DOCSLIB.ORG

Idealism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Idealism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness IDEALISM AND THE HARD PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree ■pU'L- Master of Arts In Philosophy by John Ishmael Odito San Francisco, California May 2015 Copyright by John Ishmael Odito 2015 CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Idealism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness by John Ishmael Odito and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree Master of Arts in Philosophy at San Francisco State University. Carlos Montemayor, Ph.D Associate Professor Alice Sowaal Ph.D Associate Professor David Landy, Ph.D Associate Professor Idealism and the Hard Problem of Consciousness John Ishmael Odito San Francisco, California 2015 In this paper I argue that consciousness is both epistemically and metaphysically primitive, and I offer reasons why, given David Chalmers’ commitment to a certain view of fundamentalism, he should reject both reductive and nonreductive explanations of consciousness. I then offer reasons why I think idealism is a better resource for understanding consciousness, and I explain how I can advocate idealism on the basis of the epistemic and metaphysical primitiveness of consciousness. Finally, I give a reason for why idealism is a better alternative to dualist views. I certify that the Abstract is a correct representation of the content of this Thesis Chair, Thesis Committee Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank my father, Chris Odito, and my mother, Doris Odito for instilling in me the curiosity and adventurousness that has led to my formal study of philosophy. I would also like to thank professors Carlos Montemayor, David Landy and Alice Sowaal for their support and guidance in developing this thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction................................................................................................................................ 1 Section 1.....................................................................................................................................7 A. Consciousness is epistemically primitive..............................................................9 B. Consciousness is metaphysically primitive..........................................................12 Section 2................................................................................................................................... 17 A. Why I believe that idealism is true given the preceding reflections .................17 B. How I can have an idealist view that is based on the epistemic and metaphysical primitiveness of consciousness........................................................ 19 C. Why idealism is better than other dualist view s.................................................20 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................21 Bibliography........................................................................................................................... 22 1 Introduction David Chalmers has a specific formulation of the hard problem of consciousness in his paper “Consciousness and its Place in Nature”: There is no question that experience is closely associated with physical processes in systems such as brains. It seems that physical processes give rise to experience, at least in the sense that producing a physical system (such as a brain) with the right physical properties inevitably yields corresponding states of experience. But how and why do physical processes give rise to experience? Why do not these processes take place “in the dark, ” without any accompanying states of experience? This is the central mystery of consciousness.1 I agree with Chalmers’ claim that this is the central mystery of consciousness. Chalmers also thinks that, true to its title, the “hard problem” is so hard that reductive explanations of this problem all fail.21 also agree with him about this claim as well. A reductive explanation of consciousness, as Chalmers defines it, explains how and why it is that physical processes are associated with experience wholly on the basis of physical principles that do not themselves make any appeal to consciousness.3 A nonreductive explanation is one in which consciousness (or principles involving consciousness) is 1 David Chalmers, “Consciousness and its Place in Nature, ” in Blackwell Guide to 2 Ibid., 2 3 Ibid., 3 2 admitted as a basic part of the explanation.4 He gives an example of a reductive explanation. He says: “To explain the gene, for instance, we needed to specify the mechanism that stores and transmits hereditary information from one generation to the next. It turns out that DNA performs this function; once we explain how this function is performed, we have explained the gene.”5 But he does not think that this type of explanation will work for consciousness, because consciousness, unlike the gene, is not a matter of the performance of a function. Rather, consciousness is a matter of experience, a matter of there being something it is like to be conscious. And this fact of experience cannot be explained in terms of functions.6 It is important to note here that there is a difference between the reductivist and the identity theorist. The identity theorist is the most reductive of the reductivists, but there are reductivists who are not identity theorists. The identity theorist holds that mental states are identical to brain states, but there are other types of reductivists who do not hold this. For instance, there are reductivists who hold that mental states