It is widely held that there is an important distinction between the notion of consciousness as it is applied to creatures and, on the other hand, the notion of consciousness as it applies to mental states. McBride has recently argued in this journal that whilst there may be a grammatical distinction between state consciousness and creature consciousness, there is no parallel ontological distinction. It is argued here that whilst state consciousness and creature consciousness are indeed related, they are distinct properties. (...) Conscious creatures can have, at one time, both conscious and unconscious mental states. This raises the question of what distinguishes the conscious from unconscious mental states of a subject: a question about what state consciousness consists in. Whilst the state/creature distinction may not be of use in explaining every aspect of a subject's consciousness, it does provide a key part of the explanandum for theories of consciousness and mind. The state/creature consciousness distinction is a real one and should not be dropped from our psychological taxonomy. (shrink)

Contrary to certain rumours, the mind-body problem is alive and well. So argues Joseph Levine in Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness . The main argument is simple enough. Considerations of causal efficacy require us to accept that subjective experiential, or 'phenomenal', properties are realized in basic non-mental, probably physical properties. But no amount of knowledge of those physical properties will allow us conclusively to deduce facts about the existence and nature of phenomenal properties. This failure of deducibility constitutes an (...) explanatory problem - an explanatory gap - but does not imply the existence of immaterial mental properties. Levine introduced this notion of the explanatory gap almost two decades ago. Purple Haze allows Levine to situate the explanatory gap in a broader philosophical context. He engages with those who hold that the explanatory gap is best understood as implying anti-materialist metaphysical conclusions. But he also seeks to distance himself from contemporary naturalistic philosophical theorizing about consciousness by arguing that reductive and eliminative theories of consciousness all fail. Levine's work is best seen as an attempt to firmly establish a definite status for the mind-body problem, i.e. that the mind-body problem is a real, substantive epistemological problem but emphatically not a metaphysical one. Because Levine's work is tightly focused upon contemporary Anglophone analytic philosophy of mind, there is little discussion of the broader conceptual background to the mind-body problem. My aim here is to place Levine's work in a broader conceptual context. In particular, I focus on the relationship between consciousness and intentionality in the belief that doing so will allow us better to understand and evaluate Levine's arguments and their place in contemporary theorizing about mentality and consciousness. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 55, Issue 1, Page 83-98, February 2021.

Ausonio Marras has argued that Jaegwon Kim's principle of explanatory exclusion depends on an implausibly strong interpretation of explanatory realism that should be rejected because it leads to an extensional criterion of individuation for explanations. I examine the role explanatory realism plays in Kim's justification for the exclusion principle and explore two ways in which Kim can respond to Marras's criticism. The first involves separating criteria for explanatory truth from questions of explanatory adequacy, while the second appeals to Kim's fine-grained (...) theory of events. I argue that the first response is unconvincing on its own but when coupled with the second might provide a viable way for Kim to avoid Marras's criticism. However, I show that the second strategy is weak from a polemical point of view because Kim's theory of events already assumes what the principle of explanatory exclusion was introduced to establish: the falsity of nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)

I begin with the view that the usual property‐based epiphenomenalist challenges to anomalous monism are unconvincing in light of Davidson's reluctance to analyze causation in terms of properties. I argue, however, that the challenges against Davidson do hold in the weaker sense that although mental events have causal efficacy the identification of an agent's reasons does not causally explain behaviour. I then show that in light of Davidson's commitment to psychophysical supervenience this does not constitute a serious problem for anomalous (...) monism. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom disagrees with P.F. Strawson that abandoning the reactive attitudes associated with praise and blame would come at the price of exiting our personal relationships. According to Pereboom, we can contain or modify our attitudes in ways that preserve, and perhaps even enrich interpersonal relationships. In a recent article, Seth Shabo defends “the inseparability thesis” in order to undermine Pereboom’s containment policy. Drawing on David Goldman’s work on non-antagonistic responses to wrongdoing, we defend Pereboom from Shabo’s critique.

