Type materialism is a theory of the place of states of phenomenal consciousness in nature. It is the theory that qualitative mental states are type identical with certain neuroscientific states. This chapter examines this theory and discusses some required background details. There are currently a number of scientific projects that are aimed at finding the neural correlates of states of phenomenal consciousness. Whether any of these projects will succeed is of course an empirical issue. Type (...) class='Hi'>materialism for phenomenal consciousness is the view that types of states of phenomenal consciousness are identical with their strict neuroscientific correlates. If type materialism is true, then states of phenomenal consciousness are causally efficacious; for they are neuroscientific states with causal effects. Type materialism allows that there can be phenomenal consciousness in actual “absent folk role” cases. The chapter distinguishes type materialism from representationalism and psychofunctionalism. (shrink)

This is a book about sensory states and their apparent characteristics. It confronts a whole series of metaphysical and epistemological questions and presents an argument for type materialism: the view that sensory states are identical with the neural states with which they are correlated. According to type materialism, sensations are only possessed by human beings and members of related biological species; silicon-based androids cannot have sensations. The author rebuts several other rival theories, and explores a number (...) of important issues: the forms and limits of introspective awareness of sensations, the semantic properties of sensory concepts, knowledge of other minds, and unity of consciousness. The book is a significant contribution to the philosophy of mind, and has much to say to psychologists and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

In his "Materialism without Reductionism: What Materialism Does not Entail," Richard Boyd answers Kripke's challenge to materialists to come up with a way to explain away the apparent contingency of mind-brain identities. Boyd accuses Kripke of an imaginative myopia manifesting itself as a failure to realize that the more theoretical term in the identity is fixed by contingent descriptions - descriptions that might pick out otherworldly kinds of neural events where C-fibres are absent. If this is something we (...) can confuse in the imagination with actual C-fibre firings, then we have an explanation of the apparent contingency of the necessary identity 'Pain=C-fiber firings.' However, for this to succeed it must be the case that the reference of 'C-fiber firings'€™ is fixed by some contingent description, which is false. Boyd, I submit, has failed to answer Kripke'€™s challenge after all. (shrink)

Abstract: Type-B materialism is the thesis that though phenomenal states are necessarily identical with physical states, phenomenal concepts have no a priori connections to physical or functional concepts. Though type-B materialists have invoked this conceptual independence to counter a number of well-known arguments against physicalism (e.g. the conceivability of zombies, the ignorance of Mary, the existence of an 'explanatory gap'), anti-physicalists have raised objections to this strategy. My aim here is to defend type-B materialism against (...) these objections, by arguing that they share the common problem of not taking the central features of the view sufficiently seriously. However, I will end by noting that type-B materialism raises other questions, and suggesting that what stands in the way of an adequate naturalistic account of phenomenal states may be the propensity to take type-B materialism more seriously than it deserves. (shrink)

s Gibson (1982) correctly points out, despite Quine’s brief flirtation with a “mitigated phenomenalism” (Gibson’s phrase) in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, Quine’s ontology of 1953 (“On Mental Entities”) and beyond left no room for non-physical sensory objects or qualities. Anyone familiar with the contemporary neo-dualist qualia-freak-fest might wonder why Quinean lessons were insufficiently transmitted to the current generation.

Previous research (e.g., Horiuchi, Goldsmith, and Inoguchi, 2005) has shown some intriguing patterns of effects of several variables on international public opinion about US foreign policy. But results for the theoretically appealing effects of regime type and post-materialist values have been weak or inconsistent. This paper takes a closer look at the relationship between these two variables and international public opinion about US foreign policy. In particular, international reaction to the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) are examined (...) using two major multinational surveys. The conclusions of previous research are largely reinforced: neither regime type nor post-materialist values appears to robustly influence global opinion on these events. Rather, some central interests, including levels of trade with the US and NATO membership, and key socialized factors, including a Muslim population, experience with terrorism, and the exceptional experiences of two states (Israel, Albania) emerge as the most important factors in the models. There is also a consistent backlash effect of security cooperation with the US outside of NATO. A discussion of these preliminary results points to their theoretical implications and their significance for further investigation into the transnational dynamics of public opinion and foreign policy. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the phenomenal concept strategy and in favor of what Chalmers has called type-A materialism. On her release, Mary makes no cognitive discovery at all; not even a thin non-possibility-eliminating discovery, as Tye has recently claimed. When she is imprisoned, Mary already knows everything that is to be known about the phenomenal character of her experiences. What Mary acquires is a new non-cognitive and nonconceptual representation.