supervene on brain states; other reductivists hold that brain states necessitate mental states. This is important to note because the identity theorist is but one version of the reductivist, and 4 Ibid., 3 5 D. Chalmers, “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3):200-19, 1995, 5 6 Ibid., 5 3 though Chalmers does not make the distinction himself, there are other alternative ways of being a reductivist. While there are at least two areas of convergence between Chalmers and myself, there is a further claim on which we diverge. Chalmers claims that where reductive explanations of consciousness have failed, nonreductive explanation will succeed7.1 disagree with this claim: I will argue that nonreductive explanation will fail as well. The reason I disagree with this claim has to do with a further claim that Chalmers makes in order to support his claim that nonreductive explanation will succeed. This claim is the following: experience is fundamental, that is, it cannot be explained in terms of something else: I suggest that a theory of consciousness should take experience as fundamental. We know that a theory of consciousness requires the addition of something fundamental to our ontology, as everything in physical theory is compatible with the absence o f consciousness. We might add some entirely new non-physical feature, from which experience can be derived, but it is hard to see what such a feature would be like. More likely, we will take experience itself as a fundamental feature of the world, alongside mass, charge and space-time. If we take 7 Ibid., 13 4 experience as fundamental, then we can go about the business of constructing a theory of experience.8 He articulates this idea even further in terms of the concept of ontological novelty in the “Interlude” in his paper “Consciousness and its Place in Nature”: If consciousness is not necessitated by physical truths, then it must involve something ontologically novel in the world: to use Kripke’s metaphor, after fixing all the physical truths, God had to do more work to fix all the truths about consciousness. That is, there must be ontologically fundamental features of the world over and above the features characterized by physical theory. We are used to the idea that some features of the world are fundamental: in physics, features such as spacetime, mass, and charge, are taken as fundamental and not further explained. If the arguments against materialism are correct, these features from physics do not exhaust the fundamental features of the world: we need to expand our catalog of the world’s basic features.9 My objection is that once Chalmers admits that experience is fundamental and novel, he is thereby also committed to the claim that we cannot have a theory of conscious experience at all, let alone a nonreductive theory of consciousness. This is 8 Ibid., 14 9 Chalmers, Consciousness, 28 5 problematic for Chalmers because he claims that we can have a theory of consciousness once we accept that experience is fundamental. Fundamentalism, as Chalmers depicts it, is the idea that if a feature of the world is taken as fundamental, then no successful attempt can be made to explain this feature in terms of anything simpler: Although a remarkable number of phenomena have turned out to be explicable wholly in terms of entities simpler than themselves, this is not universal. In physics, it occasionally happens that an entity has to be taken as fundamental. Fundamental entities are not explained in terms o f anything simpler. Instead, one takes them as basic, and gives a theory of how they relate to everything else in the world. For example, in the nineteenth century it turned out that electromagnetic processes could not be explained in terms of the wholly mechanical processes that previous physical theories
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Is Human Information Processing Conscious?
    CommentaryfVelmans: Consciousness The resistance against a natural-science approach to conscious consciousness is required for it. He considers semantic analysis experience reminds one also of the great debate a century ago of novel word combinations, on-line analysis of speech, learn- between Darwinians and creationists. Darwin's opponents ing, memory, identification, planning and control of complex clearly believed they were attacking not a mere scientific hy- novel action, and others, arguing in each case that these things pothesis, but a conception of human nature that would tear away can be done without consciousnessp. (This survey is the bulk of the last remaining shreds of human dignity. The contemporary his paper.) He concludes that there is no type of information resistance by Velmans and others to a straightforward natural- processing for which consciousnessp is required, and therefore science approach to conscious experience may be driven by a that consciousness plays no causal role in and does not "enter similar anxiety. But Darwin did not deprive us of human into" information processing, and is in that sense dignity; treating conscious experience as a normal topic of epiphenomenal.1 psychology and neuroscience will not do so either. The fallacy of this argument is equally simple. Even if Indeed, one can make the opposite argument: that denial of Velmans is right that consciousnessp is not required for any first-person conscious experience in other people may lead to a particular sort of information processing, it does not follow that profound kind of dehumanization. It comes down to saying that consciousness does not causally enter into information process- other people are not capable of joy or suffering, that as far as the ing.
