2010-05-03
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Describing zombies
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Hugh ChandlerUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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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.
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