In this paper, I argue against the phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS) and in favor of what Chalmers has called type-A materialism ([2006], [2010] p. 111). On her release, Mary makes no cognitive discovery at all, not even a thin, non-possibility-eliminating discovery, as Tye has recently claimed [2012]. When she is imprisoned, Mary already knows everything that is to be known about the phenomenal character of her experiences. What Mary acquires is a new non-cognitive and nonconceptual representation.

Consciousness has an important role in ethics: when a being consciously experiences the frustration or satisfaction of its interests, those interests deserve higher moral priority than those of a behaviourally similar but non-conscious being. I consider the relationship between this ethical role and an a posteriori (or “type-B”) materialist solution to the mind-body problem. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if type-B materialism is correct, then the reference of the concept of phenomenal consciousness is radically (...) indeterminate between a neuronal-level property that is distinctive to mammals and a high-level functional property that is much more widely shared. This would leave many non-mammalian animals (such as birds, fish, insects and octopuses) with indeterminate moral status. There are ways to manage this radical moral indeterminacy, but all of these ways lead to profoundly troubling consequences. (shrink)

Many Christians who argue against Christian materialism direct their arguments against what I call ‘Type-I materialism’, the thesis that I cannot exist without my organic body. I distinguish Type-I materialism from Type-II materialism, which entails only that I cannot exist without some body that supports certain mental functions. I set out a version of Type-II materialism, and argue for its superiority to Type-I materialism in an age of science. Moreover, (...) I show that Type-II materialism can accommodate Christian doctrines like the Resurrection of the Body, the Incarnation, and the intermediate state (if there is one). (shrink)

Most materialist responses to the zombie argument against materialism take either a “type-A” or “type-B” approach: they either deny the conceivability of zombies or accept their conceivability while denying their possibility. However, a “type-Q” materialist approach, inspired by Quinean suspicions about a priority and modal entailment, rejects the sharp line between empirical and conceptual truths needed for the traditional responses. In this paper, I develop a type-Q response to the zombie argument, one stressing the theory-laden (...) nature of our conceivability and possibility intuitions. I argue that our first-person access to the conscious mind systematically misleads us into thinking that the distinctive qualities of conscious experience—qualia—are nonfunctional. Qualia, I contend, are functional, even though they do not seem to be. To support my claim, I introduce the “meditations” of Rene Descartes’ zombie twin. This establishes the plausibility of an appearance/reality distinction for consciousness and it undermines various anti-materialist objections based on privileged first-person access. I conclude that the best overall theory posits an appearance/reality distinction for qualia, and this, for the type-Q materialist, is decisive. (shrink)

If you’re a materialist, you probably think that rabbits are conscious. And you ought to think that. After all, rabbits are a lot like us, biologically and neurophysiologically. If you’re a materialist, you probably also think that conscious experience would be present in a wide range of naturally-evolved alien beings behaviorally very similar to us even if they are physiologically very different. And you ought to think that. After all, to deny it seems insupportable Earthly chauvinism. But a materialist who (...) accepts consciousness in weirdly formed aliens ought also to accept consciousness in spatially distributed group entities. If she then also accepts rabbit consciousness, she ought to accept the possibility of consciousness even in rather dumb group entities. Finally, the United States would seem to be a rather dumb group entity of the relevant sort. If we set aside our morphological prejudices against spatially distributed group entities, we can see that the United States has all the types of properties that materialists tend to regard as characteristic of conscious beings. (shrink)

