Demystifying Emergence
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The Myth of Supervenient Microphysicalism
The myth of supervenient microphysicalism Juan Diego Morales1 (Universidad de Cartagena) So my aim is only to establish conditional claims of the form: even if certain facts are emergent vis‑à‑vis the microphysical realm, Physicalism can still be true. Papineau, 2008: 132 1. What physicalism is Let us begin with the idea that physicalism is the ontological theory which claims that the entities that constitute our world are physical enti‑ ties, phenomena which the physical sciences must discover and articulate in their theories.2 Following the naturalistic trend of philosophy in recent times, con‑ temporary philosophers have considered that physicalism is both an a pos‑ teriori and contingent thesis. Its a posteriori sense derives from the fact of being a position that tries to overcome the problems of its direct predeces‑ 1 [email protected]. My thanks to Alejandro Rosas, Brian McLaughlin, Reinaldo Bernal, and Larry Shapiro, for helpful and clarifying comments on drafts of this paper. 2 Here I will use the general sense of “entity” and “phenomenon” for including both particulars (as objects, events, processes, and so on) and what many theorists take as universals (as properties, relations, and laws). Philosophica, 48, Lisboa, 2016, pp. 47-61. Philosophica 48.indd 47 22/11/2016 9:26:50 PM 48 Juan Diego Morales sor, materialism. The latter was established as a metaphysical doctrine that attempted to specify the entities of our world in an a priori way, in terms of a specific set of features that supposedly defined the material; features such as conservation, deterministic and on contact interaction, impenetrability, inertia, and solidity.3 But this a priori specification proved to be wrong. -
Linguistics As a “Special Science”: a Comparison of Sapir and Fodor Els Elffers
Chapter 4 Linguistics as a “special science”: A comparison of Sapir and Fodor Els Elffers Independently of each other, the linguist-anthropologist Edward Sapir (1884–1939) and the philosopher of mind Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) developed a similar typol- ogy of scientific disciplines. “Basic” (Fodor) or “conceptual” (Sapir) sciences (e.g. physics) are distinguished from “special” (Fodor) or “historical” (Sapir) sciences (e.g. linguistics). Ontologically, the latter sciences are reducible to the former, but they keep their autonomy as intellectual enterprises, because their “natural kinds” are unlike those of the basic sciences. Fodor labelled this view “token physicalism”. Although Sapir’s and Fodor’s ideas were presented in very different periods of intel- lectual history (in 1917 and 1974) and in very different intellectual contexts (roughly: Geisteswissenschaften and logical positivism), the similarity between them is strik- ing. When compared in detail, some substantial differences can also be observed, which are mainly related to contextual differences. When applied to linguistics, Sapir’s and Fodor’s views offer a perspective of autonomy, albeit in different ways: for Fodor, but not for Sapir, linguistics is a subfield of psychology. 1 Introduction In 1974, Jerry Fodor (1935–2017) introduced “token physicalism”, a non-reductive variety of physicalism, which applies to “special sciences”.1 According to Fodor, special sciences, such as economics, psychology and linguistics cannot be en- tirely reduced to physics, which is a “basic science”. Such a reduction would im- ply that special sciences actually disappear as autonomous sciences. According to Fodor, special sciences retain their autonomy, because reduc- tion is possible only with respect to the events they describe (“tokens”), not with 1Token physicalism belongs to a larger class of non-reductive types of physicalism. -
On Interpreting Strong Supervenience
Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 12-1996 On Interpreting Strong Supervenience Zachary J. Ernst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Ernst, Zachary J., "On Interpreting Strong Supervenience" (1996). Master's Theses. 3475. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/3475 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ON INTERPRETING STRONG SUPERVENIENCE by Zachary J. Ernst A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of Philosophy Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan December 1996 Copyright by Zachary J. Ernst 1996 ON INTERPRETING STRONG SUPERVENIENCE Zachary J. Ernst, M.A. WesternMichigan University,_ 1996 J aegwon Kim's definitionof strong supervenience has found application in such areas as the mind-body problem, aesthetics, morality, and the relationship between physics and the special sciences. The main reason forthe popularity of supervenience is that it purportedly has a long laundry list of virtues. For instance, it has been claimed that supervenience accounts are non-reductive, capable of empirical verification, simple with respect to ontology, and explanatorily powerful. In this paper, I examine Kim's definition of strong supervenience, arguing that a fundamental ambiguity in the definition makes it impossible for strong supervenience to possess all of these virtues simultaneously. -
Studies on Causal Explanation in Naturalistic Philosophy of Mind
