Many contemporary philosophers of mind are concerned to defend a thesis called a posteriori physicalism. This thesis has two parts, one metaphysical, and the other epistemological. The metaphysical part of the thesis—the physicalist part—is the claim that the psychological nature of the actual world is wholly physical. The epistemological part of the thesis—the a posteriori part—is the claim that no a priori connection holds between psychological nature and physical nature. Despite its attractiveness, however, a familiar argument alleges that a (...) posteriori physicalism cannot be true. This argument is sometimes called the Property Dualism Argument Against Physicalism. In this paper, I consider Stephen White’s version of the Property Dualism Argument and argue that it fails. I distinguish two ways in which the argument’s crucial notion might be understood, and I argue that on neither way of understanding it is the Property Dualism Argument compelling. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an argument against a type of Non-Analytic Normative Naturalism. This argument, the Normative Property Dualism Argument, suggests that, if Non-Analytic Normative Naturalists posit that normative properties are identical to natural properties and that such identities are a posteriori, they will be forced to posit that these properties which are both normative and natural have higher-order normative properties of their own.

This chapter defends the property dualism argument. The term “semantic premise” mentioned is used to refers to an assumption identified by Brian Loar that antiphysicalist arguments, such as the property dualism argument, tacitly assume that a statement of property identity that links conceptually independent concepts is true only if at least one concept picks out the property it refers to by connoting a contingent property of that property. It is argued (...) that, the property that does the work in explaining the possibility of a posteriori identities need not be a first-order property of the referent in question. On his view, the property dualism argument requires only a weaker semantic premise, which allows that the property in question be a higher order property. A refined version of the property dualism argument is formulated, which uses the weaker premise, and defends the argument against various objections. (shrink)

In Max Black’s Objection to Mind–Body Identity, Ned Block seeks to offer a definitive treatment of property dualism arguments that exploit modes of presentation. I will argue that Block’s central response to property dualism is confused. The property dualist can happily grant that mental modes of presentation have a hidden physical nature. What matters for the property dualist is not the hidden physical side of the property, but the apparent mental side. Once that (...) ‘thin’ side is granted, the property dualist has won. I conclude that although Block is wrong to think that the property dualist must argue for so-called thin mental properties, Block, and the physicalist, are able to resist property dualism. But any attempt to bolster this resistance and do more than dogmatically assert the crucial identity runs a serious risk of undermining the physicalism it is meant to save. (shrink)

I attempt to rebut Dean Zimmerman's novel argument (2010), which he presents in support of substance dualism, for the conclusion that, in spite of its popularity, the combination of property dualism with substance materialism represents a precarious position in the philosophy of mind. I take issue with Zimmerman's contention that the vagueness of ‘garden variety’ material objects such as brains or bodies makes them unsuitable candidates for the possession of phenomenal properties. I also argue that the (...) ‘speculative materialism’ that is available to a substance materialist property dualist who abandons the identification of persons with such garden variety objects is significantly more attractive than Zimmerman allows. Although I do not attempt to refute its substance dualist rival, I conclude that the combination of property dualism with substance materialism can withstand Zimmerman's objections. (shrink)

This paper examines some consequences of the (quasi-)epiphenomenalism implied by a property dualistic view of phenomenal consciousness. The focus is upon the variation of phenomenal content over time. A thought-experiment is constructed to support two claims. The weaker claim exhibits an incompatibility which arises in certain logically possible situations between a conscious subject’s epistemic norms and the requirement that one be aware of one’s conscious experience. This could be interpreted as providing some epistemic grounds for the postulation of bridging (...) laws between the physical/functional and phenomenal domains. The stronger claim has it that the ontology of property dualism is not properly able to account for the certainty I have of being phenomenally conscious. The problem is viewed as resulting from the neglect of the intensional context involved in a proper representation of the argument for property dualism. It is argued that only a transcendental move can do justice to this certainty I have. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that property dualism and substance materialism are incompatible positions. Recently, Susan Schneider has provided a novel version of such an argument, claiming that the incompatibility will be evident once we examine some underlying metaphysical issues. She purports to show that on any account of substance and property-possession, substance materialism and property dualism turn out incompatible. In this paper, I argue that Schneider’s case for incompatibility between these two positions fails. After (...) briefly laying out her case for incompatibility, I present an account of substance—one that relies on a relational ontology—that makes the combination of substance materialism and property dualism unproblematic. Then I show that even under the theories of substance that Schneider considers—those that rely on a constituent ontology—there still is no incompatibility problem. (shrink)