Robert Kane’s libertarian theory is often attacked on the grounds that undetermined self-forming actions are not amenable to contrastive explanation. I propose that we should understand contrastive explanations in terms of an appeal to structuring causes. Doing so reveals that Kane’s claim that there can be no contrastive explanation for self-forming actions is not an unwanted implication of his appeal to indeterminism, but is actually an implication of the fact that the agent’s will is not yet appropriately structured. I then (...) explain how this can assist Kane with the luck objection. (shrink)

RésuméJaegwon Kim a montré de façon convaincante que les versions habituelles de la survenance décrivent en fait de simples relations de covariance et laissent échapper l'idée de dépendance. Mais puisque la dépendence du mental à l'endroit du physique est requise même par la version la plus faible du physicalisme, il semblerait bien que les notions actuelles de survenance n'accomplissent pas ce qu'on attendait d'elles. Je soutiens qu'en concevant la survenance dans une optique davidsonienne, comme une relation entre prédicats plutôt qu'entre (...) propriétés, on évite les inconvénients des versions plus familières, et que l'on donne prise, de la sorte, à un usage physicaliste de la survenance. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Jaegwon Kim a montré de façon convaincante que les versions habituelles de la survenance décrivent en fait de simples relations de covariance et laissent échapper l’idée de dépendance. Mais puisque la dépendance du mental à l’endroit du physique est requise même par la version la plus faible du physicalisme, il semblerait bien que les notions actuelles de survenance n’accomplissent pas ce qu’on attendait d’elles. Je soutiens qu’en concevant la survenance dans une optique davidsonienne, comme une relation entre prédicats plutôt (...) qu’entre propriétés, on évite les inconvénients des versions plus familières, et que l’on donne prise, de la sorte, à un usage physicaliste de la survenance. (shrink)

I argue that Frank Jackson's knowledge argument cannot succeed in showing that qualia are epiphenomenal. The reason for this is that there is, given the structure of the argument, an irreconcilable tension between his support for the claim that qualia are non-physical and his conclusion that they are epiphenomenal. The source of the tension is that his argument for the non-physical character of qualia is plausible only on the assumption that they have causal efficacy, while his argument for the epiphenomenal (...) character of qualia is plausible only on the assumption that they are non-physical. Since these two arguments cannot be combined coherently, the most Jackson's argument can establish is that qualia are non-physical. (shrink)

I argue that the explanatory gap is generated by factors consistent with the view that qualia are physical properties. I begin by considering the most plausible current approach to this issue based on recent work by Valerie Hardcastle and Clyde Hardin. Although their account of the source of the explanatory gap and our potential to close it is attractive, I argue that it is too speculative and philosophically problematic. I then argue that the explanatory gap should not concern physicalists because (...) it makes excessive demands on physical theory. (shrink)

I propose a new form of epiphenomenalism, 'explanatory epiphenomenalism', the view that the identification of A's mental properties does not provide a causal explanation of A's behaviour. I arrive at this view by showing that although anomalous monism does not entail type epiphenomenalism (despite what many of Davidson's critics have suggested), it does (when coupled with some additional claims) lead to the conclusion that the identification of A's reasons does not causally explain A's behaviour. I then formalize this view and (...) show that it is an attractive position, because it captures the insights of existing forms of epiphenomenalism without their onerous metaphysical commitments. (shrink)

Yujin Nagasawa has recently defended Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument from the “inconsistency objection.” The objection claims that the premises of the knowledge argument are inconsistent with qualia epiphenomenalism. Nagasawa defends Jackson by showing that the objection mistakenly assumes a causal theory of phenomenal knowledge. I argue that although this defense might succeed against two versions of the inconsistency objection, mine is unaffected by Nagasawa’s argument, in which case the inconsistency in the knowledge argument remains.

