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Dialectic at a Moving Standstill: the Neurotic Midadventures Of
Macalester Journal of Philosophy Volume 13 Article 6 Issue 1 Spring 2004 5-1-2004 Dialectic at a Moving Standstill: The eurN otic Midadventures of Philosphy of Mind Dan Ganin Macalester College Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/philo Recommended Citation Ganin, Dan (2004) "Dialectic at a Moving Standstill: The eN urotic Midadventures of Philosphy of Mind," Macalester Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 6. Available at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/philo/vol13/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Macalester Journal of Philosophy by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dialectic at a Moving Standstill: The Neurotic Misadventures of Philosophy of Mind Dan Ganin Introduction Relatively recently, numerous philosophers of mind have espoused the epistemic intractability and impenetrability of both the mind-body problem and the problem of consciousness. While past and present attempts to theoretically resolve and circumvent these metaphysical questions have assumed many forms and postulated numerous conceptual paradigms (substance dualism, property dualism, eliminative materi alism, functionalism, mind- body identity theory, logical behaviorism, idealism, etc.), the fundamental problem of epistemic inexplicability has not substantially dissipated since the rationalist ruminations of Descartes and Leibniz. The nascent articulatio n of the epistemological insolvability of the mind-body problem that has so gravely and garishly confronted contemporary theorists of mind can, in fact, be found in the philosophical work of these two notable modernist thinkers. -
An Anthology of Philosophical Studies
Introduction AN ANTHOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES Edited by PATRICIA HANNA ADRIANNE L. MCEVOY PENELOPE VOUTSINA ATINER 2006 1 An Anthology of Philosophical Studies 2 Introduction Athens Institute for Education and Research 2006 An Anthology of Philosophical Studies Edited by Patricia Hanna Adrianne L. McEvoy Penelope Voutsina 3 An Anthology of Philosophical Studies PUBLISHED BY ATHENS INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH 14 Solomou Street, 10683 Athens, Greece Tel. +30 210 36.34.210 Fax +30 210.36.34.209 Email: [email protected] URL: www.atiner.gr This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of the Athens Institute for Education and Research. First Published: 2006 ISBN: 978-960-6672-11-8 Typeset, printed and binding by Theta Co. 4 Introduction Table of Contents List of Contributors i Introduction 1 Voutsina, P. PART I EPISTEMOLOGY 1. Imagination in Descartes’ Skepticism 7 Scholl, A. 2. Descartes on Sensations and Ideas of Sensations 17 Cunning, D. 3. The Myth of Hume’s Compatibilism 33 Morris, E.W. 4. From Contextualism to Skepticism 43 Wilburn, R. 5. The Puzzle of Self-Knowledge 51 Voutsina, P. 6. Unconfined Rationality: A Normative yet Realistic Model of 59 Inference Morado, R. and Savion, L. PART II METAPHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 7. Language as Community Property: What’s Wrong with 75 Chomsky’s Individualism? Hanna, P. 8. What do Concepts Consist of? The Role of Geometric and 93 Proprioceptive Information in Categorization Dellantonio, S. and Pastore, L. -
Stephen Lumsden B1 15.1.18
Stephen Lumsden, essay for Units 1-3, Program B: Philosophy Of Mind (Essay for Question 5. What is the philosophical significance of the idea of disembodiment and/or the idea of a ‘zombie’?) What is the philosophical significance of the idea of the idea of a ‘zombie In this essay I will briefly summarise the origin of the idea of philosophical zombies and explain what they are. Arguments for their relevance in philosophical enquiry will be then made in order to gauge whether they are a useful tool to use. The idea of a philosophical zombie is a fully functioning person who exists without any inner life or consciousness. This was first put forward by David Chalmers a form of thought experiment and goes as follows: P1: I can consistently conceive of a beings that are physically identical with us, yet have no conscious experience. P2: Conceivability implies possibility C: Therefore we are not purely physical beings In accepting the conceivability of the argument this implies possibility and therefore zombies are possible. In turn the possibility of the zombies will counter the physicalist view that consciousness can be solely defined in functional terms. In turn this can be seen as a victory for supporters of Cartesian Dualism (the idea that the mind is a separate immaterial entity which exists independently of the physical body, as outlined by Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy). This argument raises questions in relation to two areas in the philosophy of mind, namely that of Dualism vs physicalism and the problem of other minds. -
