, observables, repeatable b. Folk Psychology: Beliefs, hopes, desires, sensations, subjective, consciousness 2. Issues a. Ontological 1. What are mental states and processes? 2. What are physical states and processes? 3. How are the mental and physical related? 4. Example: Replace NS with silicon starting at retina. Still conscious? b. Semantical 1. Where do propositional attitudes get their meanings? Ex: Belief; Belief that p. 2. Where do qualia get their meanings? Ex: pain, red, warmth 3. Where do other terms get their meanings? Ex: horse, electron c. Epistemological 1. How do we know anything? 2. How do we know if something has a mind? (Problem of other minds) 3. How do I know my own mental states? (Problem of self-consciousness) d. Methodological 1. What are appropriate methods for studying psychology? 2. What determines their propriety? 3. Ontologies a. Substance Dualism 1. Descartes: Mind is a distinct substance from matter 2. Matter: extended in space; has length, width, breadth, and position. 1 3. Mind: essence is thinking; has no extension or position in space. 4. Reasons: how could matter ever use language or reason mathematically? 5. Problem: How can mind interact with matter, and not violate conservation laws? 6. Problem: Electrons have no extension or determinate postion in space. Yet physical. 7. Eccles and Popper: mind affects probabilities of exocytosis at all synapses b. Popular Dualism 1. Mind is a “ghost in a machine”; machine=body; mind=spiritual substance 2. Mind is inside body (probably brain) 3. Mind interacts with brain by some form of energy exchange 4.
    [Show full text]
  • The “Supervenience Argument”: Kim's Challenge to Nonreductive Physicalism
    The “Supervenience Argument”: Kim’s Challenge to Nonreductive Physicalism AUSONIO MARRAS University of Western Ontario [email protected] JUHANI YLI-VAKKURI McGill University [email protected] ABSTRACT. Jaegwon Kim’s “supervenience argument” purports to show that epiphenomenalism about the mental follows from premises that any nonreductive physicalist should find acceptable. Kim regards his argument as a reductio ad absurdum of nonreductive physicalism. We reconstruct and evaluate the latest version of Kim’s argument. We argue that the premises of Kim’s argument are much less innocent than they may appear. In particular, we single out for criticism an unstated assumption about the identity conditions of events, and we argue that this assumption could be seen as all by itself implying that nonreductive physicalism is false, thus begging the question against that position. It is also dubious, we argue, whether Kim’s unstated assumption is even consistent with one of the stated assumptions of his argument, “the principle of causal exclusion”, given a standard understanding of causal overdetermination. We conclude with some polemical remarks about the conception of causation presupposed by Kim’s argument—a conception that appears to depart from that at work in science and commonsense discourse. 1. Introduction1 Many philosophers have worried that physical causation may “exclude” mental causation—physical and mental causes “compete” for efficacy, and because of some principle (the causal closure of the physical domain, for example), physical causes inevitably “win”. This picturesque language is common, but explicit arguments, which identify prima facie plausible principles from which epiphenomenalism about the mental would logically 1 We would like to thank Ian Gold for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • A DEFENSE of NON-REDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM a Dissertation
    A DEFENSE OF NON-REDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Matthew Christian Haug May 2007 © 2007 Matthew Christian Haug A DEFENSE OF NON-REDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM Matthew Christian Haug, Ph. D. Cornell University 2007 I develop a novel formulation of, and argument for, non-reductive physicalism – roughly, the view that mental properties are natural properties that are realized by, but not identical to, neural and other low-level physical properties. Non-reductive physicalism has long been the dominant view in the philosophy of mind but has recently been challenged from two main directions. The first type of attack, the causal exclusion problem, points out an apparent inconsistency in non-reductive physicalism. The second type of attack focuses on the multiple realizability of mental properties: questioning either its prevalence or its efficacy in blocking reduction. In response to the exclusion problem, I first argue that one of the claims used to formulate the problem, the completeness of physics, has two parts and that there is no single domain of physical entities that is the smallest domain of which both parts are true. The conflation of these two parts has made it appear that non-reductive physicalism is inconsistent. I then show how to use the two completeness claims as part of an argument for a form of physicalism that need not be reductive. In response to the second type of attack, I provide a novel basis for the irreducibility of mental properties.
