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• Faculty, Rutgers University
• PhD, Rutgers University, 1998.

• Philosophy of Mind
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My primary areas of research are the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. The problems that interest me most, the mind-body problem, personal identity and free will lie at their intersection. I am currently writing a monograph tentatively entitled Through a glass darkly: phenomenal consciousness and phenomenal concepts. I argue that our lack of understanding the connection between mind and body is due to the nature of phenomenal concepts. In my view, phenomenal concepts are partly constituted by the phenomenal states they apply to. This account explains the puzzling features of phenomenal consciousness, including the conceivability of zombies and the explanatory gap in a way that is compatible with both a physicalist and non-physicalist framework. I argue that, based on this account of phenomenal concepts, the physicalist can adequately respond to anti-physicalist challenges but also notice that there is a puzzling symmetry between anti-physicalist attacks and physicalist replies. Each position can be developed in a way to defend itself from attacks from the other position. If the debate over ontology can be decided at all, it can be decided by comparing which metaphysics provides the better overall explanatory/theoretical framework.

11 items found. Sort by: publication yearfirst authorviewingsaddition date Katalin Balog (forthcoming). Acquaintance and the Mind-Body Problem. In Christopher Hill & Simone Gozzano (eds.), The Mental, the Physical. Cambridge University Press. In this paper I begin to develop an account of the acquaintance that each of us has with our own conscious states and processes. The account is a speculative proposal about human mental architecture and specifically about the nature of the concepts via which we think in first personish ways about our qualia. In a certain sense my account is neutral between physicalist and dualist accounts of consciousness. As will be clear, a dualist could adopt the account I will offer (...) while maintaining that qualia themselves are non-physical properties. In this case the non-physical nature of qualia may play no role in accounting for the features of acquaintance. But although the account could be used by a dualist, its existence provides support for physicalism. (shrink) Knowledge of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind Mind-Body Problem, General in Philosophy of Mind Phenomenal Concepts in Philosophy of Mind Zombies and the Conceivability Argument in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2012). In Defense of the Phenomenal Concept Strategy1. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (1):1-23. During the last two decades, several different anti-physicalist arguments based on an epistemic or conceptual gap between the phenomenal and the physical have been proposed. The most promising physicalist line of defense in the face of these arguments – the Phenomenal Concept Strategy – is based on the idea that these epistemic and conceptual gaps can be explained by appeal to the nature of phenomenal concepts rather than the nature of non-physical phenomenal properties. Phenomenal concepts, on this proposal, involve unique (...) cognitive mechanisms, but none that could not be fully physically implemented. David Chalmers has recently presented a Master Argument to show that the Phenomenal Concept Strategy – not just this or that version of it, but any version of it – fails. Chalmers argues that the phenomenal concepts posited by such theories are either not physicalistically explicable, or they cannot explain our epistemic situation with regard to qualia. I argue that it is his Master Argument that fails. My claim is his argument does not provide any new reasons to reject the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. I also argue that, although the Phenomenal Concept Strategy is successful in showing that the physicalist is not rationally compelled to give up physicalism in the light of the anti-physicalist arguments, the anti-physicalist is not rationally compelled to give up the anti-physicalist argument in the light of the Phenomenal Concept Strategy either. (shrink) Phenomenal Concepts in Philosophy of Mind The Explanatory Gap in Philosophy of Mind Zombies and the Conceivability Argument in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation  | Other links: onlinelibrary.wiley.com dx.doi.org doi.wiley.com   | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2009). Phenomenal Concepts. In Brian McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), Oxford Handbook in the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford University Press. This article is about the special, subjective concepts we apply to experience, called “phenomenal concepts”. They are of special interest in a number of ways. First, they refer to phenomenal experiences, and the qualitative character of those experiences whose metaphysical status is hotly debated. Conscious experience strike many philosophers as philosophically problematic and difficult to accommodate within a physicalistic metaphysics. Second, PCs are widely thought to be special and unique among concepts. The sense that there is something special about PCs (...) is very closely tied up with features of the epistemic access they afford to qualia. When we deploy phenomenal concepts introspectively to some phenomenally conscious experience as it occurs, we are said to be acquainted with our own conscious experiences. Accounts of PCs either have to explain the acquaintance relation, or acquaintance with our phenomenal experiences has to be denied. PCs have received much attention in recent philosophy of mind mainly because they figure in arguments for dualism and in physicalist responses to these arguments. The main topic of this article is to explore different accounts of phenomenal concepts and their role in recent debates over the metaphysical status of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink) Phenomenal Concepts in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation  | Other links: andromeda.rutgers.edu   | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2009). Jerry Fodor on Non-Conceptual Content. Synthese 167 (3):311 - 320. Proponents of non-conceptual content have recruited it for various philosophical jobs. Some epistemologists have suggested that it may play the role of “the given” that Sellars is supposed to have exorcised from philosophy. Some philosophers of mind (e.g., Dretske) have suggested that it plays an important role in the project of naturalizing semantics as a kind of halfway between merely information bearing and possessing conceptual content. Here I will focus on a recent proposal by Jerry Fodor. In a recent paper (...) he characterizes non-conceptual content in a particular way and argues that it is plausible that it plays an explanatory role in accounting for certain auditory and visual phenomena. So he