En utilisant le cadre théorique développé par Jaegwon Kim, soit l’opposition entre le réalisme explicatif et l’irréalisme explicatif, ainsi que quelques observations sur la métaphysique et l’épistémologie de l’explication, je réexamine le désaccord opposant Robert Kane à Richard Double au sujet du principe de l’explication rationnelle. Je défends la position de Kane sur la double rationalité et je soutiens que le principe proposé par Double possède un champ d’application plus limité qu’il le prétend. Je montre aussi que, contrairement à ce (...) que suppose Double, la façon dont Kane entend expliquer l’action ne se transforme pas en une forme d’irréalisme explicatif. (shrink)

I argue that the inverted spectrum hypothesis is nota possibility we should take seriously. The principlereason is that if someone's qualia were inverted inthe specified manner there is reason to believe thephenomenal difference would manifest itself inbehaviour. This is so for two reasons. First, Isuggest that qualia, including phenomenal colours, arepartly constituted by an affective component whichwould be inverted along with the connected qualia. Theresulting affective inversions will, given theintimate connections that exist between emotions andbehaviour, likely manifest themselves in behaviour, (...) inwhich case the underlying phenomenal differences canbe functionally captured. Second, I argue that othersense modalities lack the structural featuresnecessary for undetectable inversion which, because oftheir analogy with colour qualia, weakens theplausibility of such an inversion in the original caseof vision. (shrink)

In this paper we explore Jaegwon Kim's principle of explanatory exclusion. Kim's support for the principle is clarified and we critically evaluate several versions of the dual explananda response authors have offered to undermine it. We argue that none of the standard versions of the dual explananda reply are entirely successful and propose an alternative approach that reveals a deep tension in Kim's metaphysics. We argue that Kim can only retain the principle of explanatory exclusion if he abandons his longstanding (...) critique of nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)

Commentators on P.F. Strawson’s reactive attitudes emphasize the opposition between the participant and objective attitudes. This tendency overlooks Strawson’s attempt to mitigate what he saw as “a crude opposition” between these two perspectives. Strawson called attention to phenomena involving the “half-suspension” of reactive attitudes, or the “straddling” of the objective and participant stances in order to diminish this crudity. This has been largely ignored in the literature, and as a result, the phenomena that Strawson mentions are poorly understood. Drawing on (...) the work in the philosophy of emotion by Amélie Rorty and a multidimensional account of the reactive attitudes, we provide a framework to explain how such a half-suspension is possible and highlight some of its more prominent features. (shrink)

Philosophers who advocate the possibility of spectrum inversion often conclude that the qualitative content of experiential states pose a serious problem for functionalism. I argue that in order for the inversion hypothesis to support this conclusion one needs to show that it generalizes to all species of qualia. By examining features of touch, taste, and olfactory sensations, I show there is good reason to resist this generalization, in which case appeals to the possibility of spectral inversion are considerably less effective (...) than they may initially appear. (shrink)

The fact that we can engage in first-person discourse about our own mental states seems, intuitively, to be bound up with consciousness. David Rosenthal draws upon this intuition in arguing for his higher-order thought theory of consciousness. Rosenthal's argument relies upon the assumption that the truth-conditions for "p" and "I think that p" differ. It is argued here that the truth-conditional schema debars "I think" from playing one of its roles and thus is not a good test for what is (...) asserted when "I think" is employed in making an assertoric utterance. The critique of Rosenthal's argument allows us to make explicit the intuitions which shape higher-order representation theories of consciousness in general. Consciousness and first-person mental discourse seem to be connected primarily because consciousness is an epistemic term, used to denote first-person knowledge of minds. Higher-order thought theories of consciousness draw upon this epistemic notion of consciousness, and because self-knowledge seems to involve higher-order representation, the higher-order theorist can deploy what is in effect an "error theory" about conscious experience disguised as a kind of conceptual analysis of our ordinary concept of a conscious mental state. The conclusion reached is that there is unlikely to be a simple or direct path from considerations about mental discourse to conclusions about the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Cynthia MacDonald and Graham MacDonald offer a resolution to the twin problems of mental causation and mental causal relevance. They argue that the problem of mental causation is soluble via token monism – mental events are causally efficacious physical events. At the same time, the problem of mental causal relevance is solved by combining this causally efficacious mental property instance with the systematic co-variation between distinct mental properties of the cause and the action-theoretic properties (...) of the effect in question. In this paper we argue that the solution offered by Mac- Donald and MacDonald faces significant difficulties in resolving both of the twin problems of mental causation and mental causal relevance. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, Jaegwon Kim has argued that non-reductive physicalism is an inherently unstable position. In his view, the most serious problem is that non-reductive physicalism leads to type epiphenomenalism—the causal inefficacy of mental properties. Kim suggests that we can salvage mental causation by endorsing functional reduction. Given the fact that Kim’s goal in formulating functional reduction is to provide a robust account of mental causation it would be surprising if his position implies eliminativism about mental properties or (...) leads to a view that is similar to one of the versions of non-reductive physicalism that he criticizes. We will show that depending on how certain key claims are interpreted, there are reasons for thinking functional reduction has these implications, in which case either Kim fails to provide a robust account of mental causation or there is reason to suspect that some of his criticisms of non-reductive physicalism are misguided. (shrink)

