The role of a functionalist account of phenomenal properties in Keith Frankish's illusionist position results in two issues for his view. The first concerns the ontological status of illusions of phenomenality. Illusionists are committed to their existence, and these illusions would appear to have phenomenal features. Frankish argues that functionalism about phenomenal properties yields a response, but I contend that it doesn't, and that instead the illusionist's basic account of phenomenal properties must be reapplied to the illusions themselves. The second (...) concern is that phenomenal properties would seem to be intrinsic properties of experience, but functionalism has them consist solely in relations. The nonfunctionalist option can recapture the sense that these properties are intrinsic. It can also preserve the intuition that they are causal powers in a robust sense, and thereby, perhaps surprisingly, provide a stronger response to the knowledge and conceivability arguments. (shrink)

In this paper I scrutinize the so-called China Brain thought experiment famously articulated by Ned Block to see whether it refutes functionalism as a theory of consciousness. I argue that it does not. Block’s case rests on a single premise, P, in the following argument: a creature with a China Brain would lack qualitative experience, despite its being a functional replica of you or me, and working under the assumption that we have rich mental life complete with qualia. Yet if (...) a China Brain-creature were truly and completely R, and yet P were true as the thought experiment purports to show, functionalism would have to be false. Since I want to reject that conclusion, I must do one of the following: deny that Mr. Li is truly R in the first place; grant that Mr. Li is truly R and grant that P, but deny that we have M; or grant that Mr. Li is truly R and grant that we have M, but deny that P. I opt for the third option. First, I paint a picture according to which Mr. Li's having M would not seem as implausible as it does at first. That is, I try to make the premise P seem less intuitive. But in case I am unpersuasive in this first approach, I employ a second tactic as well. This one is to suggest that we cannot know, even in principle whether P, so it is an irrelevant intuition upon which to base the China Brain attack. In any case, the China Brain fails to provide a true counterexample to functionalism. (shrink)

Functionalism, in one form or another, is probably at present the most commonly held position concerning the nature of mental states among philosophers. Functionalists all accept the basic thesis that mental kinds are functional kinds, and that what makes a mental item an item of a given mental type is the functional role it plays within a relevantly organized system. This chapter considers arguments meant to show that various forms of functionalism are unable to accommodate or explain some of (...) the real features of qualia, as well as functionalist replies to those arguments. The traditional idea of qualia is closely linked with the classic representational theory of perception. The most influential qualia‐based anti‐functionalist arguments rely on intuitions about certain imaginary cases or thought experiments, especially those involving so‐called “inverted qualia” and “absent qualia”. (shrink)

Empirical philosophy of religion is usually appraised in light of its theological uses, rather than in terms of its relation to philosophical forms of empiricism. The present paper examines the empirical theism of Henry Nelson Wieman by relating it to Carl Hempel's critique of functionalism, Karl Popper's use of falsifiability, and the growth of post–empiricist anti–foundationalism in epis–temology. It is concluded that Wieman's argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent; that his theistic perspective nevertheless offers an important heuristic device (...) in line with fal–libilism, and that his radical empiricism anticipates recent anti–foundationalist trends. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill considered his A System of Logic , first published in 1843, the methodological foundation and intellectual groundwork of his later works in ethical, social, and political theory. Yet no book has attempted in the past to engage with the most important aspects of Mill's Logic . This volume brings together leading scholars to elucidate the key themes of this influential work, looking at such topics as his philosophy of language and mathematics, his view on logic, induction and (...) deduction, free will, argumentation, ethology and psychology, as well as his account of normativity, kinds of pleasure, philosophical and political method and the "Art of Life.". (shrink)

This chapter argues that two distinct, yet connected, contexts – Mill's “mental crisis” and his task as a “Logician” – led to the formation of two arguments on the value of art. On one hand, Mill argued that aesthetic cultivation was important as an end in itself. Excellence was to be pursued disinterestedly as part of a beautiful life. On the other, Mill argued aesthetic cultivation was important as a means to the utilitarian end – strengthening the social sympathies (...) made social happiness attainable. The first argument highlights what Mill thought was missing from the theory of his utilitarian predecessors, while the second brought Mill closer to this tradition, rather than moving him further away from it. (shrink)

It is the purpose of this article to explicate the logical implications of a television analogy for perception, first suggested by John R. Smythies (1956). It aims to show not only that one cannot escape the postulation of qualia that have an evolutionary purpose not accounted for within a strong functionalist theory, but also that it undermines other anti-representationalist arguments as well as some representationalist ones.