Qualia, the Heart of the Mind-Body Problem and Epistemology's
Augsburg Honors Review Volume 12 Article 4 2019 Qualia, the Heart of the Mind-Body Problem and Epistemology’s Quagmire Allison Mangan Augsburg University Follow this and additional works at: https://idun.augsburg.edu/honors_review Part of the Epistemology Commons Recommended Citation Mangan, Allison (2019) "Qualia, the Heart of the Mind-Body Problem and Epistemology’s Quagmire," Augsburg Honors Review: Vol. 12 , Article 4. Available at: https://idun.augsburg.edu/honors_review/vol12/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate at Idun. It has been accepted for inclusion in Augsburg Honors Review by an authorized editor of Idun. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Allison Mangan Qualia, the Heart of the Mind-Body Problem and Epistemology’s Quagmire Alio Maga, Augbug Univesty ualia are layered and complex, the basic philosophic understanding a labyrinth of a concept, of qualia today. We will see how Q rife with debate as to their consciousness is necessary for qualia, existence, state, and what they mean and why this makes defning qualia for our understanding of knowledge, a challenge. Next, we will go over the relationship with the world, and explanatory gap of qualia. From there, ourselves. Toughtful exploration into we will see how qualia relate to the mind- the complexities of what qualia are body problem, and the early exploration and how they relate to the mind-body of this problem through Descartes, problem will be wrestled with though Locke, and Berkeley. Additionally, we research applied within this paper. will go over the main schools of thought Qualia can be found in philosophical that surround the mind-body problem: debates surrounding epistemology materialism, idealism, and dualism. -
Russellian Panpsychism: Do We Need It and Is It Enough?
Russellian Panpsychism: Do We Need It and Is It Enough? By Damian Aleksiev Submitted to Central European University Department of Philosophy In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy Supervisor: Philip Goff CEU eTD Collection May 2016 Abstract The main aim of this thesis is to clarify the ontological status of phenomenal experience. In order to do this, I first examine how pure physicalism explains phenomenality. Pure physicalism relies on the structural and causal vocabulary of physics, and is compatible with the causal closure of the physical. Nonetheless, I argue that pure physicalism is false since it cannot account for our intuitive understating of phenomenal experience as something beyond-structural. I supplement these intuitions, first with the knowledge and conceivability arguments, and second with my own argument for the transparency of phenomenal concepts called the argument from solipsism. Then, I investigate Russellian panpsychism as a promising alternative to pure physicalism that attempts to solve its problems without any drawbacks. Russellian panpsychism places phenomenal experience at the fundamental ontological level, and at the same time remains compatible with the causal closure of the physical. Finally, I argue against Russellian panpsychism based on the combination problem, as well as my own: reverse conceivability argument, and combination problem for value. The conclusion of this enquiry is that neither pure physicalism nor Russellian panpsychism can provide a satisfactory account of phenomenal experience. CEU eTD Collection I Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor Philip Goff for his continual support and willingness to discuss my ideas during the entire academic year. -
An Introduction to Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so. -
The Knowledge and Zombie Arguments
Thought Experiments in Philosophy 5 1. The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism (1) If physicalism is true, then to know all the physical facts in domain D is to know all facts in D. “A complete account of what our world is like can in principle be told in terms of a relatively small set of favoured particulars, properties, and relations—the ‘physical’ ones. The world is entirely physical in nature; it is nothing but, or nothing over and above, the physical world. A full inven- tory of the instantiated physical properties and relations would be a full inventory simpliciter.”1 “Any world which is a minimal physical duplicate of our world is a dupli- cate simpliciter of our world.” “Every mental fact is entailed by the physical facts, i.e. by how the physical (or micro-physical) world is.” (2) It is possible to know all physical facts in D without knowing all facts in D: Mary the colour scientist. (3) Therefore, physicalism is false. 2. The Conceivability Argument Against Physicalism This argument concludes from the possibility of a creature that lacks subjective pheno- menal experience to the falsity of physicalism. Preliminaries (1) In our world, there are conscious experiences (mental realism). (2) A (philosophical) zombie is a creature that is a molecule for molecule duplicate of me, but it lacks subjective conscious experience completely. (3) Zombies are conceivable. (4) If zombies are conceivable, then zombies are metaphysically (absolutely) possible. (5) Therefore, zombies are metaphysically (absolutely) possible. (from 3 and 4) First way to complete the argument (6) If physicalism is true, then a physical duplicate of our world is a complete duplicate (a duplicate simpliciter). -