MATERIALISTS claim that in principle mentality could be accounted for entirely by properties of matter. They must, of course, clarify, as far as possible, the precise scope of the concept "properties of matter." According to materialists there exists only one type of "substance" in the universe, namely matter. Sophisticated experimental and theoretical analyses have led contemporary physicists to interpret known material entities as being composed of two classes of elementary particles, namely quarks and leptons and constituents of interaction fields (...) that mediate interactions between some or all of the elementary particles and which comprise photons, gluons, intermediate bosons and gravitons. For instance, protons and neutrons are composed--by hypothesis--of quarks, while electrons are probably the most familiar leptons. Whether any analyzed and postulated elementary particles and constituents of interaction fields are "ultimate" components of matter can never be known. It remains always possible that more basic subcomponents of known components will be discovered. This has happened repeatedly throughout the history of physics. Hence, what physicists understand by the "physical properties" of the basic components of matter must always remain expressed in terms of usually intricate hypothetico-deductive theories which are tentative and fallible. Contemporary relativistic quantum mechanics of elementary particles and of interaction fields provide typical examples of such hypothetico-deductive theories relating to present known basic components of matter. (shrink)

1. Categories and the Scientific Turn of Metaphysics: The Notion of World-Fundamentality What are the fundamental inhabitants of the world? This question, as old as it is new, is about the fundamental structure of our world. Is our world a world of Aristotle's ordinary substances, Locke's physical substances, Husserl's wholes, Wittgenstein's facts, Sellars's processes, or Quine's sets? In order to distinguish the sort of metaphysical fundamentality at stake in this discussion from other possible types of fundamentality, I shall call it (...) from now on "world-fundamentality." In this article I want to make a proposal in the context of this metaphysical dispute. The proposal is the addition of a new criterion of world-fundamentality to the existing catalog of independence and simplicity, among some other prominent classical examples. I call this criterion "the materialist criterion of world-fundamentality" because it states that metaphysicians should not decide the question of whether our world is a world of facts rather than a world of sets or other categories without considering the explanatory power of such categories to account for the relation between "the manifest image" and "the scientific image," to use the words of Wilfrid Sellars. (shrink)

Orthodox neural materialists think mental states are neural events or orthodox material properties of neutral events. Orthodox material properties are defining properties of the “physical”. A “defining property” of the physical is a type of property that provides a necessary condition for something’s being correctly termed “physical”. In this paper I give an argument against orthodox neural materialism. If successful, the argument would show at least some properties of some mental states are not orthodox material properties of neural (...) events. Opposing philosophical orthodoxy, I show there are no posteriori identities -- identities that cannot be known of a priori. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend a version of nonreductive materialism against the epiphenomenalist objection to which Davidson's anomalous monism has often been held to be vulnerable. After considering a number of options for dealing with the objection, I argue that an appeal to the notion of strong supervenience (properly explicated) can both rebut a common form of the "property" ("type") epiphenomenalist objection and provide a grounding for the causal relevance ("efficacy") of mental properties.

Materialists say sensations and other kinds of mental states are physical events. Today, most materialists are neural materialists. They think mental states are neural events or material properties of neural events.Orthodox neural materialists think mental states are neural events or orthodox material properties of neutral events. Orthodox material properties are defining properties of the physical. A defining property of the physical is a type of property that provides a necessary condition for something's being correctly termed ‘physical’ Defining properties of (...) the physical include spatial and temporal properties and causal propensities and sensitivities. A particle is an electron, for instance, by having a particular set of spatiotemporal properties and causal sensitivities and powers. (shrink)