I argue that Jaegwon Kim’s supervenience argument does not generalize to all special science properties by undermining his central intuition, employed in stage 1 of the argument, that there is a tension between horizontal causation and vertical determination. First, I challenge Kim’s treatment of the examples he employs to support this intuition, then I appeal to Kim’s own work on the metaphysics of explanation in order to dissipate the alleged tension.

Thomas Huxley is often identified as the originator of the doctrineknown as ``epiphenomenalism,'' but there appears to be littleappreciation for the details of Huxley's theory. In particular,conflicting interpretations show that there is uncertainty about twoaspects of his position: whether mental states are completelywithout causal powers or simply have no influence on the behavior theyare typically taken to explain, and whether conscious epiphenomena arethemselves physical states of the brain or immaterial items. I clarifythese issues and show that Huxley's brand of epiphenomenalism (...) is in factdifferent from the forms usually attributed to him. (shrink)

Putnam raises two objections against the token-identity theory in his _Dewey Lectures. (1) Token-physicalism invokes a mysterious or _sui generis concept of identity between mental and physical event tokens; (2) The theory suffers from explanatory failure because it cannot individuate mental events using physical criteria. I argue that the first claim is false, since Davidson adopts the same criterion of identity Quine employs for ordinary objects which invokes a concept of identity we understand clearly enough. I then show that Putnam's (...) second complaint is an extravagant demand that needs not be answered and is at odds with his own direct realism. (shrink)

Neil Levy mounts two arguments against Robert Kane’s influential libertarian theory. According to the first, because Kanean self-forming actions are undetermined, there can be no contrastive explanation for why agents choose as they do rather than otherwise, in which case how they choose appears to be a matter of luck. According to the second, if one grants Kane the claim that agents are responsible for their undetermined choices in virtue of the fact that they made efforts of will to (...) choose them, the fact that agents engage in dual efforts of will leads to an implausible doubling of the agent’s responsibility. We defend Kane from both objections. We argue against the first by clarifying the nature of contrastive explanation in the context of Kane’s theory and we argue against the second by showing that the kind of doubling of responsibility implied by an agent’s dual efforts of will is, in fact, innocuous. (shrink)

Dans deux articles récents, Jaegwon Kim aborde le problème de l’explication de l’action d’une façon qui est centrée sur l’agent et fondée sur les raisons. Je soutiens que, bien qu’il prétende le contraire, la proposition de Kim ouvre la voie à une vision pluraliste de l’explication qui pourrait résoudre le problème de l’exclusion explicative et fournir un moyen permettant au physicalisme non réductionniste de se soustraire à l’argument de la survenance, aussi appelé argument de l’exclusion.