    [Show full text]
  • European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, XII-2 | 2020 Santayana’S Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered 2
    European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy XII-2 | 2020 Democracy as a Form of Life Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered Robin Weiss Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2138 DOI: 10.4000/ejpap.2138 ISSN: 2036-4091 Publisher Associazione Pragma Electronic reference Robin Weiss, « Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered », European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy [Online], XII-2 | 2020, Online since 14 December 2020, connection on 15 December 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2138 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ ejpap.2138 This text was automatically generated on 15 December 2020. Author retains copyright and grants the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered 1 Santayana’s Epiphenomenalism Reconsidered Robin Weiss 1 Recently, it has become increasingly common to question the extent to which Santayana’s philosophy of mind can and should be identified as a kind of epiphenomenalism, as has traditionally been the case. Most scholars take Santayana’s epiphenomenalism for granted, and either assert or deny that he gives an argument to support it.1 However, others have questioned whether the evident similarities between Santayana’s own views and those of modern-day epiphenomenalists obscure more significant differences. I will argue that, indeed, Santayana’s views are potentially inaccurately captured by the term “epiphenomenalism.” However, I shall argue that this is true for reasons other than other scholars have given for this view. 2 The issue turns on what Santayana means by a “cause” when he denies that ideas are causes of action.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Swinburne's Arguments for Substance Dualism
    Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. MA by Research in Theology and Religion David Horner September 2018 Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. Submitted by David Horner to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of MA by Research in Theology and Religion in September 2018 This dissertation is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the dissertation may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. 1 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Jonathan Hill and Dr Joel Krueger for their support and encouragement in the writing of this dissertation and for their patience in trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to acknowledge the many conversations, on this and other topics, I have had with my friend and philosopher, Dr Chris Boyne, who sadly died in June of this year. I thank all my other chums at The Bull, Ditchling, for listening to my metaphysical ramblings. And finally, I thank my wife, Linda, for once more putting up with this kind of thing. 2 Abstract This dissertation is a contribution to debates in the philosophy of mind and of personal identity. It presents a critical account of arguments for substance dualism to be found in Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013).
    [Show full text]
  • William James's Objection to Epiphenomenalism
    William James’s Objection to Epiphenomenalism Alexander Klein*y James developed an evolutionary objection to epiphenomenalism that is still discussed today. Epiphenomenalists have offered responses that do not grasp its full depth. I thus offer a new reading and assessment of James’s objection. Our life-essential, phenomenal pleasures and pains have three features that suggest that they were shaped by selection, according to James: they are natively patterned, those patterns are systematically linked with antecedent brain states, and the patterns are “universal” among humans. If epiphe- nomenalism were true, phenomenal patterns could not have been selected (because epi- phenomenalism precludes phenomenal consciousness affecting reproductive success). So epiphenomenalism is likely false. 1. Introduction. William James developed an evolutionary objection to epi- phenomenalism that is still regularly discussed today.1 Perhaps because the classic passage where he lays out the objection is so pithy, epiphenomenalists have offered responses that do not, I will argue, grasp its full depth. I begin with a brief history of James’s own encounters with epiphenomenalism. Then I make use of more recent theoretical tools from evolutionary biology to un- pack his worry. *To contact the author, please write to: University Hall 310A, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1, Canada; e-mail: [email protected]. yI would like to thank Trevor Pearce and Elisabeth Lloyd for helpful feedback, as well as the US-UK Fulbright Commission, which financially supported this work. 1. More recent advocates of epiphenomenalism have included Jackson (1982) and Rob- inson (2004). An oft-cited successor to James’s argument against epiphenomenalism from evolutionary considerations can be found in Popper and Eccles (1977).
