Abstract
Do facts about water have a priori, transparent, reductive explanations in terms of microphysics? Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker hold that they do not. David Chalmers and Frank Jackson hold that they do. In this paper I argue that Chalmers’ and Jackson’s critique of Block and Stalnaker crucially hinges on a reductio argument, and that the reductio can be defused. I conclude that the counterexamples given by Block and Stalnaker are cogent. If I am right, then we have no reason to accept Chalmers’ and Jackson’s contentions that physicalism requires a priori, transparent, reductive explanations of all facts in terms of microphysical facts. This conclusion has consequences for C&J’s argument that conceptual analysis is essential to philosophical methodology.
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Notes
For convenience, I will often abbreviate “a priori, transparent, conceptual reduction” by “transparent reduction.” Sometimes I will speak of “a priori reduction” or “conceptual reduction” to emphasize those aspects of the C&J notion. I will use the full expression when there is a risk of confusion.
In some sense I view the apparatus as a red herring, distracting us from the main argument. As will be clear, the two-dimensional semantics at most plays the role of defending some premises and formulating some replies to critics. If my assessments hold up, then those replies to critics turn out to be question-begging. (See §§ 3–4.)
I sometimes appeal to other works to support my interpretation of C&J 2001. But those appeals should play no direct role in my direct line of argument.
In fact, it is part of C&J’s argument that no explicit and finitely statable reductive explanation may be available.
Such facts would include, among others, the fact that water boils at 100°C, that the oceans are filled with (impure) water, and that the substance kind water is identical to the substance kind H2O. Although I am wary of “fact” talk, I’m not going to fuss over it here. I am simply adopting the “fact” talk from C&J and many of their critics, and it is a convenient device for presenting my argument. I take it that we can restate the matter in terms of properties, sentences, or propositions if we care to do so—though I don’t suppose that the translation would be trivial.
I’ll continue to talk about “waterish properties and the “water role.” But it might be best to replace (W) with (W*) which uses the abbreviation Ω for the microphysical specification:
(W*) If H2O is the Ω stuff around here then water = H2O.
The reader is invited to make this substitution throughout if it will be helpful.
A parallel “explanation” can be given using a different conditional that is said to be known by one who has the concept ‘water’:
(1) H2O is the waterish stuff around here. (empirical, with indexical grounding)
(2) If H2O is the waterish stuff around here then water boils at 100°C. (W**)
(3) Water boils at 100°C. (1, 2, MP)
This version may be preferred by those who have the intuition that water = H2O is already a conceptual truth in its own right, in virtue of being an identity claim.
I am not presently concerned about the need for physical closure, indexical facts, or facts about experiences, which is acknowledged by C&J (2001). I will nevertheless periodically remind us that these additional facts are needed by C&J, so we don’t forget that they do not come for free (See Lycan 2003.)
The details of the B&S argument will not matter for the present considerations. Such an assertion rightly raises suspicion. To see why it is agreeable in this case, we must step back and observe the overall structure of the dialectic. First, C&J advanced a view about physicalism and transparent reductive explanation. Then, B&S offered an objection in two parts. In response, C&J themselves employ a two stage strategy. First, they argue that B&S’s critique cannot be correct (C&J, 2001, § 5.1: 336–338). This stage is a reductio argument that does not even mention the details of B&S’s argument. Second, supposing that they have defused the alleged counterexamples by way of the reductio, C&J argue that their favored account can handle the specific claims advanced by B&S (C&J, 2001, § 5.2–5.6: 338–350). Here C&J do engage in the details of the B&S argument. But because the second stage of the defense presupposes that the initial reductio stage was successful, the whole defense hangs on that reductio. If the first stage fails, then the B&S counterexamples stand and C&J’s second stage arguments are question-begging. So if we confine our attention to C&J’s initial reductio argument, the details of B&S’s discussion will not yet come into play. That is my strategy, and for that reason my discussion can safely omit the details of B&S’s arguments. As is characteristic of the target of reductio arguments, what is important to C&J is the conclusion that B&S draw rather than the details of their route to it.
Strictly speaking, the conclusion is that either there is a priori conceptual knowledge in the Gettier case, or at any rate “it is clear” that the B&S style argument has no tendency to show that there is not. That is not so clear to me; and I am puzzled as to what argument C&J have in mind. I will focus on the first possibly as the main objection, which I take it is their leverage in the reductio.
C&J acknowledge that there are some differences between the cases because the water case involves natural kinds and the knowledge case may not, but I will not pursue that difference here. And for my part, I don’t know whether or not we know that Smith does not have knowledge, in the Gettier scenario. So I will set these concerns aside for now.