What Is Consciousness? Integrated Information Vs. Inference
entropy Article What Is Consciousness? Integrated Information vs. Inference James E. Cooke 1,2 1 Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience (IBN), University College London (UCL), London WC1H 0AP, UK; [email protected] 2 Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland Abstract: Any successful naturalistic account of consciousness must state what consciousness is, in terms that are compatible with the rest of our naturalistic descriptions of the world. Integrated Information Theory represents a pioneering attempt to do just this. This theory accounts for the core features of consciousness by holding that there is an equivalence between the phenomenal experience associated with a system and its intrinsic causal power. The proposal, however, fails to provide insight into the qualitative character of consciousness and, as a result of its proposed equivalence between consciousness and purely internal dynamics, into the intentional character of conscious perception. In recent years, an alternate group of theories has been proposed that claims consciousness to be equivalent to certain forms of inference. One such theory is the Living Mirror theory, which holds consciousness to be a form of inference performed by all living systems. The proposal of consciousness as inference overcomes the shortcomings of Integrated Information Theory, particularly in the case of conscious perception. A synthesis of these two perspectives can be reached by appreciating that conscious living systems are self-organising in nature. This mode of organization requires them to have a high level of integration. From this perspective, we can understand consciousness as being dependent on a system possessing non-trivial amounts of integrated information while holding that the process of inference performed by the system is the fact of consciousness itself. -
Empfindungsfähigkeit Und Moralischer Status Eine Kritik Der Pathozentrischen Ethik
Empfindungsfähigkeit und moralischer Status Eine Kritik der pathozentrischen Ethik Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie im Fachbereich A Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal vorgelegt von Erasmus Scheuer aus Düsseldorf Wuppertal, im Januar 2018 Die Dissertation kann wie folgt zitiert werden: urn:nbn:de:hbz:468-20180503-133904-3 [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn%3Anbn%3Ade%3Ahbz% 3A468-20180503-133904-3] alles bleibt wie es ist Geheimnis in einem Geheimnis Muster in einem Muster (Norbert Scheuer – Nichts) Meinen Eltern, Elvira und Norbert Scheuer Vorwort Der Pathozentrismus betrachtet die Leidens- oder Empfindungsfähigkeit aller, auch nichtmenschlicher Spezies als zentrales moralisches Kriterium. Diese Arbeit hat die pathozentrische Position zum Gegenstand und bewegt sich bewusst zwischen Kritik und Verteidigung eines solchen Ansatzes. Einerseits liegen die Schwächen des Pa- thozentrismus m.E. mehr oder weniger offen zu Tage, da die Kluft zwischen Empfin- dungen des Menschen und den Empfindungen anderer Spezies nur schwer inner- halb eines naturwissenschaftlich-physikalistischen Weltbildes überbrückbar erscheint. Andererseits vertrete ich als Verfasser dieser Arbeit die Ansicht, dass eine Erweiterung der Moralobjekte über die Menschen hinaus erfolgen muss, dass das Leiden anderer Kreaturen Teil einer jeden ethischen Betrachtung sein sollte. Der Pa- thozentrismus vertritt mit seinem Kriterium der Leidens- bzw. Empfindungsfähigkeit eine ethische Position, die vom Ansatz her eine Erweiterung der Moralobjekte an- strebt. Aus diesem Grund liegt meine Sympathie beim Pathozentristen. Infolgedes- sen versucht diese Arbeit, einerseits die Kritik am Pathozentrismus aufzuzeigen, an- dererseits dem Pathozentristen auch Argumente an die Hand zu geben, die es ihm erlauben, seine Position zu verteidigen. Der Pathozentrist hat nach meiner Ansicht zwei schwerwiegende und grundlegende Probleme, wenn er seine Ethik innerhalb eines tendenziell physikalistischen Weltbildes zu verteidigen sucht. -
Explaining an Explanatory Gap Gilbert Harman Princeton University
