2010-05-03
Describing zombies
Reply to Hugh Chandler


Sometimes what looks like a nice, straightforward natural kind term turns out not to be. For instance ‘jade’ turns out to designate two fundamentally different minerals: Nephrite and Jadeite.  Biology provides several examples. The term ‘worm’ turns out to be hopeless, biologically. There are lots of radically distinct animals that are called ‘worms'. There is no such natural kind. The term ‘fish’ used to be heterogeneous in the same way. Whale-fish, cray-fish, starfish, as well as flounders, and mackerel. In analyzing the term one was reduced to describing the various kinds of critters that are given that label. No better way to proceed.

 

‘Conscious’ and ‘Consciousness’ may turn out to belong to this family of terms. It may be heterogeneous in this way. [I think Chalmers mentions this possibility some where; but I don’t remember where.] In effect, there may be no such thing as ‘consciousness’ per se – just a loose bundle of various psychological and phenomenal states, activities, or whatever.

 

It is a mistake to think that in exploring putative general terms one must first fix a clear, single, meaning for the general term (e.g. ‘worm’) and then move on to an exploration of the particular kinds of things that fall under it. That is to say, one mustn’t assume there is some nice set of essential properties that unites the things that belong to this alleged class. Some apparent classes are not like this.