In the first post World War II identity theories (e.g., Place 1956, Smart 1962), mind brain identities were held to be contingent. However, in work beginning in the late 1960's, Saul Kripke (1971, 1980) convinced the philosophical community that true identity statements involving names and natural kind terms are necessarily true and furthermore, that many such necessary identities can only be known a posteriori. Kripke also offered an explanation of the a posteriori nature of ordinary theoretical identities such as that (...) water = H2O. We identify the kinds and substances involved in theoretical identities by certain of their contingent properties. What we discover when we discover a theoretical identity is the underlying nature of the kind that we identify by those contingent properties. Now, of course, it was being a posteriori, not being contingent, that mattered to the identity theorists anyway, so the necessity of identity is not, in itself, damaging to mind brain identity theories. However, Kripke also argued persuasively that the alleged mind brain identities could not be treated in the same way as ordinary theoretical identities. We "identify" pain by feeling it, and surely how it feels is an essential property of pain, not a contingent property. Thus, a mind body identity theory must provide a different explanation of why its identities are a posteriori. A new wave of materialists has appeared on the scene with a new strategy for explaining [1] the a posteriori nature of its alleged identities. The strategy is to locate the explanation for the a posteriori nature of mind body identities, not on the side of the world, but on the side of the mind -in different ways of thinking about or imagining, or in different concepts. Thus, on this new view, there is only one property—this brain process type, which is identical with this pain.. (shrink)

Much of contemporary philosophy of mind is marked by a dissatisfaction with the two main positions in the field, standard materialism and standard dualism, and hence with the search for alternatives. My concern in this paper is with two such alternatives. The first, which I will call non-standard materialism, is a position I have defended in a number of places, and which may take various forms. The second, panpsychism, has been defended and explored by a number of recent (...) writers. My main goals are: (a) to explain the differences between these positions; and (b) to suggest that non-standard materialism is more plausible than panpsychism. (shrink)

Originally published in 1929, McDougall examines the pertinent conflict between religion and science. His work exhibits the failure of scientists to explain human action mechanistically, establishes purposive action as a type of event radically different from all mechanistic events, and justifies the belief in teleological causation without which there can be neither religion nor morals. This title will be of interest to students of both the Humanities and Sciences, particularly those studying psychology and philosophy.

The present article is a continuation of an earlier paper, entitled “Dialectical Materialism: A Friendly Interpretation”, which appeared in this journal. In the “Friendly Interpretation”, the emphasis was on formal and systematic exposition. Here, familiarity with the basic tenets of dialectical materialism is presumed, and some peripheral topics, which were deleted from the “Friendly Interpretation” lest they interrupt its continuity, are treated in five essay-type sections. First, an interpretation of dialectical materialism proposed by Rosenfeld, according to (...) which the usual acausal interpretation of quantum mechanics is consistent with, and even an instructive illustration of dialectical materialism, is criticized. In the second section, the connection between positivism and Orwell's “doublethink” is pointed out. This is done in order to exhibit certain difficulties to which consistent positivism leads, but which are avoided by both materialism and objective idealism; in particular, the language of positivism, lacking the concept of “existence”, is inadequate to distinguish by any absolute criterion between reality and a dream world. In the last three sections, two acausal philosophies are compared and contrasted to dialectical materialism. First, in the third section, Landé‘s argument, showing the incompatibility of the principles of complete causality and of continuity of cause and effect, is summarized. It is shown that Landé‘s choice, in favor of continuity of cause and effect, is not the only consistent one, and that if one accepts the outlook of dialectical materialism, the opposite choice can and should be made. In the fourth section, Margenau's interpretation of quantum mechanics is criticized, both in terms of the criteria proposed by Margenau, and from the point of view of the doctrine of rationalism, which, in the “Friendly Interpretation”, was included as part of dialectical materialism. The interpretation of Bohm, de Broglie, and Takabayasi is preferred to that of Margenau, which is akin to the usual Bohr-Heisenberg interpretation of quantum mechanics. Margenau's sharp distinction between concepts applicable to the microcosm, and those useful in macroscopic considerations, is criticized. In the fifth section, Margenau's use of the term “historical reality” in connection with the microcosm is criticized. It is argued that the reality of historical concepts is not intrinsically different from the reality of physical concepts. This leads to a further discussion of “free will”. (shrink)