This paper examines some consequences of the (quasi‐)epiphenomenalism implied by a property dualistic view of phenomenal consciousness. The focus is upon the variation of phenomenal content over time. A thought‐experiment is constructed to support two claims. The weaker claim exhibits an incompatibility which arises in certain logically possible situations between a conscious subject’s epistemic norms and the requirement that one be aware of one’s conscious experience. This could be interpreted as providing some epistemic grounds for the postulation of bridging (...) laws between the physical/functional and phenomenal domains. The stronger claim has it that the ontology of property dualism is not properly able to account for the certainty I have of being phenomenally conscious. The problem is viewed as resulting from the neglect of the intensional context involved in a proper representation of the argument for property dualism. It is argued that only a transcendental move can do justice to this certainty I have. (shrink)

We argue that the so-called "property-dualist" theory of consciousness is consistent both with current neurobiological data and with modern theories of physics. The hypothesis that phenomenal properties are global properties that are irreducible to microphysical properties, whose role is to integrate information across large portions of the brain, is consistent with current neurobiological knowledge. These properties can exercise their integration function through action on microscopic structures in the neuron without violating the laws of quantum mechanics. Although we offer no (...) positive argument for the existence of irreducibly global properties, the conclusion is that this view is a scientifically respectable hypothesis that deserves to be investigated. (shrink)

Searle suggests biological naturalism as a solution to the mind-brain problem that escapes traditional terminology with its seductive pull towards either dualism or materialism. We reconstruct Searle's argument and demonstrate that it needs additional support to represent a position truly located between dualism and materialism. The aim of our paper is to provide such an additional argument. We introduce the concept of "autoepistemic limitation" that describes our principal inability to directly experience our own brain as a (...) brain from the first-person perspective. The neglect of the autoepistemic limitation leads to inferences from epistemic properties to ontological features - we call this "epistemic-ontological inference." Searle attempts to avoid such epistemic-ontological inference but does not provide a sufficient argument. Once the autoepistemic limitation is considered, epistemic-ontological inference can be avoided. As a consequence, one can escape traditional terminology with its seductive pull towards either dualism or materialism. (shrink)

This paper considers a seventeenth century argument for (substance) dualism propounded by Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth that appeals to the nature of secondary qualities or sensations. I argue that, despite the widespread acceptance of the primary/secondary quality distinction, this argument is relatively unique for its time since seventeenth century arguments for dualism generally appeal, not to sensory qualities, but to thought, language, rationality, and volition. Indeed, for many, sensations are the most embodied of mental phenomena. I (...) draw points of comparison and contrast between this argument, and nineteenth and twentieth century qualia-based arguments for (property) dualism. Finally, although such an argument might reasonably be called a “Lockean argument for substance dualism,” given Locke’s influential popularization of the primary-secondary quality distinction, I argue that it is not, in fact, an argument to which Locke would subscribe. (shrink)

This chapter explains that most of the standard objections to substance dualism (SD) count as effectively against property dualism (PD), and that PD is hardly more plausible, or less implausible, than SD. Dualism competes, not with neuroscience (a science), but with materialism, an opposing philosophical theory. The chapter shows that although Cartesian dualism faces some serious objections, that does not distinguish it from other philosophical theories, and the objections are not an order of magnitude worse (...) than those confronting materialism in particular. There remain the implausibilities required by the Cartesian view; but bare claim of implausibility is not argument. The dialectical upshot is that, on points, and going just by actual arguments as opposed to appeals to decency and what good guys believe, materialism is not significantly better supported than dualism. (shrink)

The exclusion argument is widely thought to put considerable pressure on dualism, if not to refute it outright. We argue to the contrary that, whether or not their position is ultimately true, dualists have a plausible response. The response focuses on the notion of ‘distinctness’ that is employed to distinguish between mental and physical properties: if ‘distinctness’ is understood in one way, the exclusion principle on which the argument rests can be denied by the dualist; if it (...) is understood in another way, the argument is not persuasive. (shrink)