    [Show full text]
  • What Could Anti-Realism About Ordinary Psychology Possibly Be?*
    Draft for NYU Mind and Language Seminar, April 3, 2001. Not for further circulation. What Could Anti-Realism About Ordinary Psychology Possibly Be?* CRISPIN WRIGHT University of St. Andrews and Columbia University 1 Descartes observed that you could not lucidly doubt that you exist nor that you are a thinking thing. It would follow that there can be no lucid doubt about the reality of those psychological states and attributes whose possession is distinctive of thinkers, par excellence their being subject to the various kinds of doxastic and conative states involved in goal-directed thought. Thus it seems a short step from the Cogito to a form of realism about ordinary psychology. Yet many leading modern philosophers—for instance, Dennett, Stich, the Churchlands and, above all, Quine—have been united, notwithstanding other differences, in a tendency to scepticism about the reality of (explanation in terms of) intentional states. The connection with the Cogito explains why such scepticism seems like a contradiction of the obvious. It seems to flout the characteristic self-evidence of intentional states—the fact that a subject’s being in such a state is, as it seems, in typical cases effortlessly, non-empirically and non- inferentially available to them. Surely each of us does have—really have—beliefs, desires, hopes, intentions, wishes, and so on. Can't we each just tell that we do? Don't we do so all the time? * Specific acknowledgements are footnoted in the normal way but I'd like to record one general debt at the outset. My paper is in effect a sequel to Paul Boghossian's "The Status of Content", The Philosophical Review XCIX (1990), pp.
    [Show full text]
  • On Physical Multiple Realization
    ON PHYSICAL MULTIPLE REALIZATION BY RONALD P. ENDICOTT Perhaps no argument has done more to set the direction of contemporary philosophy of mind than the “multiple realizability argument.” First championed by Hilary Putnam and later reformulated by Jerry Fodor, the argument begins with the observation that a given psychological property can be realized by any number of diverse physical systems, and then ends with the conclusion that psychological properties are irreducible vis-à-vis the physical sciences.^ Its target, in other words, is type physicalism and the unity of science, as traditionally conceived. According to one popular criticism, however, the multiple realizability argument has been discredited by the fact that physical properties are also multiply realized} But this, I believe, is a mistake. While the criticism does serve to bring a number of important issues into better focus, it can be shown that the facts about physical multiple realization are perfectly consistent with the Putnam-Fodor style argument, and that, when such facts are rightly understood, they do not vitiate the original point about the irreducibility of psychological properties. /. Multiple Realization In spite of much talk about multiple realization, philosophers have generally been content to leave this central concept unanalyzed. I shall try to remedy this situation by indicating the two most salient features of the concept. First, there is the idea that a property is realized by a number of diverse states, which I take to mean that different state types can provide lawfully sufficient conditions for the instantiation of the multiply realized property. And second, there is the idea that among this range of diverse Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 70 (1989) 212-224 0279-0750/89/0300-0212 $01.30 Copyright © 1989 University of Southern California ON PHYSICAL MULTIPLE REALIZATION 213 states, there are no lawfully necessary and sufficient conditions for the instantiation of that property.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Mind Contents
    w 页码，1/177(W) Philosophy of Mind Jaegwon Kim BROWN UNIVERSITY Westview Press A Subsidiary of Perseus Books, L.L.C. -v- Dimensions of Philosophy Series All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © 1998 by Westview Press, Inc., A subsidiary of Perseus Books, L.L.C. Published in 1996 in the United States of America by Westview Press, Inc., 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 12 Hid's Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 0-8133-0775-9; ISBN 0-8133-0776-7 (pbk.) The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984. 10 9 8 -vi- Contents Preface xi 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Minds as Souls: Mental Substances , 2 Mental Properties, Events, and Processes , 5 Philosophy of Mind , 7 Supervenience, Dependence, and Minimal Physicalism , 9 Varieties of Mental Phenomena , 13 Is There a "Mark of the Mental"? 15 Further Readings , 23 Notes , 24 2 MIND AS BEHAVIOR: BEHAVIORISM 25 Reactions Against the Cartesian Conception , 26 What Is Behavior? 28 Logical Behaviorism: Hempel's Argument , 29 A Behavioral Translation of "Paul Has a Toothache," 31 Difficulties
    [Show full text]
  • Introductory Lectures: the Nature and History of Cognitive Science Chapter 4: Philosophy’S Convergence Towards Cognitive Science by Dr