    [Show full text]
  • Santayana's Anticipations of Deleuze: Total Natural Events and Quasi- Pragmatism
    Abstract *O B NPOPHSBQI QVCMJTIFE MBTU ZFBS MJU- FSBSZ UIFPSJTU .BSL /PCMF OPUFT UIBU JO UIF XBZ %FMFV[F VOEFSTUBOET UIF SFMB- UJPOTIJQ CFUXFFO NBUFSJBMJTN BOE TVC- KFDUJWJUZ %FMFV[F iBMTP TPVOET DVSJPVTMZ Santayana’s MJLF4BOUBZBOBw'PSFYBNQMF UIFXPSLPG CPUI QIJMPTPQIFST iMPDBUFT IVNBO WBMVF JOBTPVSDFBUPODFJNNBOFOUBOEBMJFOw Anticipations /PCMFBMTPXPOEFSTiXIFUIFSUIFMFTTPOPG 4BOUBZBOBTPXOOFHPUJBUJPOXJUIIJTUFO- of Deleuze: EFODZUPIVNBOJ[FUIFOPOIVNBOHSPVOE PG FYQFSJFODF BMTP BOUJDJQBUFT UIF UISJMM Total Natural %FMFV[FDIBTFTXIFOQPTJUJOHUIFVOJWPD- JUZPGCFJOHw*OUIFQSFTFOUBSUJDMF *XJMM Events and BUUFNQUUPFMBCPSBUFPOUIJTiBOUJDJQBUJPO w UIFJNQMJDBUJPOTPGXIJDIJODMVEFBHSFBUFS Quasi- BQQSFDJBUJPO PG 4BOUBZBOB PO UIF QBSU PG %FMFV[F FOUIVTJBTUT BO VOEFSTUBOEJOH Pragmatism PG CPUI QIJMPTPQIFST BT 64JOìVFODFE Joshua M. Hall &VSPQFBORVBTJQSBHNBUJTUT BOEBEFDJTJPO JOGBWPSPG.JDIBFM#SPESJDLTSFDFOUJOUFS- QSFUBUJPO PG 4BOUBZBOB BT B iUPUBM OBUVSBM FWFOUwQIJMPTPQIFSPGNJOE Keywords: George Santayana, Gilles Deleuze, Essence, Event, Phantasm, Ghost, Epiphenomenalism, Philosophy of Mind, Pragmatism *O UIF QSFTFOU BSUJDMF * IPQF UP BSUJDV- MBUFUISFFJNQPSUBOUJNQMJDBUJPOTPG.BSL /PCMFTSFDFOUPCTFSWBUJPOUIBU%FMFV[FBU UJNFT iTPVOET DVSJPVTMZ MJLF 4BOUBZBOBw1 'JSTU 4BOUBZBOBQSFEBUFTNBOZPG%FMFV[FT NPTU GBNPVT JOTJHIUT ɨVT JO SFHBSE UP UIFJOìVFODFPO%FMFV[FPG64"NFSJDBO UIJOLFST CPUI%FMFV[FBOEIJTJOUFSQSFUFST IBWFCFFOSFNJTTJOGPDVTJOHBMNPTUFYDMV- TJWFMZ PO UIF 1SBHNBUJTUT BOE FTQFDJBMMZ PO$41FJSDF 4FDPOE POFDBOIFMQGVMMZ TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S. PEIRCE SOCIETY 270
    [Show full text]
  • Park, Sam-Yel (1999) a Study of the Mind-Body Theory in Spinoza. Phd Thesis. Copyright and Moral R
    Park, Sam-Yel (1999) A study of the mind-body theory in Spinoza. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2040/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] A Study of the Mind-Body Theory in Spinoza Departmentof Philosophy University of Glasgow A Study of Theory in Spinoza the pffindýBody by Sam-Yel Park A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in Fulfilment of the Requirementsfor the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy June 1999 C Sam-Yel Park 1999 Abstract A Study of the Mind-Body Theory in Spinoza by Sam-Yel Park This thesis investigates Spinoza's mind-body theory starting with the discussion of the diverse interpretations of his mind-body theory such as hylomorphism.,idealism, epiphenomenalism,and materialism. From the critical comments on inadequaciesof these interpretations, it turns out that Spinoza's argumentof the relationshipbetween the mind and the body should be understood as holding that there is a non-causalrelationship between the mind and the body and that they have equal weight.
