How to befriend zombies: a guide for physicalists

Philosophical Studies 173 (9):2353-2375 (2016)
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Abstract

Though not myself a physicalist, I develop a new argument against antiphysicalist positions that are motivated by zombie arguments. I first identify four general features of phenomenal states that are candidates for non-physical types; these are used to generate different types of zombie. I distinguish two antiphysicalist positions: strict dualism, which posits exactly one general non-physical type, and pluralism, which posits more than one such type. It turns out that zombie arguments threaten strict dualism and some pluralist positions as much as they threaten physicalism—indeed, more so, since such positions need zombies to motivate them as alternatives to physicalism—and that the only pluralist position that escapes zombie arguments has a radically inflated ontology.

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Bradford Saad
University of Oxford

Citations of this work

Qualia: The Knowledge Argument.Martine Nida-Rumelin - 2002 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The fragmentation of phenomenal character.Neil Mehta - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):209-231.
A causal argument for dualism.Bradford Saad - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (10):2475-2506.
Interactionism, haecceities, and the pairing argument.Bradford Saad - 2017 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (7):724-741.

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References found in this work

The character of consciousness.David John Chalmers - 2010 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Does conceivability entail possibility.David J. Chalmers - 2002 - In Tamar Szabo Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford University Press. pp. 145--200.
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Epiphenomenal qualia.Frank Jackson - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136.
The Combination Problem for Panpsychism.David Chalmers - 2017 - In Brüntrup Godehard & Jaskolla Ludwig (eds.), Panpsychism. Oxford University Press.

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