Materialism is the view according to which a zombie world is metaphysically impossible. Assuming that zombies are conceivable in the sense that we cannot rule out a priori that our world is a zombie world, materialists must hold that a zombie world is metaphysically impossible despite being conceivable. There are no good reasons to think that this view (type-B materialism) is false, since there are no good reasons to think that the corresponding phenomenal and physical/functional concepts cannot (...) be distinct concepts of the same thing. Nonetheless, we cannot understand how type-B materialism can be true. We cannot understand this, because we cannot in principle explain how a zombie world could be impossible despite being conceivable. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of one central theme in Jon Elster's Making Sense of Marx; Elster's defense of ?methodological individualism? in social science and his related critique of Marx's use of ?functional explanation?. The paper does not quarrel with Elster's claim that the particular instances of functional explanation advanced by Marx are defective; what it criticizes is Elster's attempt to raise principled, philosophical objections to this type of explanation in the social sciences. It is argued that Elster's (...) philosophical critique of functional explanation rests on a caricature of this kind of explanation, just as his critique of Marx's use of teleology in the philosophy of history rests on a caricature of the kinds of teleological claims Marx is concerned to make. The paper ends with a brief discussion of a recently published passage from Marx's notebooks of 1861?1863, where Elster claims to have found Marx explicitly criticizing capitalist exploitation as an injustice to the workers. (shrink)

What is the use of trying to describe a philosophy as ‘materialistic’ or ‘idealistic’? Why multiply the species of each genus? We have ‘subjective’, ‘absolute’, and ‘objective’ idealism, ‘mechanistic’ and ‘dialectical’ materialism, to which we must now add ‘uncertain’ or ‘random’ materialism. Must we worry if a philosophy belongs to this or that ‘trend’, ‘current’, or ‘tradition’? We find ourselves asking all these types of questions when reading Louis Althusser’s later work, in which he appears to have devoted (...) some effort to developing the idea of an “underground” or “subterranean” trend in philosophy. After some hesitation, he termed this “materialism of the encounter” or “uncertain materialism,” which I will refer to hereafter in abbreviated form as UM. (shrink)

Materialism/physicalism that generally dominates in the contemporary analytic philosophy is challenged by fairly powerful anti-materialist arguments, notably the zombie argument (most influentially defended by David Chalmers) and the knowledge argument (the most widely discussed version of which was advanced and defended by Frank Jackson). These arguments highlight the explanatory gap from the physical (which, if materialism is true, should constitute everything that exists, including consciousness) to phenomenal mental states, the principal impossibility to explain the latter by the former, (...) and from this conclude that phenomenal consciousness is not physical, and so materialism is false. Materialist philosophers attempt to neutralize these arguments in several ways, the most influential of which is the strategy of phenomenal concepts. This article analyzes the main points of this debate with a focus on the knowledge argument, examines and responds to the main objections to the knowledge argument — that it should be mistaken because the alternative is epiphenomenalism, which is unacceptable; that no new knowledge but only new capacities and/or acquaintance are involved; that the knowledge is the same but in different forms; that the knowledge argument affects only type physicalism but not token physicalism. The case is made that psychophysical identities assumed by a posteriori physicalism are unexplainable in principle, and the postulation of brute unexplainable psychophysical identities glossed over by the strategy of phenomenal concepts amounts to dogmatic commitment (motivated by scientism) to a view despite its apparent falsity and its unintelligibility (the impossibility to explain how it can be true), made less unpalatable by offering an ad hoc theory about the mindbrain arrangement that makes us unable to see how the view can be true. As opposed to this, the position of the supporters of the knowledge argument and the zombie argument can be seen as guided by the principle of rational trust in obviousness and our capacities of judgement. (shrink)

This essay interrogates recent materialist monisms, be they based on contingency, eliminativism, or objective phenomenology, on account of their metaphilosophical ramifications. It is argued that certain dualities must be retained, at least nominally, in order to have any explanatory purchase and escape velocity from philosophical circularity. Dyads such as “spirit” and “matter,” “manifest” and “scientific,” “living” and “dead,” or even “illusion” and “reality” are given an immanentist reading that treats them as equal parts of the Real. Following this revisionary metaphysics (...) that reviews the meaning of such terms as optical realities, the matter–spirit couple is specifically used to explain why reality cannot appear as just one thing, even if only in virtue of the illusion of at least two things. The consequences for philosophical monisms of all types, and for anthropocentric thought in general, are then examined in the light of the ethical effects of recent attempts to explain every thing through one medium alone. (shrink)