thinks that there is reason to believe that there is non-conceptual content. On the other hand, Fodor thinks that non-conceptual content has a limited role. It occurs only in the very early stages of perceptual processing prior to conscious awareness. My paper is examines Fodor’s characterization of non-conceptual content and his claims for its explanatory importance. I also discuss if Fodor has made a case for limiting non-conceptual content to non-conscious, sub-personal mental states. (shrink) Computationalism in Cognitive Science in Philosophy of Cognitive Science Conceptual and Nonconceptual Content in Philosophy of Mind Representation in Cognitive Science in Philosophy of Cognitive Science Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2008). Review of Torin Alter, Sven Walter (Eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (5). The book under review is a collection of thirteen essays on the nature phenomenal concepts and the ways in which phenomenal concepts figure in debates over physicalism. Phenomenal concepts are of special interest in a number of ways. First, they refer to phenomenal experiences, and the qualitative character of those experiences (aka “qualia”) whose metaphysical status is hotly debated. There are recent arguments, originating in Descartes’ famous conceivability argument, that purport to show that phenomenal experience is irreducibly non-physical. Second, phenomenal (...) concepts are widely thought to be special and unique among concepts. Both the anti-physicalist arguments and physicalist replies to these arguments turn on views about the nature of phenomenal concepts. In this review I survey the many ways in which the essays in this volume are engaged (pro or con) with anti-physicalist arguments and the role phenomenal concepts play in these arguments. (shrink) Phenomenal Concepts in Philosophy of Mind The Knowledge Argument in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2007). Comments on Ned Block's Target Article “Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh Between Psychology and Neuroscience”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (4):499-500. Block argues that relevant data in psychology and neuroscience shows that access consciousness is not constitutively necessary for phenomenality. However, a phenomenal state can be access conscious in two radically different ways. Its content can be access conscious, or its phenomenality can be access conscious. I’ll argue that while Block’s thesis is right when it is formulated in terms of the first notion of access consciousness, there is an alternative hypothesis about the relationship between phenomenality and access in terms of (...) the second notion that is not touched by Block’s argument. (shrink) Aspects of Consciousness, Misc in Philosophy of Mind Consciousness and Neuroscience, Misc in Philosophy of Cognitive Science Neural Correlates of Consciousness in Philosophy of Cognitive Science Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2004). Review: Thinking About Consciousness. Mind 113 (452):774-778. Papineau in his book provides a detailed defense of physicalism via what has recently been dubbed the “phenomenal concept strategy”. I share his enthusiasm for this approach. But I disagree with his account of how a physicalist should respond to the conceivability arguments. Also I argue that his appeal to teleosemantics in explaining mental quotation is more like a promissory note than an actual theory. Consciousness and Materialism, Misc in Philosophy of Mind Phenomenal Concepts in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation  | Other links: mind.oupjournals.org dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2001). Commentary on Frank Jackson's From Metaphysics to Ethics. [REVIEW] Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (3):645–652. Discussion of Frank Jackson’s a priori entailment thesis – which he employs to connect metaphysics and conceptual analysis. In From Metaphysics to Ethics. (2001) he develops this thesis within the two-dimensional framework and also proposes a formal argument for the existence of a priori truths. I argue that the two-dimensional framework doesn’t provide independent support for the a priori entailment thesis since one has to build into the framework assumptions as strong as the thesis itself. -/- . Conceptual Analysis in Metaphilosophy Conceptual Analysis and A Priori Entailment in Philosophy of Mind Two-Dimensionalism about Content in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation  | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com jstor.org dx.doi.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (2000). Phenomenal Judgment and the HOT Theory: Comments on David Rosenthal’s “Consciousness, Content, and Metacognitive Judgments”. Consciousness and Cognition 9 (2):215-219. In this commentary I criticize David Rosenthal’s higher order thought theory of consciousness (HOT). This is one of the best articulated philosophical accounts of consciousness available. The theory is, roughly, that a mental state is conscious in virtue of there being another mental state, namely, a thought to the effect that one is in the first state. I argue that this account is open to the objection that it makes “HOT-zombies” possible, i.e., creatures that token higher order mental states, but (...) not the states that the higher order states are about. I discuss why none of the ways to accommodate this problem within HOT leads to viable positions. (shrink) Higher-Order Thought Theories of Consciousness in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (1999). Conceivability, Possibility, and the Mind-Body Problem. Philosophical Review 108 (4):497-528. This paper was chosen by The Philosopher’s Annual as one of the ten best articles appearing in print in 2000. Reprinted in Volume XXIII of The Philosopher’s Annual. In his very influential book David Chalmers argues that if physicalism is true then every positive truth is a priori entailed by the full physical description – this is called “the a priori entailment thesis – but ascriptions of phenomenal consciousness are not so entailed and he concludes that Physicalism is false. As (...) he puts it, “zombies” are metaphysically possible. I attempt to show (I think successfully) that this argument is refuted by considering an analogous argument in the mouth of a zombie. The conclusion of this argument is false so one of the premises is false. I argue at length that this shows that the original conceivability argument also has a false premise and so is invalid. -/- . (shrink) Phenomenal Concepts in Philosophy of Mind Zombies and the Conceivability Argument in Philosophy of Mind Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation  | Other links: jstor.org   | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Katalin Balog (1999). Simple Mindedness. Philosophical Review 108 (4). No categories Reading list   |  Discuss  |  Edit  |  Categorize  |     My bibliography  |   Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...

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