Explaining an Explanatory Gap Gilbert Harman Princeton University Discussions of the mind-body problem often refer to an “explanatory gap” (Levine 1983) between some aspect of our conscious mental life and any imaginable objective physical explanation of that aspect. It seems that whatever physical account of a subjective conscious experience we might imagine will leave it completely puzzling why there should be such a connection between the objective physical story and the subjective conscious experience (Nagel 1974). What is the significance of this gap in understanding? Chalmers (1996) takes the existence of the gap to be evidence against physicalism in favor of some sort of dualism. Nagel (1974) and Jackson (1982, 1986) see it as evidence that objective physical explanations cannot account for the intrinsic quality of experience, although Jackson (1995, 1998, 2004) later changes his mind and comes to deny that there is such a gap. Searle (1984) argues that an analogous gap between the intrinsic intentional content of a thought or experience and any imaginable functionalist account of that content is evidence against a functionalist account of the intrinsic intentionality of thoughts. On the other hand, McGinn (1991) suggests that these explanatory gaps are due to limitations on the powers of human understanding—we are just not smart enough! A somewhat different explanation of the explanatory gap appeals to a difference, stressed by Dilthey (1883/1989) and also by Nagel (1974), between two kinds of understanding, objective and subjective. Objective understanding is characteristic of the physical sciences—physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and so on. Subjective understanding does not play a role in the physical sciences but does figure in ordinary psychological interpretation and in what Dilthey calls the “Geisteswissenschaften”—sciences of the mind broadly understood to include parts of sociology, economics, political theory, anthropology, literary criticism, history, and psychology, as well as ordinary psychological reflection. -
1 the Many-Worlds Theory of Consciousness Christian List* Abstract: This Paper Sketches a New and Somewhat Heterodox Metaphysica
1 The many-worlds theory of consciousness Christian List* Discussion paper, this version posted 2 March 2021 Abstract: This paper sketches a new and somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. It drops the assumption that all conscious subjects’ experiences are features of one and the same world and instead associates different subjects with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct “first- personal realizers” of a shared “third-personal world”, where the latter is supervenient, in a sense to be explained. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ first-personally centred worlds are all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The theory offers a novel way of capturing the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the proposed lens and reconsiders the hard problem of consciousness. 1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to sketch a somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. The theory seeks to give an account of how consciousness, in the sense of subjective experience, fits into the world and how it relates to other, non-subjective features. To capture the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience, the theory drops the common assumption that all conscious experiences – yours, mine, and those of everyone else – are features of one and the same world and postulates instead that different conscious subjects are associated with different “first-personally centred worlds”. -
Philosophical Zombies and the Problem of Consciousness Peter Coxhead
Philosophical zombies and the problem of consciousness Peter Coxhead Conceivability and explanations The general argument on which this lecture is based is the following: Suppose we can conceive of some state of the world which does not actually exist. Then and only then we are entitled to ask for an explanation of why this state does not exist or what causes the difference between the state we have conceived and the corresponding state which does exist. “Conceive of” – here meaning more or less the same as “imagine” – needs to be considered more carefully than I can do in this lecture. Can I conceive of a square circle drawn on a flat piece of paper? No. Why not? Because nothing, real or imaginary, can be described as such a square circle. The meaning of “square” and “circle” are incompatible in this context. It’s not that I don’t have the ingenuity to conceive of such a thing or lack imagination; it’s that what- ever I conceive of or imagine cannot be correctly described as a square circle. So it’s simply foolish to ask for an explanation of why there are no square circles (drawn on flat paper).1 Can I conceive of the Earth in an orbit outside the ‘habitable zone’? Yes. There’s nothing linguistically or logically inconsistent about this conception. Hence I can sensibly ask why the Earth has an orbit within the habitable zone. Nothing guarantees that the answer can be obtained with our current state of knowledge or that if obtained it will be of any great interest or value.