Naming and necessity

A clutch of '-isms' characterises the approach to consciousness which David Chalmers defends: dualism, epiphenomenalism, functionalism, anti-reductionism, and -probably -panpsychism. (The author would no doubt want 'naturalism' included in the list as well, but as we shall see, Chalmers' predilection to describe his theory as 'scientific' stretches credibility.) While the book does not, as far as I can see, move consciousness research significantly forward, Chalmers succeeds admirably in clarifying the philosophical terrain around and within each of these '-isms' and in questioning the usual assumptions which suggest some of them are mutually exclusive. Because nearly all of what follows is highly critical, I want to be explicit about one thing: I do not think this is a bad book. Throughout, most discussions keep to a very high standard; it's just that they include fatal flaws.

The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory

The book is open acces and can be downloaded from: https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/1331

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Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies - Part 1

‘Real acquaintance’ is a special kind of intimate relationship subjects bear to their phenomenal qualities, in virtue of which: (i) a psychologically normal subject can know the real nature of one of her phenomenal qualities by attending to that quality, (ii) a psychologically normal subject is able to put herself into a situation in which, with respect to one of her phenomenal qualities, she is justified in being certain that that quality is instantiated. Our phenomenal qualities do not seem to have a physical nature when we attend to them; hence, if subjects do bear the real acquaintance relationship to their phenomenal qualities, we have strong reason to think that physicalism is false. This chapter argues for real acquaintance on the grounds that its existence explains certain facts about our epistemic situation with respect to our phenomenal qualities. Tghe chapter then argues against physicalism, with particular reference to the phenomenal concept strategy.

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Real acquaintance and physicalism.

I am very grateful to the Leverhulme Trust and the Isaac Newton Trust for an Early Career Fellowship (ECF-2015-088), which supported me while this research was carried out

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Powerful qualities and pure powers

Though physicalism remains the most popular position in the metaphysics of mind today, there is still considerable debate over how to retain a plausible account of mental concepts consistently with a physicalistic world view Philip Goff (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89(2), 191–209, 2011) has recently argued that physicalism cannot give a plausible account of our phenomenal concepts, and that as such, physicalism should be rejected In this paper I hope to do three things, firstly I shall use some considerations from ontology to rebut Goff’s argument and consider some objections and replies Secondly, I shall outline a version of a posteriori physicalism about phenomenal consciousness which draws on this particular ontology Thirdly, I shall give support to this version of physicalism by arguing that it marries well with prominent theories in cognitive science, and has important advantages over other versions of a posteriori physicalism

Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts: Bringing Ontology and Philosophy of Mind Together

The ontology of ‘powerful qualities’ is gaining an increasing amount of attention in the literature on properties. This is the view that the so-called categorical or qualitative properties are identical with ‘dispositional’ properties. The position is associated with C.B. Martin, John Heil, Galen Strawson and Jonathan Jacobs. Robert Schroer (2012) has recently mounted a number of criticisms against the powerful qualities view as conceived by these main adherents, and has also advanced his own (radically different) version of the view. In this paper I have three main aims: firstly, I shall defend the ontology from his critique, arguing that his criticisms do not damage the position. Secondly, I shall argue that Schroer’s own version of the view is untenable. Thirdly, the paper shall serve to clear up some conceptual confusions that often bedevil the powerful qualities view.

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John H. Taylor

Papers

Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts: Bringing Ontology and Philosophy of Mind Together

In Defence of Powerful Qualities