My purpose is to examine the realism/anti-realism issue in the philosophy of mind and to lay the foundation for its resolution. To that end I formulate the issue in terms of Dummett's semantic criterion of bivalence, and the question becomes one of whether or not statements about the mind are determinately either true or false. I shall signify this formulation by capitalizing: Realism or anti-Realism. One of the virtues of this approach is that it is a clear and unambiguous way (...) of posing the problem in the philosophy of mind, where the traditional formulation in terms of a mind-independent reality is suggestive but inadequate. ;I then discuss two principal types of theories from the perspective of this issue, and examine in detail specific representative theories of these types. I find Quine's behaviorism to be Realist and Dennett's functionalism to be anti-Realist. I also show that Wittgenstein gives arguments against a certain kind of Realism about the mind which are similar to Quine's, but where Quine opts for a less problematic Realism Wittgenstein opts for anti-Realism. ;Finally, I offer some conclusions to the effect that it may not be determinately true or false that Realism about the mind is true or false, and so suggest the possibility of a second-order anti-Realism. To that end I try to make plausible the claim that there is no compelling reason to be a Realist with respect to the mind. A major motivation for adopting Realism in the philosophy of mind may be a belief in scientific Realism coupled with a tendency to import the same considerations into other areas of philosophy. Since I want to preserve the possibility of scientific Realism, I argue that the two issues are independent and that Realism about science does not entail Realism about the mind. (shrink)

I define two metaphysical positions that anti-physicalists can take in response to Jonathan Schaffer’s ground functionalism. Ground functionalism is a version of physicalism where explanatory gaps are everywhere. If ground functionalism is true, arguments against physicalism based on the explanatory gap between the physical and experiential facts fail. In response, first, I argue that some anti-physicalists are already safe from Schaffer’s challenge. These anti-physicalists reject an underlying assumption of ground functionalism: the assumption that macrophysical entities are something over and (...) above the fundamental entities. I call their position “lightweight anti-physicalism.” Second, I go on to argue that even if anti-physicalists accept Schaffer’s underlying assumption, they can still argue that the consciousness explanatory gap is especially mysterious and thus requires a special explanation. I call the resulting position “heavyweight anti-physicalism.” In both cases, the consciousness explanatory gap is a good way to argue against physicalism. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR and anti-realists/eliminativists. I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted (...) to the adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR and anti-realists/eliminativists. I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted (...) to the adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The present paper revisits the debate between realists about gravitational energy in GR and anti-realists/eliminativists. I re-assess the arguments underpinning Hoefer’s seminal eliminativist stance, and those of their realist detractors’ responses. A more circumspect reading of the former is proffered that discloses where the so far not fully appreciated, real challenges lie for realism about gravitational energy. I subsequently turn to Lam and Read’s recent proposals for such a realism. Their arguments are critically examined. Special attention is devoted (...) to the adequacy of Read’s appeals to functionalism, imported from the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The viewpoint that consciousness, including feeling, could be fully expressed by a computational device is known as strong artificial intelligence or strong AI. Here I offer a defense of strong AI based on machine-state functionalism at the quantum level, or quantum-state functionalism. I consider arguments against strong AI, then summarize some counterarguments I find compelling, including Torkel Franzén’s work which challenges Roger Penrose’s claim, based on Gödel incompleteness, that mathematicians have nonalgorithmic levels of “certainty.” Some consequences of strong AI (...) are then considered. A resolution is offered of some problems including John Searle’s Chinese Room problem and the problem of consciousness propagation under isomorphism. (shrink)

‘Molinism’, in contemporary usage, is the name for a theory about the workings of divine providence. Its defenders include some of the most prominent contemporary Protestant and Catholic philosophical theologians.¹ Molinism is often said to be the only way to steer a middle..

