Online research in philosophy

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between phenomenal experience and our folk conceptualization of it. I will focus on the phenomenal concept strategy as an answer to Mary's puzzle. In the first part I present Mary's argument and the phenomenal concept strategy. In the second part I explain the requirements phenomenal concepts should satisfy in order to solve Mary's puzzle. In the third part I present various accounts of what a phenomenal concept is, and I show (...) the difficulties each of them have. Finally, I develop my own account of phenomenal concepts. My thesis claims that phenomenal concepts are complex concepts whose possession conditions depend upon the mastery of many other concepts, in fact, quite complex concepts such as the distinction between appearance and reality (which belongs to our theory of mind system), and color concepts (at least in the case of the phenomenal concepts needed in order to account for Mary's case). And these later concepts are concepts that have special possession conditions: they include the deployment of nonconceptual recognitional capacities. (shrink)

In this paper I consider recent discussions within the representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness, in particular, the discussions between first order representationalism (FOR) and higher order representationalism (HOR). I aim to show that either there is only a terminological dispute between them or, if the discussion is not simply terminological, then HOR is based on a misunderstanding of the phenomena that a theory of phenomenal consciousness should explain. First, I argue that we can defend first order representationalism from Carruthers' attacks (...) and ignore higher order thoughts in our account of phenomenal consciousness. Then I offer a diagnostic of Carruthers' misunderstanding. In the last section I consider further reasons to include mindreading abilities in an explanation of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper,1 I discuss Davidson’s ideas about the relationship between mind and language. First, I consider his arguments for the claim that there cannot be thought without language, and I examine the assumptions the arguments presuppose. In the second place, I consider the idea of “thought” Davidson adopts, and its essentially normative and holistic character. Third, I try to show the adequacy of this conception of thought in order to deal with epistemological problems, and the inadequacy of this notion (...) in solving the problem of the “emergence” of thought. Finally, I sketch an alternative account of such an “emergence,” looking for continuities between pre-linguistic and linguistic thoughts. (shrink)

In this paper I shall discuss McGinn's transcendental naturalism (TN) and the reasons he gives in order to show that philosophy will always be just a cluster of mysteries without answers. I shall show that the three main arguments he gives for TN are inconclusive and that a modular architecture of the mind he presupposes is not committed to the epistemic thesis of TN, the idea that we are "cognitively closed" to answering some questions about consciousness, meaning, knowledge and the (...) like. /// En este trabajo discutiré el naturalismo trascendental (NT) que defiende McGinn y las razones que ofrece para mostrar que la filosofía será por siempre un cúmulo de misterios sin respuesta. Mostraré que ninguno de los tres argumentos principales que McGinn propone en favor de su positión es concluyente y que la estructura modular de la mente que presupone no está comprometida con la tesis epistémica del NT, esto es, con la idea de que estamos "cognitivamente cerrados" para responder preguntas acerca de la conciencia, el significado, la libertad, el conocimiento, etc. (shrink)

In this paper I shall carefully examine some recent arguments for dualism. These arguments presuppose a strong version of physicalism that I consider inappropriate. I shall try to show that, if we reformulate the thesis of physicalism according to Kim's view of physicalism (in terms of the supervenience relation), there is a third option, a version of type physicalism, where physicalism and quaiia could be conciliated. In order to sketch this option, I shall consider the main argument against type physicalism: (...) the explanatory gap argument, and two arguments that Kim mentions against physicalism: the inverted spectrum / zombies argument and the intrinsicality argument. I shall try to show that these three arguments depend upon a misconception of the nature of our ordinary mental concepts. (shrink)