Lycan is even more permissive than B&S and for the sake of argument I am prepared to go along. We can allow that our knowledge of W or K could even be a priori and yet fail to be conceptual knowledge—thus not dependent on any conceptual analysis, explicit or otherwise. I am willing to allow C&J room to seize a solution involving what Horgan and Henderson (2001) call “high grade” a priori knowledge. This, I take it, would involve substantial synthetic a priori knowledge. I can leave this option open to C&J because it would carry a very high cost for them to accept. If that is C&J’s position, then it has indeed been misunderstood and the whole debate can be focused on such a substantial philosophical commitment that is not grounded in semantic or conceptual concerns. Although for the sake of argument I could allow that philosophical or theoretical judgments may yet count as a priori, in fact it is quite controversial whether there is any such purely a priori and conceptual knowledge. If we are at all inclined towards Quinean skepticism about the a priori then we will be rather dubious. But a prioricity is not my central focus in this paper.
By “semantic” or “conceptual” intuitions, here, I refer to whatever abilities to make judgments about hypothetical cases that are conferred solely by mastering the meanings of terms or concepts.
It is important to note that neither Chalmers (1996) nor Jackson (1998) provide a positive argument for the view; rather, as in C&J (2001), they try to undermine arguments for the alternative. Even if successful, this would not ipso facto demonstrate that there are reasons to adopt their preferred view. (Byrne 1999; Hill and McLaughlin 1999; Lycan forthcoming).
Specifically, if B-facts supervene on A-facts, then “if A then B” is true, and C&J say that the A-facts entail the B-facts. When this “entailment” (i.e., conditional) is justified a priori, then C&J say that the A-facts imply the B-facts. (For C&J, the conditional is justified a priori if an ideal reasoner who knows the A-facts and has the B-concepts can correctly judge that the conditional is true.)
These additional facts are problematic, but I will not pursue that issue herein.
My discussion herein is also informed by the presentations and discussion at the conference, “Physicalism,” at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, April 2005. See Philosophical Studies (October 2006, Vol. 131, Issue 1).
In fact I think this argument equivocates on the class of “sui generis” facts. But that analysis goes beyond what I can offer herein. See my (forthcoming), in which I respond to Horgan’s use of this basic argument.
Another response might be to welcome the anti-physicalist conclusion concerning water. But Chalmers cannot do this, for his arguments require that water differ from consciousness precisely in that it is reducible and consciousness is not.
See also Polger (forthcoming).
One might suppose that I carry the burden of showing not only that there is an alternative, but that there is an alternative that works as well as or better than C&J’s favored transparent reductions at explaining, e.g., Gettier judgments. If C&J argued that their account is the best available, then that might be correct. But they do not—they argue that their account is the only candidate. In this context, then, I need only show that other alternatives are on offer. C&J might try responding to my alternatives by arguing that their account is superior on other grounds. But that would be a different argument than any that they have deployed thus far. (I am grateful to an anonymous referee for urging that I clarify this aspect of the dialectic.)
Examples are too numerous to list in full. A few particularly salient sources not discussed in the text are: the exchange between Jackson and Harman in Michael and O’ Leary Hawthorne (1994); the exchange between Boghossian and Harman in Noûs 30, 3 (1996); the exchange between Bealer, Lycan, and E. Sosa in Philosophical Studies 81 (1996); the essays collected in Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry (DePaul and Ramsey, 1999); the symposium on Jackson’s From Metaphysics to Ethics in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62, 3 (2001); the exchange between E. Sosa and Lynch in Greenough and Lynch (2006); as well as Bealer (1987), Lewis (1994), Fumerton (1999), Yablo (2000), Pust (2001), Kornblith (2006), D. Sosa (2006), E. Sosa (2007), Nolan (forthcoming).
See McCloskey (1983) for nice examples of false folk beliefs about mechanics.
Of course for C&J the fact that the reasoners make different judgments constitutes their having different concepts, or rather their concepts having different intensions. But then the force of Williamson’s proposal is as another demonstration that C&J cannot take for granted their preferred account of intensions.
This project is further pursued in my forthcoming.
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Acknowledgements
I have greatly benefited from discussions of this material with Paul Bloomfield, Tom Bontly, David Chalmers, Janice Dowell, Chris Gauker, Sandy Goldberg, Michael Lynch, Andrew Melnyk, Robert Richardson, and John Sarnecki. Special thanks go to David Henderson who commented on an early version of this paper at the Central States Philosophical Association meeting in 2005, and to an anonymously referee for this journal who provided extensive and constructive feedback. I am grateful for feedback from the audiences at the CSPA and at the University of Toledo. Work on this project was supported in part by a fellowship from the Charles P. Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati.
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Polger, T.W. H2O, ‘Water’, and Transparent Reduction. Erkenn 69, 109–130 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9092-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9092-8