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A Defense of Common Sense Dualism Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE 12-2013 Putting the Ghost Back in the Machine: A Defense of Common Sense Dualism Matthew Andrew Skene Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Skene, Matthew Andrew, "Putting the Ghost Back in the Machine: A Defense of Common Sense Dualism" (2013). Dissertations - ALL. 25. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/25 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dissertation: Putting the Ghost Back in the Machine: A Defense of Common Sense Dualism Abstract: Gilbert Ryle once ridiculed substance dualism, describing it as the view that we are a “ghost in the machine.” Since that time, substance dualism has found few defenders, and a presumption toward naturalism has dominated philosophical inquiry. Here, I offer an unapologetic defense this unfashionable view of the self. To do so, I first explain why philosophy should endorse a shift in method away from naturalism and toward common sense philosophy. I then show how, from within that approach, substance dualism is far better supported than its competitors. My defense of the common sense method rests heavily on an account of justification and of evidence defended by Michael Huemer, and results in the view that we should give strong presumptive weight to common sense. I proceed to argue that a commitment to active, immaterial minds is built into the conception of human nature used in everyday life, and therefore qualifies as a tenet of common sense. This fact gives a strong presumption to dualism. I finish by considering objections to dualism, and showing that they not only fail to overcome this strong presumption, but would fail to overcome even a moderate conservatism with regard to beliefs about the nature of the mind. Putting the Ghost Back in the Machine: A Defense of Common Sense Dualism by Matthew Skene Degrees Earned B.A., University of Colorado, Boulder, 2002 Ph.D., Syracuse University, 2013 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy. Syracuse University December, 2013 Copyright © Matthew Skene, 2013 Chapter 2 of this work is a slightly extended and modified version of a paper originally appearing in Philosophical Studies in March, 2013 vol. 163, number 2. Reused with permission. All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my committee members, Robert van Gulick, Andre Gallois, Michael Huemer, Kris McDaniel, and Mark Heller for all of their work in helping me complete the dissertation. I would also like to thank Jordon Dodd, Deke Gould, Andrew Corsa, and those who attended a pair of ABD talks at Syracuse University for comments on earlier versions of chapters of this dissertation. I would like to thank all of those people who talked through these ideas with me and helped me these issues. While there are numerous such people, including those already mentioned, I would particularly like to thank Saikat Guha for continually beating me in arguments and forcing me to try to come up with ones that could stand up during our discussions. You are missed, and I only wish you were here to see the final result. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Andi Skene, for all of her patience while I completed this work and for all of her love and support. iv Analytical Contents Section I: In Defense of Common Sense Philosophy Chapter 1: Philosophical Error and the Economics of Belief Formation 1.1: I begin by discussing some recent work in medical meta-research and in cognitive psychology about the effectiveness of academic research. John Ioannidis has argued to the satisfaction of most of his colleagues that the majority of positive findings published in peer reviewed academic medical journals are false. He claims that a large number of influences, including financial influences facing researchers and journals, and cognitive biases influencing research demonstrate that the majority of positive findings in medical research are actually false. In addition, work in cognitive psychology has shown that academics tend to be both less accurate than they believe and far more confident about their beliefs than the evidence warrants. The incentives faced by researchers, and the subconscious cognitive influences held by researchers both suggest that success rates of published work in potentially every intellectual discipline are likely to be far lower than generally believed. 1.2 I continue by discussing some recent work in behavioral economics by Bryan Caplan. Caplan discusses the issue of political error, and contends that the primary cause of poor policies in democratic societies derives from voter irrationality. Caplan’s account of this phenomena rests in a general account of irrational belief formation which he calls “rational irrationality.” I discuss this work, and its apparent consequence that incentive structures we have over our beliefs likely play an important role in explaining the presence of widespread error in any number of areas, including academic areas with low costs of error. 1.3: I examine the consequences of the previous sections for academic philosophy, and find that the results are not good. Academic philosophers face incentives that are worse than the average voter, and that incentivize certain types of error in the field. In addition, the discipline has fewer checks against error than other disciplines, and therefore is more likely to accept methods of belief formation that are subject to the problems that face other academic disciplines. 1.4: I provide an account of the mechanism by which non-epistemic incentives can infect academic research in philosophy. Specifically, I claim that the most likely cause of error in the field is the presence of under-scrutinized presuppositions of method endorsed by various philosophical fields. I explain how, given the presence of the incentives discussed in the previous section, presuppositions of method that permit the acceptance of beliefs that fulfill these incentives will lead to profligate but inaccurate literatures, and will appear to be sound to those who engage in them at the time. This account gives rise to a need among philosophers to critically evaluate the methodological assumptions we use in philosophical practice. 1.5: I begin that investigation by looking at the nature of arguments, and explaining why it is likely that philosophers dramatically over-estimate the evidential relevance of philosophical arguments as sources of evidence. This over-estimation of the relevance of arguments is a wide- spread philosophical error built into nearly every philosophical method. In addition, it is the type of error that fits the incentive structure described above. I conclude by suggesting that this v example gives us more reason to carefully reflect on even the most widely held presuppositions of philosophy. I also suggest that the right place to begin that investigation is with a good account of the nature of evidence. Chapter 2: Evidence and Epistemic Justification 2.1: I begin to defend the account of evidence I endorse by examining Michael Huemer’s Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism (PC). Huemer’s principle states “If it seems to S that p, then S thereby has at least some reason to believe that p.” Huemer takes this principle to be self- evident. I explain the principle, and evaluate this claim. 2.2: I discuss Huemer’s self-defeat argument for (PC). Huemer believes that (PC) is a presupposition of rational thought, and that it is therefore impossible to argue against (PC) without assuming its truth. I consider two different versions of this argument, and explain why Huemer needs to accept a version that takes (PC) to be a necessary truth about the nature of justification. 2.3: I begin to explain why we should think that seemings are necessarily tied to epistemic justification. I provide an account of seemings that grows out of Huemer’s work. Specifically, I claim that seemings are propositional attitudes that serve the function of allowing us to add to our existing beliefs in a way that is guided by our epistemic aims. I explain why this shows that the possibility of epistemic rationality depends on the exitence of seemings, and why this suggests that we should think that, in the absence of defeaters, seemings must confer at least some degree of justification. 2.4: I consider a series of objections to Huemer’s position. First, I consider objections that suggest that only a limited subset of seemings confer justification, even in the absence of defeat. I argue that the proposed limitations to (PC) all stem from some misunderstanding of the principle, and that, in the absence of examples that fail to depend on such a misunderstanding, we should think that (PC) captures a necessary truth. Next, I consider objections that attack the broader epistemic framework developed in the paper. Specifically, I consider objections from John DePoe about the need for seemings as sources of evidence, an argument from Michael Bergmann objecting to the necessity of (PC), and an argument from William Alston against the connection between (PC) and deontological, voluntaristic accounts of justification. Chapter 3: In Defense of Common Sense Philosophy 3.1: I begin with an explanation of the nature of common sense. Taking my cue from Thomas Reid, I argue that common sense beliefs are presuppositions of ordinary thought and discourse. 3.2: I proceed to explain in more detail what common sense is, and how to identify common sense beliefs. Reid suggests that one can identify common sense by (1) examining the structure of languages for commonalities, (2) identifying unstated assumptions of every day life that are necessary to make sense of ordinary human action and interaction, and (3) identifying widely vi shared beliefs that seem to stem from surface-level, ordinary exercises of our intellectual powers, such as observation or intuition.
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