    [Show full text]
  • A Type-F Monist Account of Phenomenal Consciousness
    INTRINSIC NATURALISM: A TYPE-F MONIST ACCOUNT OF PHENOMENAL CONSCIOUSNESS By LUKE ALEXANDER GORDON PALMER A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of Master of Philosophy Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham September 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT The aim of this thesis is to provide a theory of phenomenal consciousness which accords with both the science-friendly spirit of physicalism and the acknowledgement of panpsychism that phenomenal properties may be inextricably linked to entities, but with none of the problems associated with either type of model. Initially, physicalism and panpsychism are evaluated by the lights of their most serious problems, and solutions are offered to these problems from the point of view of a third kind of model: intrinsic naturalism, presented in the final chapter. This model holds consciousness to be among the battery of a functional system’s intrinsic (i.e. non-dispositional) properties. A definition is given, and defence made for the existence of these properties, and their compatibility with an otherwise physicalist ontology.
    [Show full text]
  • Where's the Action? Epiphenomenalism and the Problem of Free Will Shaun Gallagher Department of Philosophy University of Central
    Gallagher, S. 2006. Where's the action? Epiphenomenalism and the problem of free will. In W. Banks, S. Pockett, and S. Gallagher. Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? An Investigation of the Nature of Volition (109-124). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Where's the action? Epiphenomenalism and the problem of free will Shaun Gallagher Department of Philosophy University of Central Florida [email protected] Some philosophers argue that Descartes was wrong when he characterized animals as purely physical automata – robots devoid of consciousness. It seems to them obvious that animals (tigers, lions, and bears, as well as chimps, dogs, and dolphins, and so forth) are conscious. There are other philosophers who argue that it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that robots and other artificial agents may someday be conscious – and it is certainly practical to take the intentional stance toward them (the robots as well as the philosophers) even now. I'm not sure that there are philosophers who would deny consciousness to animals but affirm the possibility of consciousness in robots. In any case, and in whatever way these various philosophers define consciousness, the majority of them do attribute consciousness to humans. Amongst this group, however, there are philosophers and scientists who want to reaffirm the idea, explicated by Shadworth Holloway Hodgson in 1870, that in regard to action the presence of consciousness does not matter since it plays no causal role. Hodgson's brain generated the following thought: neural events form an autonomous causal chain that is independent of any accompanying conscious mental states. Consciousness is epiphenomenal, incapable of having any effect on the nervous system.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Epiphenomenalism
    Epiphenomenalism – the Do’s and the Don’ts Larry Shapiro and Elliott Sober University of Wisconsin, Madison Abstract: When philosophers defend epiphenomenalist doctrines, they often do so by way of a priori arguments. Here we suggest an empirical approach that is modeled on August Weismann’s experimental arguments against the inheritance of acquired characters. This conception of how epiphenomenalism ought to be developed helps clarify some mistakes in two recent epiphenomenalist positions – Jaegwon Kim’s (1993) arguments against mental causation, and the arguments developed by Walsh (2000), Walsh, Lewens, and Ariew (2002), and Matthen and Ariew (2002) that natural selection and drift are not causes of evolution. A manipulationist account of causation (Woodward 2003) leads naturally to an account of how macro- and micro-causation are related and to an understanding of how epiphenomenalism at different levels of organization should be understood. 1. The Weismann Model August Weismann (1889) is widely credited with disproving the Lamarckian theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In one of his famous experiments, Weismann cut off the tails of newborn mice; when the mice grew up and reproduced, their offspring had tails as long as their parents’ had prior to surgery. These results remained constant over many generations. Weismann saw the same pattern, and the same evidence against the inheritance of acquired characteristics, in the fact that circumcision over many centuries had not caused boys to be born without foreskins. He also thought that his theory of the continuity of the germ plasm threw further doubt on the inheritance of acquired characteristics, though it is worth asking whether this theory was evidence against Lamarckianism (as Gould 2002 argues) or merely assumed that Lamarckian inheritance does not occur.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Why I Am Not a Property Dualist by John R. Searle I Have Argued in a Number of Writings1 That the Philosophical Part (Though
    1 Why I Am Not a Property Dualist By John R. Searle I have argued in a number of writings1 that the philosophical part (though not the neurobiological part) of the traditional mind-body problem has a fairly simple and obvious solution: All of our mental phenomena are caused by lower level neuronal processes in the brain and are themselves realized in the brain as higher level, or system, features. The form of causation is “bottom up,” whereby the behavior of lower level elements, presumably neurons and synapses, causes the higher level or system features of consciousness and intentionality. (This form of causation, by the way, is common in nature; for example, the higher level feature of solidity is causally explained by the behavior of the lower level elements, the molecules.) Because this view emphasizes the biological character of the mental, and because it treats mental phenomena as ordinary parts of nature, I have labeled it “biological naturalism.” To many people biological naturalism looks a lot like property dualism. Because I believe property dualism is mistaken, I would like to try to clarify the differences between the two accounts and try to expose the weaknesses in property dualism. This short paper then has the two subjects expressed by the double meanings in its title: why my views are not the same as property dualism, and why I find property dualism unacceptable. There are, of course, several different “mind-body” problems. The one that most concerns me in this article is the relationship between consciousness and brain processes. I think that the conclusions of the discussion will extend to other features of the mind-body problem, such as, for example, the relationship between intentionality and brain processes, but for the sake of simplicity I will concentrate on consciousness.