This chapter discusses the anti‐materialist arguments that purport to show that conscious phenomena are genuinely new, nonphysical features of reality. The anti‐materialist claims that zombies are indeed conceivable. To see why this might make trouble for the materialist, the chapter considers again what is supposed to distinguish materialism from property dualism. Given the characterization of the difference between the materialist and the property dualist, it becomes clear why the conceivability of a zombie counts against materialism. One of the most (...) influential anti‐materialist arguments is the one presented by Frank Jackson. Jackson starts by assuming that the thesis of physicalism entails that all information is physical information. The most straightforward physicalist theory is the Central State Identity Theory (CSIT). According to this view (Smart 1959) conscious mental states, such as pains or visual sensations, are identical to certain states of the central nervous system. The principal objection to this view is its inherent “chauvinism”. (shrink)

This paper discusses a wide range of anti-naturalistic argument from reason due to Balfour, Haldane, Joad, Lewis, Taylor, Moreland, Plantinga, Reppert, and Hasker. I argue that none of these arguments poses a serious challenge to naturalists who are identity theorists. Further, I argue that some of these arguments do not even pose prima facie plausible challenges to naturalism. In the concluding part of my discussion, I draw attention to some distinctive differences between Hasker’s anti-naturalistic arguments and the (...) other anti-naturalistic arguments mentioned above. (shrink)

I concentrate on difficulties met by Putnam's "internal" or "scientific" realism. They concern his attempt to reconcile pragmatism and realism. My line of argument is the following. A) By exploiting Putnam's argument against the "God's-eye view" and the Brains-in-a-Vat argument , it can be shown that the realism he is defending is either a too strong metaphysical realism or a too weak "residual" position. B) If it is a metaphysical position, then it contradicts Putnam's own views on GEV. C) If (...) it is a "residual" position, then in the context of a Theory of meaning for formal and natural languages, it is not more explicative than some forms of functionalism. The paper ends with an attempt to reconcile Putnam's pragmatism with a functionalist approach to epistemic features of "meaning," for the sake of a reconciliation between pragmatism and realism. (shrink)

Harman famously argues that a particular class of antifunctionalist arguments from the intrinsic properties of mental states or events (in particular, visual experiences) can be defused by distinguishing “properties of the object of experience from properties of the experience of an object” and by realizing that the latter are not introspectively accessible (or are transparent). More specifically, Harman argues that we are or can be introspectively aware only of the properties of the object of an experience but not the (...) properties of the experience of an object and hence that the fact that functionalism leaves out the properties of the experience of an object does not show that it leaves out anything mentally relevant. In this paper, I argue that Harman’s attempt to defuse the anti-functionalist arguments in question is unsuccessful. After making a distinction between the thesis of experiencing-act transparency and the thesis of mental-paint transparency, (and casting some doubt on the former,) I mainly target the latter and argue that it is false. The thesis of mental-paint transparency is false, I claim, not because mental paint involves some introspectively accessible properties that are different from the properties of the objects of experiences but because what I call the identity thesis is true, viz. that mental paint is the same as (an array of) properties of the object of experience. The identification of mental paint with properties of the object of experience entails that the antifunctionalist arguments Harman criticizes cannot be rightly accused of committing the fallacy of confusing the two. (shrink)

In the Anticipations, Kant defends the claim that all sensations must register on a purely subjective scale of response to stimuli, in order for sensation to be a possible source of knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Kant defends this claim in response to “scholasticism” or transcendental realism about sensation. The fact that all sensations are measurable on a subjective scale is the a priori content of the principle of the Anticipations, and, according to Kant, is a necessary condition (...) for building any systematic analysis of sensation. The anti-metaphysical arguments in the “Anticipations of Perception” are key building blocks of Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

This paper reassesses the criticism of the Lucas-Penrose anti-mechanist argument, based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, as formulated by Krajewski : this argument only works with the additional extra-formal assumption that “the human mind is consistent”. Krajewski argues that this assumption cannot be formalized, and therefore that the anti-mechanist argument – which requires the formalization of the whole reasoning process – fails to establish that the human mind is not mechanistic. A similar situation occurs with a corollary to the argument, that (...) the human mind allegedly outperforms machines, because although there is no exhaustive formal definition of natural numbers, mathematicians can successfully work with natural numbers. Again, the corollary requires an extra-formal assumption: “PA is complete” or “the set of all natural numbers exists”. I agree that extra-formal assumptions are necessary in order to validate the anti-mechanist argument and its corollary, and that those assumptions are problematic. However, I argue that formalization is possible and the problem is instead the circularity of reasoning that they cause. The human mind does not prove its own consistency, and outperforms the machine, simply by making the assumption “I am consistent”. Starting from the analysis of circularity, I propose a way of thinking about the interplay between informal and formal in mathematics. (shrink)

claim that his thought experiment shows that a currently living person is not a random sample is refuted. His thought experiment is reduced to a probability model, and is shown to be identical to one previously developed by Dieks. The status of the Doomsday Argument is left unresolved, since Dieks's refutation attempt is disputed in the literature.