Central to Robert Kane’s libertarian free will is the distinction between two kinds of action: undetermined self-forming actions by means of which we shape our characters, and actions that are determined by our freely formed characters. Daniel Dennett challenges the coherence of this distinction, but I argue that his arguments rely on highly controversial assumptions. In an effort to improve on Dennett’s criticism, I argue that some considerations about non-self-forming actions, when coupled with Kane’s naturalistic framework, imply that all choices (...) are undetermined, which undercuts the distinction between his two categories of action. I then show that this conclusion threatens to undermine the very idea of self-formation Kane seeks to develop. (shrink)

Dwayne Moore raises the physical indeterminism luck objection to libertarian theories of free will, which claims that because agents lack control over the indeterministic physical processes that cause choices, agents lack control over those choices. Moore considers the libertarian strategy of identifying these processes with agential states, such as efforts of will, in order to secure agential control over the outcome of these processes. According to Moore, this strategy faces an insurmountable obstacle in the form of a quausation problem. He (...) argues that naturalistically minded libertarians like Kane are committed to the idea that agential states cause what they do only in virtue of their physical properties. This implies that the agential properties are causally irrelevant to the outcome of these indeterministic processes in which case they cannot help to secure agential control over the outcome. I argue that if Kane is a nonreductive physicalist, he has a way of dealing with the quausation problem. (shrink)

identity theory , usually attributed to J.J.C. Smart (Smart, 1959) and U.T. Place (Place, 1956), claimed that kinds of mental states are identical to kinds of brain states. Sensations of pain, for instance, were said to be identical to the firing of C-fibres or some such type of neurological state. According to this view, then, pain, conceived as a _kind_ of mental state, is said to be _reduced_ to a certain kind of neurological state. The reduction envisaged here was modelled (...) on the kind of reduction seen in other areas of the sciences. For instance, lightning can be said to be reduced to a rapid discharge of electrons in the atmosphere. When such a reduction is made scientists are not saying that there are two phenomena that are correlated, but rather that lightning is. (shrink)

One of the most profound philosophical problems is the nature of mind and its relationship to the body. _A Brief Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind_ provides an introduction, written in clear language, to the various theories of the mind-body relationship, as well as a host of related philosophical discussions about mind and consciousness. The central theories, such as Cartesian Dualism, parallelism, epiphenomenalism, and supervenience among others, are presented in historical order. Their claims, their strengths and weaknesses, and how they (...) ultimately relate to one another and to other philosophical questions are explored objectively, allowing readers to decide for themselves which theories are best. (shrink)

Investigates the concept of affective critical regionality to demonstrate how it deepens our sense of and relations to place.

I begin with the view that the usual property‐based epiphenomenalist challenges to anomalous monism are unconvincing in light of Davidson's reluctance to analyze causation in terms of properties. I argue, however, that the challenges against Davidson do hold in the weaker sense that although mental events have causal efficacy the identification of an agent's reasons does not causally explain behaviour. I then show that in light of Davidson's commitment to psychophysical supervenience this does not constitute a serious problem for anomalous (...) monism. (shrink)

Ever since Davidson first articulated and defended anomalous monism, nonreductive physicalists have struggled with the problem of mental causation. Considerations about the causal closure of the physical domain and related principles about exclusion make it very difficult to maintain the distinctness of mental and physical properties while securing a causal role for the former. Recently, philosophers have turned their attention to the underlying metaphysics and ontology of the mental causation debate to gain traction on this issue. Cynthia MacDonald and Graham (...) MacDonald have followed suit and argue that the solution to the nonreductivist’s troubles lies in a particular metaphysical view of events. They claim that an appropriately formulated property exemplification account of events resolves the problem and secures the causal relevance of mental properties. I argue that while this approach might get us the causal efficacy of mental events, it does not provide the sought-after causal relevance of mental properties. I show that the reason MacDonald and MacDonald stumble on the problem of causal relevance is—ironically—due to features of their view of events. (shrink)

In the light of what appear to be clear counterexamples, I argue that Jaegwon Kim’s comparative evaluation of functional reduction and reduction via necessary identities is problematic. I trace the problem to two sources: a misplaced metaphysical assumption about the explanatory role of identities and an excessively strong and narrow criterion for successful reductive explanation. Appreciating where Kim’s critique runs astray enhances our understanding of the role of necessary identities in reductive explanation.