    Introductory Lectures: The Nature and History of Cognitive Science Chapter 4: Philosophy’s Convergence Towards Cognitive Science By Dr. Charles Wallis Last revision: 9/24/2018 Chapter Outline 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Scientific Explosion of the Early 20th Century 4.3 The Logical and Mathematical Explosion of the Early 20th Century 4.4 The Rise Logical Empiricism 4.5 Logical Behaviorism 4.6 Three Problems for Logical Behaviorism 4.7 Identity Theories: Reduction Through Reference Equivalence Rather Than Meaning Equivalence 4.8 Identity Theories: Type-Type Identity 4.9 Two Arguments For Type-Type Identity Theory 4.10 Identity Theories: Token-Token Identity 4.11 Functionalism 4.12 Computationalism 4.13 Property Dualism 4.14 Eliminative Materialism 4.15 Glossary of Key Terms 4.16 Bibliography The 20th Century and the Semantic Twist 4.1 Introduction Recall that ontological frameworks provide a general framework within which theorists specify domains of inquiry and construct theories to predict, manipulate, and explain phenomena within the domain. Once researchers articulate an ontological framework with sufficient clarity they begin to formulate and test theories. Chapter two ends with the suggestion that oppositional substance dualists face two major challenges in their attempt to transition from the articulation of an ontological framework to the formulation and testing of theories purporting to predict, manipulate, and explain mental phenomena. On the one hand, oppositional substance dualists have problems formulating theories providing explanations, predictions, and manipulations of the continual, seamless interaction between the mental and the physical. Philosophers often call this the interaction problem. On the other hand, the very nature of a mental substance--substance defined so as to share no properties with physical substance--gives rise to additional challenges.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitive Science Results of Evaluations Physicalism Physicalism GQ 2.1 Discussion Ramachandran 2005, Ch
    Agenda Pomona College LCS 11: Cognitive Science Results of evaluations Physicalism Physicalism GQ 2.1 discussion Ramachandran 2005, ch. 1–2 Jesse A. Harris • Face blindness (prosopagnosia) • Capgras syndrome February 15, 2013 • Phantom limb Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Physicalism 1 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Physicalism 2 Physicalism Ways of being a physicalist In a nutshell Can cash out the relationship of mental states to physical ones Everything (mental) is physical! in whole host of (not necessarily mutually exclusive) ways: Physicalism Related to other doctrines, including materialism, often interchanged, but have slightly diUerent histories. 1. Identity variety 1.1 Type Brief questions 1.2 Token 2. Reduction 1. What are some intuitive motivations for physicalism? 2.1 Eliminative 2. How is it related to behaviorism? 2.2 Reductive 3. How does it diUer? 2.3 Nonreductive Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Physicalism 3 Jesse A. Harris: LCS 11: Cognitive Science, Physicalism 4 Type vs. Token Physicalism Ways to be a reductionist Terminology Reductive/Eliminative physicalism What is meant by the term type? How does it diUer from a Mental states are a mere Vction; part of a ‘folk psychology’ token? that can be eliminated once neuroscience is complete enough; Type Physicalism Mental states map onto or reduce entirely to physical ones. Each type of mental state is identical to a particular type or kind of physical state. Nonreductive physicalism Token Physicalism All is physical, but mental states cannot be explain solely in terms of physical ones. Each token of mental state has a physical realization.
    [Show full text]
  • The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism Author(S): Jaegwon Kim Source: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol
    The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism Author(s): Jaegwon Kim Source: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Nov., 1989), pp. 31-47 Published by: American Philosophical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3130081 . Accessed: 24/03/2011 08:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=amphilosophical. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Philosophical Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. http://www.jstor.org THE MYTH OF NONREDUCTIVE MATERIALISM Jaegwon Kim Brown University PresidentialAddress delivered before the Eighty-seventhAnnual Central Division Meeting of the AmericanPhilosophical Association in Chicago,Illinois, April 28, 1989.
    [Show full text]
  • It's All in the Brain
    It’s All in the Brain A Theory of the Qualities of Perception Jesper Östman Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies Umeå 2013 Umeå Studies in Philosophy 11 Department of Historical, Philosophical and ISSN 1650-1748 Religious Studies ISBN 978-51-7459-679-3 Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå www.idesam.umu.se Umeå Studies in Philosophy 11 It’s All in the Brain A Theory of the Qualities of Perception Jesper Östman Akademisk avhandling som med vederbörligt tillstånd av Rektor vid Umeå universitet för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen framläggs till offentligt försvar i Hörsal F, Humanisthuset måndagen den 10 juni, kl. 13:15. Avhandlingen kommer att försvaras på engelska. Fakultetsopponent: Professor, Howard Robinson, Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier Umeå universitet Umeå 2013 Organization Document type Date of publication Umeå University Doctoral thesis 20 May 2013 Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies Author Jesper Östman Title It’s All in the Brain: A theory of the Qualities of Perception Abstract This dissertation concerns the location and nature of phenomenal qualities. Arguably, these qualities naively seem to belong to perceived external objects. However, we also seem to experience phenomenal qualities in hallucinations, and in hallucinations we do not perceive any external objects. I present and argue for a theory of the phenomenal qualities, "brain theory", which claims that all phenomenal qualities we experience are physical properties instantiated in the brain, regardless of whether they are experienced in veridical perceptions or in hallucinations. I begin by more carefully identifying the phenomenal qualities, discussing how they are related to "qualia" and "phenomenal character".
    [Show full text]