This article examines Catherine Malabou’s philosophical concept of plasticity as a new materialist methodology. Given that plasticity simultaneously maintains the ability to receive, give, and annihilate form, plasticity and plastic readings offer material-discursive possibilities for educational research. This article begins by discussing the evolution of plasticity, applications thereof, and its location within new materialist philosophy. To then demonstrate the possibilities of plasticity, this article takes the example of educational policy reform in relation to technology-centered models of education. A plastic reading (...) of ongoing policy discourses argues that conceptualizing policy, stakeholders, and technology as plastic contribute new scholarly understandings regarding the shape and movement of educational policy formation. Significantly, the methodology of plastic readings provides an ideal lens through which to approach educational policy development as a series of entangled ideas and interests. In addition, plastic readings enable the re-envisioned types of analysis and critique increasingly called for by qualitative methodologists and new materialist scholars. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss, on behalf of the materialist, a consideration against the modal or conceivability argument against materialism which was first voiced in the third lecture of Naming and Necessity. This consideration is based on intertheoretic identities, statements in which both terms flanking the identity sign are theoretical. I argue that the defender of the conceivability argument has trouble to account for the appearance of contingency in those types of necessary identities. In fact, intertheoretic identities pose a (...) formidable dilemma for the defender of the modal argument and actually force the antimaterialist to say more about the semantics of theoretical terms than is implicit in standard discussions of the argument. I myself consider several options in this regard, the upshot being, however, that none of the alternative semantics for theoretical terms available to the antimaterialist is good enough to achieve the twofold aim which her modal argument requires, namely, to account for the a posteriori necessity of identities of this sort and, at the same time, to preserve her antimaterialist argument. Finally, in the last part of the paper, I argue that my defense of materialism can withstand some worries coming from David Chalmers’ recent views on a priori scrutability. (shrink)

Throughout the last decade, calls for a return to materiality have reverberated within the humanities and social sciences. Few, however, have noticed that this return has also entailed a return to fiction, as the new theoretical writings on matter regularly include elements of storytelling, fabulation or other genres of invention. This article asks why this alliance between new materialism and fiction has come about: Why do scholars united by a common interest in ‘getting real’ consistently utilize a type (...) of discourse defined precisely by not committing itself to reality? Examining works by Jane Bennett, Dominic Pettman, Stacy Alaimo, Astrida Neimanis, Donna Haraway, and Rebekah Sheldon, the article explores this question by tracing three modes of fictionality in new materialism distinguished by inventing non/human entanglements, scientific knowledge, and future societies respectively. Ultimately, the article argues that fictionality is a particularly attractive tool for attempts to transcend anthropocentric regimes of truth. (shrink)

Michael Tye, Consciousness Revisited: Materialism Without Phenomenal Concepts Content Type Journal Article Pages 103-106 DOI 10.1007/s11023-011-9225-3 Authors David Cole, Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota-Duluth, 369 A.B. Anderson Hall, Duluth, MN 55812, USA Journal Minds and Machines Online ISSN 1572-8641 Print ISSN 0924-6495 Journal Volume Volume 21 Journal Issue Volume 21, Number 1.

David Ray Griffin does not fully come to terms with the fact that science has already abandoned the narrow materialist view of bits of matter pushing each other around. Even as early as Newton's law of gravitation, and most obviously with quantum physics, science has embraced the view that the world consists of relationships (often described as laws) between different types of processes and states.