Charles Hartshorne: Theistic and Anti-Theistic Arguments Charles Hartshorne is well known in philosophical circles for his rehabilitation of Anselm’s ontological argument. Indeed, he may have written more on that subject than any other philosopher. He considered it to be the argument that, more than any other, reveals the logical status of theism. Nevertheless, he always … Continue reading Hartshorne Theistic and Anti-Theistic Arguments →.

Typically, anti-realists argue for the underdetermination of theory by the data on the basis of the claim that each theory has empirically equivalent rivals. Leplin has recently sought to show that, whatever the truth-value of this latter claim, it cannot play any positive role in an argument for underdetermination. I argue that Leplin’s attempt fails.

James Stacey Taylor, in his book Markets With Limits, argues that Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski, in their book Markets Without Limits, systematically mischaracterize the views of the anti-commodification theorists they are critiquing, attributing to them positions (e.g., semiotic essentialism and an asymmetry thesis) that they do not hold. Further, Taylor offers an anti-commodification hypothesis of his own to explain why talented academics like Brennan and Jaworski could fall into such systematic mistakes – namely, that the intrusion of market norms (...) into academia incentivizes scholars to prioritize original arguments in prominent venues over careful fact-checking. I argue that Taylor is correct in charging that Brennan and Jaworski have gotten their opponents’ views wrong; and I show how their subsequent replies to Taylor’s criticisms have been unconvincing. I also argue, however, that Taylor may be over-hasty in identifying the likely causes of their errors. (shrink)

ANTI-FORMALISM has become the consensus in aesthetics. But in my view anti-formalism is not true to our aesthetic experience; it gives a revisionary account of the aesthetic properties that we think we find in works of art. The thesis I think we should hold is not extreme formalism—the view that all or almost all aesthetic properties are formal—but the moderate thesis that many are. This view has not been given its due because so many aestheticians have been convinced by anti-formalist (...) arguments. In this short paper, I propose a systematic method for resisting anti-formalist arguments. The method is to apply one of three strategies. These strategies are repeatable archetypes. I shall show these neutralizing strategies at work with seven objections to formalism. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should reject G. E. Moore’s anti-skeptical argument as it is presented in “Proof of an External World.” However, the reason I offer is different from traditional objections. A proper understanding of Moore’s “proof” requires paying attention to an important distinction between two forms of skepticism. I call these Ontological Skepticism and Epistemic Skepticism. The former is skepticism about the ontological status of fundamental reality, while the latter is skepticism about our empirical knowledge. Philosophers often assume (...) that Moore’s response to “external world skepticism” deals exclusively with the former, not the latter. But this is a mistake. I shall argue that Moore’s anti-skeptical argument targets an ontological form of skepticism. Thus, the conclusion is an ontological claim about fundamental reality, while the premises are epistemic claims. If this is correct, then the conclusion outstrips the scope of its premises and proves too much. (shrink)

In recent years the 'zombie argument' has come to occupy a central role in the case against physicalist views of consciousness, in large part because of the powerful advocacy it has received from David Chalmers.1 In this paper I seek to neutralize it by showing that a parallel argument can be run for physicalism, an argument turning on the conceivability of what I shall call anti-zombies. I shall argue that the result is a stand-off, and that the zombie argument offers (...) no independent reason to reject physicalism. (shrink)

Abstract: Williamson argues that when one feels cold, one may not be in a position to know that one feels cold. He thinks this argument can be generalized to show that no mental states are such that when we are in them we are in a position to know that we are in them. I argue that his argument is a sorites argument in disguise because it relies on the implicit premise that warming up is gradual. Williamson claims that his (...) argument is not a sorites argument; I explain why he has not given us any reason to accept the claim. (shrink)

In chapter 7 of The Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans claimed to have an argument that would present "an antidote" to the Cartesian conception of the self as a purely mental entity. On the basis of considerations drawn from philosophy of language and thought, Evans claimed to be able to show that bodily awareness is a form of self-awareness. The apparent basis for this claim is the datum that sometimes judgements about one’s position based on body sense are immune to (...) errors of misidentification relative to the first-person pronoun 'I'. However, Evans’s argument suffers from a crucial ambiguity. 'I' sometimes refers to the subject's mind, sometimes to the person, and sometimes to the subject's body. Once disambiguated, it turns out that Evans’s argument either begs the question against the Cartesian or fails to be plausible at all. Nonetheless, the argument is important for drawing our attention to the idea that bodily modes of awareness should be taken seriously as possible forms of self-awareness. (shrink)