Since Descartes’s division of the human subject into mental and physical components in the seventeenth century, there has been a great deal of discussion about how—indeed, whether or not—our mental states bring about our physical behavior. Through historical and contemporary readings, this collection explores this lively and important issue. In four parts, this anthology introduces the problem of mental causation, explores the debate sparked by Donald Davidson's anomalous monism, examines Frank Jackson's knowledge argument for the view that qualia are epiphenomenal, (...) and investigates attempts to employ the controversial concept of supervenience to explain mental causation. (shrink)

The following dissertation is an examination of arguments against physicalism. Physicalism is a thesis in the philosophy of mind that is constituted by two central claims: the ontological claim that everything that exists is ontologically physical and that human beings are among such things; the explanatory claim that all facts about human beings and all explanations of their behaviour are dependent on and determined by physical facts and explanations. It has frequently been asserted that there are properties that escape capture (...) in physicalist accounts of human behaviour, thereby undermining . Such properties are usually thought to be lacking causal powers, and hence have been called "epiphenomenal." The epiphenomenalist objections have long been thought to represent a serious obstacle to physicalism. My aim is to show that the objections that are motivated by epiphenomenal properties are unconvincing. ;My discussion proceeds in two stages. In the first stage I examine the epiphenomenalist objections in detail and show that in their most persuasive forms they demonstrate that physicalism has certain explanatory inadequacies. The critics of physicalism believe that these shortcomings lead to the denial of the explanatory completeness of physicalism, and I try to make their case as charitably as I can. In the second stage of the argument I invoke the relation of psycho-physical supervenience and show that the desired conclusion does not follow, even if we admit that physicalism has certain explanatory failings. The overall conclusion of this dissertation is that the epiphenomenalist objections to physicalism are completely undermined and hence that properties which were thought to be epiphenomenal do not represent a serious obstacle to physicalism as was previously thought. My intention is that this discussion push forward work in the philosophy of mind and point the way to a more adequate articulation of physicalism. (shrink)

Andrew Botterell has offered a fine response to my article, "Supervenience and Psycho-Physical Dependence". In my original article, I argued that Donald Davidson's brand of supervenience should be understood as a relation between predicates rather than properties, that this formulation captures a form of psycho-physical dependence that eludes other forms of supervenience, and that, as such, it might be useful to revisit Davidsonian supervenience as a means of expressing a plausible form of physicalism. Botterell's reply centres on offering support for (...) the following two claims: that the distinction between properties and predicates "is irrelevant to issues concerning physicalism and supervenience" ; and that predicate supervenience is unhelpful to formulating a plausible form of physicalism. I think the first claim is false, but not for reasons that are readily apparent in the original article. My reaction to the second claim is more complicated. (shrink)

Andrew Botterell has offered a fine response to my article, "Supervenience and Psycho-Physical Dependence". In my original article, I argued that Donald Davidson's brand of supervenience should be understood as a relation between predicates rather than properties, that this formulation captures a form of psycho-physical dependence that eludes other forms of supervenience, and that, as such, it might be useful to revisit Davidsonian supervenience as a means of expressing a plausible form of physicalism. Botterell's reply centres on offering support for (...) the following two claims: that the distinction between properties and predicates "is irrelevant to issues concerning physicalism and supervenience" ; and that predicate supervenience is unhelpful to formulating a plausible form of physicalism. I think the first claim is false, but not for reasons that are readily apparent in the original article. My reaction to the second claim is more complicated. (shrink)

Taking as its starting point the notion of photocinema—or the interplay of the still and moving image—the photographs, interviews, and critical essays in this volume explore the ways in which the two media converge and diverge, ...

This collection of essays aims to investigate the complex issues surrounding contemporary cultural discourses on land and identity – their production, construction, and reconstruction across a range of different texts and materials. The chapters offer disciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches opening up discussion and new routes for research in a number of interrelated areas such as Countryside vs. City, Diaspora, Landscapes of Memory and Trauma, Migrational Spaces, and Ecology. They represent a number of innovative contemporary responses to how concepts of land (...) intersect and dialogue with notions of identity across and between regions, nations, races, and cultures. Through employing interdisciplinary methods and theories drawn from diverse sources, such as cultural studies, spatial theory, philosophy and literary theory, the chapters chart varied and complex themes of identity formation in relation to spatiality. (shrink)