tn tn+1 s s* r1 r2 r1* r2* Interactions and Exclusions: Studies on Causal Explanation in Naturalistic Philosophy of Mind Tuomas K. Pernu Department of Biosciences Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences & Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies Faculty of Arts ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be publicly discussed, by due permission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki, in lecture room 5 of the University of Helsinki Main Building, on the 30th of November, 2013, at 12 o’clock noon. © 2013 Tuomas Pernu (cover figure and introductory essay) © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media (article I) © 2011 Walter de Gruyter (article II) © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media (article III) © 2013 Taylor & Francis (article IV) © 2013 Open Society Foundation (article V) Layout and technical assistance by Aleksi Salokannel | SI SIN Cover layout by Anita Tienhaara Author’s address: Department of Biosciences Division of Physiology and Neuroscience P.O. Box 65 FI-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI e-mail [email protected] ISBN 978-952-10-9439-2 (paperback) ISBN 978-952-10-9440-8 (PDF) ISSN 1799-7372 Nord Print Helsinki 2013 If it isn’t literally true that my wanting is causally responsible for my reaching, and my itching is causally responsible for my scratching, and my believing is causally responsible for my saying … , if none of that is literally true, then practically everything I believe about anything is false and it’s the end of the world. Jerry Fodor “Making mind matter more” (1989) Supervised by Docent Markus -
Philosophy of Science Reading List
Philosophy of Science Area Comprehensive Exam Reading List Revised September 2011 Exam Format: Students will have four hours to write answers to four questions, chosen from a list of approximately 20-30 questions organized according to topic: I. General Philosophy of Science II. History of Philosophy of Science III. Special Topics a. Philosophy of Physics b. Philosophy of Biology c. Philosophy of Mind / Cognitive Science d. Logic and Foundations of Mathematics Students are required to answer a total of three questions from sections I and II (at least one from each section), and one question from section III. For each section, we have provided a list of core readings—mostly journal articles and book chapters—that are representative of the material with which we expect you to be familiar. Many of these readings will already be familiar to you from your coursework and other reading. Use this as a guide to filling in areas in which you are less well- prepared. Please note, however, that these readings do not constitute necessary or sufficient background to pass the comp. The Philosophy of Science area committee assumes that anyone who plans to write this exam has a good general background in the area acquired through previous coursework and independent reading. Some anthologies There are several good anthologies of Philosophy of Science that will be useful for further background (many of the articles listed below are anthologized; references included in the list below). Richard Boyd, Philip Gasper, and J.D. Trout, eds., The Philosophy of Science (MIT Press, 991). Martin Curd and J. -
Emergence in Science and Philosophy Edited by Antonella
Emergence in Science and Philosophy Edited by Antonella Corradini and Timothy O’Connor New York London Contents List of Figures ix Introduction xi ANTONELLA CORRADINI AND TIMOTHY O’CONNOR PART I Emergence: General Perspectives Part I Introduction 3 ANTONELLA CORRADINI AND TIMOTHY O’CONNOR 1 The Secret Lives of Emergents 7 HONG YU WONG 2 On the Implications of Scientifi c Composition and Completeness: Or, The Troubles, and Troubles, of Non- Reductive Physicalism 25 CARL GILLETT 3 Weak Emergence and Context-Sensitive Reduction 46 MARK A. BEDAU 4 Two Varieties of Causal Emergentism 64 MICHELE DI FRANCESCO 5 The Emergence of Group Cognition 78 GEORG THEINER AND TIMOTHY O’CONNOR vi Contents PART II Self, Agency, and Free Will Part II Introduction 121 ANTONELLA CORRADINI AND TIMOTHY O’CONNOR 6 Why My Body is Not Me: The Unity Argument for Emergentist Self-Body Dualism 127 E. JONATHAN LOWE 7 What About the Emergence of Consciousness Deserves Puzzlement? 149 MARTINE NIDA-RÜMELIN 8 The Emergence of Rational Souls 163 UWE MEIXNER 9 Are Deliberations and Decisions Emergent, if Free? 180 ACHIM STEPHAN 10 Is Emergentism Refuted by the Neurosciences? The Case of Free Will 190 MARIO DE CARO PART III Physics, Mathematics, and the Special Sciences Part III Introduction 207 ANTONELLA CORRADINI AND TIMOTHY O’CONNOR 11 Emergence in Physics 213 PATRICK MCGIVERN AND ALEXANDER RUEGER 12 The Emergence of the Intuition of Truth in Mathematical Thought 233 SERGIO GALVAN Contents vii 13 The Emergence of Mind at the Co-Evolutive Level 251 ARTURO CARSETTI 14 Emerging Mental Phenomena: Implications for Psychological Explanation 266 ALESSANDRO ANTONIETTI 15 How Special Are Special Sciences? 289 ANTONELLA CORRADINI Contributors 305 Index 309 Introduction Antonella Corradini and Timothy O’Connor The concept of emergence has seen a signifi cant resurgence in philosophy and a number of sciences in the past couple decades. -
Causal Closure of the Physical, Mental Causation, and Physics
Preprint – Accepted for publication in European Journal for Philosophy of Science Causal closure of the physical, mental causation, and physics Dejan R. Dimitrijević Department of Physics Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics University of Niš Abstract The argument from causal closure of the physical (CCP) is usually considered the most powerful argument in favor of the ontological doctrine of physicalism. Many authors, most notably Papineau, assume that CCP implies that physicalism is supported by physics. I demonstrate, however, that physical science has no bias in the ontological debate between proponents of physicalism and dualism. I show that the arguments offered for CCP are effective only against the accounts of mental causation based on the action of the mental forces of a Newtonian nature, i.e. those which manifest themselves by causing accelerations. However, it is conceivable and possible that mental causation is manifested through the redistribution of energy, momentum and other conserved quantities in the system, brought about by altering the state probability distribution within the living system and leading to anomalous correlations of neural processes. After arguing that a probabilistic, interactionist model of mental causation is conceivable, which renders the argument from causal closure of the physical ineffective, I point to some basic features that such a model must have in order to be intelligible. At the same time, I indicate the way that conclusive testing of CCP can be done within the theoretical framework of physics. Keywords: Causal closure of the physical; Mental causation; Second law of thermodynamics; Physics; Probability distribution 2 1 Introduction At the beginning of his influential paper „The Rise of Physicalism‟ (2001), David Papineau, one of the leading proponents of the ontological doctrine of physicalism in our time, made a bold statement that “physical science has come to claim a particular kind of hegemony over other subjects in the second half of [20th] century. -