In Giddens view, there is historical materialism "reductionism", "evolution" and "functional theory" three defects. "Reductionism," manifested in historical materialism and the complex social relations of human history is about productivity, economic relations and class struggle, etc., as its reconstruction, Giddens proposed to "extend the level of time and space" as the division of social types of new standards; "evolution" of human performance in the history of historical materialism as a lower stage to higher evolving process, as its (...) reconstruction, Giddens made ​​from "pieces" and "time edge" perspective to explain social reproduction and social change as a process of its reconstruction, Giddens proposed a "random social change" model of the new point of view. Giddens reflection of historical materialism and the "reconstruction" has some inspiration, but there are obvious flaws. According to the viewpoint of Anthony Giddens, Historical Materialism ham three main deficiencies: "Reductionism", "Evolutionism" and "Functionalism". "Reductionism" exhibits on the Historical Materialism's reducing the complicated human history and social relationships into the forces of production, economic relationships, class struggles, etc. As an alternation of it, Giddens advances the notion of "level of time-space distanciation", which serves as the new standard for dividing the societal types. "Evolutionism" exhibits on the Historical Materialism's regarding the human history as a process which continuously evolutes from the lower stages to the upper ones. As a reconstruction of it, Giddens brings forward two concepts of "episode" and "time-space edge", which serves as the new criteria for identifying the general outline of the human history. "Functionalism" exhibits on the Historical Materialism's describing the societal reproduction and social change from the viewpoints of "need" and "function". As a revision of it, Giddens puts forward the new model of "contingent social change" . Giddens' endeavors have certain significance in understanding Historical Materialism, but his limitations are also obvious. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim has recently argued that the widespread assumption of the multiple realizability of higher-level kinds -- and in particular, psychological kinds -- conflicts with some fundamental constraints on both materialistic metaphysics and scientific taxonomy. Kim concludes that the multiple realizability of psychological kinds would leave them "disqualified as proper scientific kinds" (Kim 1992: 18), and that search for a scientific psychology should focus instead on more reductive or type- materialist possibilities. If correct, this would strikingly undermine a widespread (...) assumption in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But it's not. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the theological-academic ontological doctrine of the three types of being formulated within the framework of the Russian theological-academic philosophy of the 19th century. The study of this problem in the context of the general analysis of the phenomenon of theological-academic philosophy allows expanding our understanding of the genesis of Russian philosophy and its religious-philosophical component. The main aim of the article is the historical-philosophical analysis (on the material of philosophical courses of Russian (...) theological academies and original works of professors of academies) of the doctrine about three types of being, which was developed within the framework of the theological-academic philosophy in Russia in the 19th century. The set goal is achieved by means of textual and religious analysis methods, as well as historical-functional, historical-genetic, and comparative research methods. The authors conclude that the specificity of theological-academic philosophizing was determined by confessional affiliation and consisted in its theistic form: the transversal theme of all theological-academic interpretations was the problem of being. Thus, theological-academic ontology took the form of the doctrine of God as an absolute being and the world as its derivative. The theological-academic doctrine of the three types of being and the synthesizing function of the absolute in relation to theological and material being cannot be characterized as quite logical and consistent. The notion of God as an absolute being is conditioned by the aspiration of theological-academic philosophers not to go beyond traditional orthodoxy and is one of the main specific features of theological-academic philosophical interpretations of religious consciousness. At the same time, the historical and philosophical analysis of the works of professors from Russian theological academies allows tracing how the powerful ideological and theoretical potential accumulated in Russian theological academies after their reforms in the 19th century contributed to the development of professional philosophy in Russia, the development of a philosophical categorical apparatus and the systematic formation of Russian philosophical thought. The development of this theme responds to the urgent research tasks of the history of philosophy. Further, this topic is very interesting not only for historians of philosophy but also for historians of religion, historians of orthodoxy, and culturologists. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider a posthumanist critique of international law in relation to the material world. Our perspective on posthumanism and international law is framed by a monument of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the so-called ‘founding father’ of the colony of South Australia. Centering the monument in our dialogue, we discuss two types of materialism: New materialism and historical materialism. We argue that an engagement with new and old materialism opens possibilities for a critical engagement with (...) posthumanism. Central to this critical engagement are themes of materiality, settler colonialism, agency, and exploitation – themes that are key for understanding the operation of international law. By identifying where the materialist theories differ, and also where they converge, we ultimately seek to identify the utility of a posthumanist critique for destabilising international law’s imperialist, capitalist, racialized and patriarchal structures. (shrink)