    [Show full text]
  • Could Anyone Justiably Believe Epiphenomenalism?
    Could Anyone Justiably Believe Epiphenomenalism? Richard Swinburne [Swinburne, Richard, 2011, “Could Anyone Justiably Believe Epiphenom- enalism?”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, vol 18, no 3-4, 2011, pp.196-216.] Abstract: Epiphenomenalism claims that all conscious events are caused immediately by brain events, and no conscious events cause brain events. In order to have a justified belief in a theory someone needs a justified belief that it or some higher-level theory predicts cer- tain events and those events occurred. To have either of the latter be- liefs we depend ultimately on the evidence of apparent experience, memory, and testimony, which is credible in the absence of defeaters; it is an undermining defeater to a belief produced by apparent memory that it was not caused by a past belief, and to a belief pro- duced by apparent testimony that it was not caused by an intention to say what the speaker believes. A justified belief in epiphenomenalism requires either evidence about when conscious events occurred or evidence about what some theory that brain events are caused solely by physical events predicts, but epiphenomenalism rules out the avail- ability of the evidence of apparent memory and testimony on these matters. Hence only a rare individual scientist who could hold in her mind at one time the proof that a theory makes certain predictions could have a justified belief that epiphenomenalism is true. It follows that recent neurophysiological work in the tradition of Libet has no tendency whatever to provide a justified belief in epiphenomenalism. I Introduction I understand by ‘epiphenomenalism’ the theory that [X] all conscious events have physical events (viz.
    [Show full text]
  • Phil Mind Seminar Syllabus W 21
    Phil 296D: Phil Mind Seminar W 21 Prof Aaron Zimmerman Office Hours: By Appointment Office: https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/5972101028 The Evolution of Consciousness and the Development of Pragmatism I. General Description: The nature of consciousness (subjectivity, qualitative experience, what- it-is-likeness, etc) and the nature of agency (or control, will, volition, choice, decisions etc.) are the two most central issues in contemporary philosophy of mind. Though Pragmatism has come to be associated with anti-realist views of truth and reference, and coherence theories of meaning and justification, it in fact originated in the philosophy of mind and an approach to that subject grounded in developmental and evolutionary biology. Broadly speaking, pragmatists began to adopt a developmental approach to the will or our ability to control our behaviors and used this conception to define core components of consciousness and cognition: i.e. belief, doubt and those states of mind operative in the articulation and evaluation of philosophy itself. Indeed, James introduced the term “pragmatism” to name a philosophy that results from applying an account of belief grounded in evolutionary biology to debates over the nature of philosophy and its methods. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that pragmatism is experiencing a resurgence in the philosophy of mind as cognitive scientists have tried to integrate their work with what is known about the evolution of our nervous systems and have simultaneously come to recognize how much computation is devoted to action and how extensively action shapes perceptual experience. Our plan is to begin with this history and the intuitions that lead some philosophers to regard an organism’s consciousness as something that cannot be fully explained if we limit ourselves to the tools utilized by neurobiologists and other cognitive scientists: some philosophers, concluding from this that consciousness and/or agency are non-physical (dualism) and others concluding that consciousness is a fundamental force (panpsychism).
    [Show full text]