Abstract

The 1964 Congress of the Australasian Association of Philosophy was the occasion for the delivery of the five major papers in this volume. Comments by J. J. C. Smart on four of the papers are included, since, not surprisingly, discussion of the identity theory was centered almost exclusively around Smart's formulation of it. Of the four papers upon which Smart commented, three are very critical of the identity theory while the fourth is sympathetic but uncommitted. The fifth paper, "Ryle and the Mechanical Hypothesis," is a greatly expanded version of the paper Brian Medlin read to the Congress. Medlin's paper is largely an ad hoc defense of central state materialism against objections which might be raised by a Rylean. Rollins and Herbst have added replies to Medlin's paper; Herbst's comments are, in particular, quite acute in the way in which they bring out the ideological undersurface of the identity theory. In the critical papers, Gunner argues that Smart has not sufficiently clarified the notion of identity so as to make the thesis meaningful; Rollins argues that Smart has failed to notice the context-dependency of an explanation, i.e., an explanation is an explanation for some--but not necessarily all--purposes; Herbst suggests that Smart has given no intelligible account of how the identity theory could be verified without begging the question. In his "Comments" Smart reaffirms his faith in physicalism and announces his recent conversion to a Feyerabendian contextual account of a truth. This conversion solves all the difficulties of the theory. The effects are inconclusive, when not evasive.--E. A. R.