The Religious Naturalism of William James: a New Interpretation Through the Lens of Liberal Naturalism
Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Bunzl, Jacob Herbert (2019) The Religious Naturalism of William James: A New Interpretation Through the Lens of Liberal Naturalism. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/81750/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html 1 The Religious Naturalism of William James A New Interpretation Through the Lens of ‘Liberal Naturalism’ Jacob Herbert Bunzl Abstract: This thesis argues that recent developments in philosophical naturalism mandate a new naturalistic reading of James. To that end, it presents the first comprehensive reading of James through the lens of liberal rather than scientific naturalism. Chapter 1 offers an extensive survey of the varieties of philosophical naturalism that provides the conceptual tools required for the rest the thesis, and allows us to provisionally locate James within the field. -
Explaining Causal Closure
Explaining Causal Closure by Justin Tiehen The physical realm is causally closed, according to physicalists like me. But why is it causally closed? That is, what explains causal closure? The question has not often been addressed. In what follows I argue that physicalists are committed to one explanation of causal closure to the exclusion of others, and that this has profound consequences for how physicalism is to be defended. In particular, I claim that we physicalists need to give up on using a causal argument to defend our view. Whatever the problem with dualism is, it’s not distinctively causal in any interesting sense. 1. Following Jaegwon Kim, we can formulate the causal closure thesis as follows. (Closure): If a physical event has a cause at a time t, it has a physical cause at t.1 What’s nice about this formulation is that it makes transparent the logical relation between causal closure and another physicalist thesis: (P*): All events are physical events. For my purposes in this paper, I will treat (P*) as a commitment of physicalism.2 If all events are physical, then it trivially follows that whenever some physical event has a cause, that cause is physical. That is, (P*) entails (Closure). This entailment corresponds to the first proposal for explaining causal closure. According to the proposal, the reason 1 Kim (2005: 15). 2 There are in fact some nonreductive physicalists who deny (P*) and hold that mental events are realized by physical events, not identical with them. We could account for such views by replacing (P*) with (P**): All events are or are realized by physical events. -
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. -
The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness
entropy Article The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness Matthew Owen 1,2 1 Yakima Valley College, Yakima, WA 98902, USA; [email protected] 2 Center for Consciousness Science, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA Received: 10 June 2020; Accepted: 17 July 2020; Published: 28 July 2020 Abstract: Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem. This article surveys the threat each problem poses to IIT based on the different metaphysical commitments IIT theorists might make. Distinctions are made between what I call reductive IIT, non-reductive IIT, and non-physicalist IIT, each of which make differing metaphysical commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and nature of causation. Subsequently, each problem pertaining to mental causation is presented and its threat, or lack thereof, to each version of IIT is considered. While the lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening for all versions, reductive IIT and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining a commitment to the causal closure principle. -
Misunderstanding Davidson by Martin Clifford Rule
MISUNDERSTANDING DAVIDSON BY MARTIN CLIFFORD RULE Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________________ Chairperson Dr. John Bricke, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus. _________________________________ Ben Eggleston, Professor. _________________________________ Eileen Nutting, Assistant Professor. _________________________________ Clifton L. Pye, Associate Professor. _________________________________ John Symons, Professor. Date Defended: 07/12/2016 ii The Dissertation Committee for Martin Clifford Rule Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: MISUNDERSTANDING DAVIDSON ________________________________ Chairperson Dr. John Bricke, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus. Date approved: 07/12/2016 iii ABSTRACT The main aim of this dissertation is to offer, and to defend, an interpretation of Donald Davidson’s classic paper “Mental Events” which interpretation I take to be identical to Davidson’s intended interpretation. My contention is that many readers misunderstand this paper. My method for showing this will be, first, to give a brief summary of the surface structure, and the core concepts, of “Mental Events”. I will then begin to canvas exemplars of the main lines of (alleged) objection to what “Mental Events” has been supposed to contend. I intend to argue that these objections misunderstand either Davidson’s conclusions, or his arguments, or they require material additional to the position that Davidson actually lays out and argues for in “Mental Events” in order to follow. In the latter case I shall attempt to show that these additions are not contentions which Davidson shares by referencing further materials from Davidson’s work.