So-called identity theories that postulate the identity of mental phenomena with brain states are usually associated with materialistic ontology. However, the historical picture of the actual attempts at spelling out the mind–brain identities is more complex. In the eighteenth century such identities were most enthusiastically proposed by dualists, whereas non-reductionistic materialists such as Diderot tried to get along without them. In the nineteenth century physiologists such as Broca, Charcot and Wernicke, who postulated discrete and localizable neural correlates for ideas and (...) mental images, ended up, despite their professed materialism, defending theories that resembled Cartesian schemes and the theories of their eighteenth-century dualistic predecessors. Some problems resulting from the use of these theoretical models postulating local and discrete traces, images or representations in the brain in the context of materialist ontology are obviously related to their dualistic origins and to the fact that they are necessarily bound up with dualistic presuppositions. In the context of the criticism of the nineteenth-century memory trace paradigm it is, however, important to bear in mind that functional localization as such is not dependent on the notion of localizable representations. Nor are materialist theories of the mind necessarily dependent on postulating specific type–type identities between the mental and the physiological. (shrink)

So-called identity theories that postulate the identity of mental phenomena with brain states are usually associated with materialistic ontology. However, the historical picture of the actual attempts at spelling out the mind–brain identities is more complex. In the eighteenth century such identities were most enthusiastically proposed by dualists , whereas non-reductionistic materialists such as Diderot tried to get along without them. In the nineteenth century physiologists such as Broca, Charcot and Wernicke, who postulated discrete and localizable neural correlates for ideas (...) and mental images, ended up, despite their professed materialism, defending theories that resembled Cartesian schemes and the theories of their eighteenth-century dualistic predecessors. Some problems resulting from the use of these theoretical models postulating local and discrete traces, images or representations in the brain in the context of materialist ontology are obviously related to their dualistic origins and to the fact that they are necessarily bound up with dualistic presuppositions. In the context of the criticism of the nineteenth-century memory trace paradigm it is, however, important to bear in mind that functional localization as such is not dependent on the notion of localizable representations. Nor are materialist theories of the mind necessarily dependent on postulating specific type–type identities between the mental and the physiological. (shrink)

I argue that there is a version of (quasi-Armstrongian) weak illusionism that intelligibly relates phenomenal concepts and introspective opacity, accounts for the (hard) problem intuitions Chalmers highlights (modal, epistemic, explanatory, and metaphysical), and undermines the most important arguments Chalmers deploys against type-B and type-C materialisms. If this is successful, we can satisfactorily account for the meta-problem of consciousness, mollify our hard problem intuitions, and remain genuine realists about phenomenal experience.

This paper pursues a question about the spatial relations between the three types of matter posited in Margaret Cavendish’s metaphysics. It examines the doctrine of complete blending and a distinctive argument against atomism, looking for grounds on which Cavendish can reject the existence of spatial regions composed of only one or two types of matter. It establishes, through that examination, that Cavendish operates with a causal conception of parts of nature and a dynamic notion of division. While the possibility of (...) unmixed spatial regions is found to be consistent with both the doctrine of complete blending and Cavendish’s anti-atomism by themselves, it is finally ruled out by a consideration of her theory of place. In fact, the geometrical question of the spatial relations between types of matter that drives the paper is ultimately exposed as illicitly mathematical from the perspective of Cavendish’s metaphysics. (shrink)

The admiration of the Soviet Union amongst Britain's interwar scientific left is well known. This article reveals a parallel story. Focusing on the biologists Julian Huxley and Lancelot Hogben and the scientific journalist J.G. Crowther, I show that a number of scientific thinkers began to look west, to the US. In the mid- to late 1930s and into the 1940s, Huxley, Crowther and Hogben all visited the US and commented favourably on Roosevelt's New Deal, in particular its experimental approach to (...) politics. Huxley was first to appreciate the significance of the experiment; he looked to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a model of democratic planning by persuasion that could also be applied in Britain. Crowther, meanwhile, examined the US through the lens of history of science. In Famous American Men of Science and in lectures at Harvard University, he aimed to shed light on the flaws in the Constitution which were frustrating the New Deal. Finally, Hogben's interest in the US was related to his long-standing opposition to dialectical materialism, and when he finally saw the US at first hand, he regarded it as a model for how to bring about a planned socialist society through peaceful persuasion. (shrink)