In the article of Bueno titled “Davidson and Skepticism: How Not to Respond to the Skeptic,” he intends to demonstrate that although Davidson’s theory of Coherence holds many attractions, it does not entail a response to any kinds of skepticism including Global, Lottery, and Pyrrhonian. In this study, the goal is to criticize the work of Prof. Bueno in connection with two criticisms raised by him over Davidson’s anti-skeptical strategy. Further, by giving some reasons in favor of Davidson’s anti-skepticism argument, (...) it will be shown that neither the above stated criticisms nor the global skepticism response could undermine the validity of anti-skepticism argument. (shrink)

Many interpreters have noted that §§138–242 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is dominated by an attack on a platonist or classical realist conception of rules and meaning. In this paper, I address the lack of clarity that still exists concerning the nature and strength of the arguments in those sections. I argue that Wittgenstein's attack is genuinely compelling if viewed as an intricate reductio ad absurdum argument that runs all the way through §§138–201. On my reading, the well-known regress-of-interpretations argument (...) is merely one stage in the overall reductio and is not sufficient on its own to generate the rule-following paradox. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists hold that perceiving subjects have “reflective access” to factive perceptual support for belief. However, little has been done to elaborate the intended notion of reflection, or introspective awareness more generally. Moreover, critics have pointed out that the disjunctivist conception of “reflective access” can seem vulnerable to varieties of Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument. In this paper I defend disjunctivism from this charge, arguing that it holds the resources for a potent defense of the claim that knowledge of perceptual states is (...) luminous. Indeed, I argue that appreciating the relation between disjunctivism and luminosity sheds critical light on how the disjunctivist conceives of perceptual support for belief. (shrink)

The anti-metaphysical argument against scientific realism is the following: Knowledge of unobservable entities implies metaphysical knowledge; There is no metaphysical knowledge. Therefore, there is no knowledge of unobservable entities. This argument has strangely received little attention in the profuse literature on scientific realism. This paper claims that the AMA is logically more fundamental than both the pessimistic meta-induction and the underdetermination argument. The second and main claim of this paper is that the instrumentalists’ use of AMA is incoherent. The gist (...) of my argument is that experimental knowledge requires minimally metaphysical knowledge, and that minimally metaphysical knowledge—when associated with empirical knowledge—suffices to yield a minimal knowledge of the unobservable. I then examine and reject two possible responses: minimally metaphysical instrumentalism and algebraic instrumentalism. (shrink)

Many interpreters have noted that §§138–242 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is dominated by an attack on a platonist or classical realist conception of rules and meaning. In this paper, I address the lack of clarity that still exists concerning the nature and strength of the arguments in those sections. I argue that Wittgenstein's attack is genuinely compelling if viewed as an intricate reductio ad absurdum argument that runs all the way through §§138–201. On my reading, the well-known regress-of-interpretations argument (...) is merely one stage in the overall reductio and is not sufficient on its own to generate the rule-following paradox. (shrink)

Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem is sometimes said to refute mechanism about the mind. §1 contains a discussion of mechanism. We look into its origins, motivations and commitments, both in general and with regard to the human mind, and ask about the place of modern computers and modern cognitive science within the general mechanistic paradigm. In §2 we give a sharp formulation of a mechanistic thesis about the mind in terms of the mathematical notion of computability. We present the argument from (...) Gödel’s theorem against mechanism in terms of this formulation and raise two objections, one of which is known but is here given a more precise formulation, and the other is new and based on the discussion in §1. (shrink)

Conventional approaches in pro- or anti-democratic discourses often scrutinize the efficacy of leadership based on its outcomes, or explore the moral foundations of different systems. Contrary to these approaches, my argument presented in this paper is grounded in the inherent psychological desire to be heard and accepted. I posit that the essence of democracy resides in free discussion — a value even embraced by committed anti-democrats in the context of debates, as their acknowledgment hinges on it. This article presents an (...) argument, developed based on my experience in actual debates called The Paradox of Anti-Democratic Arguments, to counter anti-democratic debaters who question the legitimacy of democratic norms. The article discusses the practical application of the argument in debates and casual discussions, its limitations and highlights the underlying psychological processes that make the argument effective in the context of Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. (shrink)