Arguments for property dualism offer a strong challenge to materialist views, but even if they are regarded as successful, a large task remains, namely, to develop a positive account of the place of non-physical properties in the world -- one that holds some promise of eventual satisfaction regarding the hard problem. After noting some difficulties in current approaches to this task, this paper outlines one possible line of development for a dualistic view. Like all other suggestions for routes (...) to progress in this area, this one is speculative. However, the empirical findings that would support this line of development lie within current epistemic possibility. Moreover, the conceptual changes that would be required are intelligible from our present vantage point, and have parallels in views that are accepted in science and by non-dualist philosophers. (shrink)

This chapter draws an analogy between substance dualism (SD) and one kind of creationism. Some substance dualists appear to believe that SD is preferable to physicalism because only the former can account for the existence of morality. Some dualists are attracted to emergence, although it is unclear that it is a form of SD; indeed, it is not clear that it is a form of dualism at all, and if it is it would seem to be a form (...) of property dualism. The chapter discusses SD's relationship to three key elements of religious doctrine and the idea of emergence. It describes most serious arguments for physicalism and consequently against SD. According to SD, mind and brain are radically different substances, the former nonphysical, the latter physical. Advocates of occasionalist SD claim that God appropriately correlates mental and physical events occasion by occasion. (shrink)

A number of popular arguments for dualism start from a premise about an epistemic gap between physical truths about truths about consciousness, and infer an ontological gap between physical processes and consciousness. Arguments of this sort include the conceivability argument, the knowledge argument, the explanatory-gap argument, and the property dualism argument. Such arguments are often resisted on the grounds that epistemic premises do not entail ontological conclusion. My view is that one can legitimately (...) infer ontological conclusions from epistemic premises, if one is very careful about how one reasons. To do so, the best way is to reason first from epistemic premises to modal conclusions , and from there to ontological conclusions. Here, the crucial issue is the link between the epistemic and modal domains. How can one reason from theses about what is knowable or conceivable to theses about what is necessary or possible? To bridge the epistemic and modal domains, the framework of two-dimensional semantics can play a central role. I have used this framework in earlier work to mount an argument against materialism. Here, I want to revisit the argument, laying it out in a more explicit and careful form, and responding to a number of objections. In what follows I will concentrate mostly on the conceivability argument. I think that very similar considerations apply to the other arguments mentioned above, however. In the final section of the paper, I show how this analysis might yield a unified treatment of a number of anti-materialist arguments. (shrink)

Throughout the 1990s, Jaegwon Kim developed a line of argument that what purport to be nonreductive forms of physicalism are ultimately untenable, since they cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of mental states. We argue that, while the argument needs some tweaking, its basic thrust is sound. In what follows, we lay out our preferred version of the argument and highlight its essential dependence on a causal-powers metaphysic, a dependence that Kim does not acknowledge in his official presentations (...) of the argument. We then discuss two recent physicalist strategies for preserving the causal efficacy of the mental in the face of this sort of challenge, strategies that (ostensibly) endorse a causal powers metaphysics of properties while offering distinctive accounts of the physical realization of mental properties. We argue that neither picture can be satisfactorily worked out, and that seeing why they fail strongly suggests that nonreductive physicalism and a causal powers metaphysic are not compatible, as our original argument contends. Since we also believe that robust realism concerning mental causation should not be abandoned, we take the argument of this paper to strongly motivate an account on which the mental is unrealized by and ontologically emergent from the physical. In a final section, we sketch what an ontologically emergentist account of the mental might look like. (shrink)

A number of popular arguments for dualism start from a premise about an epistemic gap between physical truths about truths about consciousness, and infer an ontological gap between physical processes and consciousness. Arguments of this sort include the conceivability argument, the knowledge argument, the explanatory-gap argument, and the property dualism argument. Such arguments are often resisted on the grounds that epistemic premises do not entail ontological conclusion. My view is that one can legitimately (...) infer ontological conclusions from epistemic premises, if one is very careful about how one reasons. To do so, the best way is to reason first from epistemic premises to modal conclusions (about necessity and possibility), and from there to ontological conclusions. Here, the crucial issue is the link between the epistemic and modal domains. How can one reason from theses about what is knowable or conceivable to theses about what is necessary or possible? To bridge the epistemic and modal domains, the framework of two-dimensional semantics can play a central role. I have used this framework in earlier work (Chalmers 1996) to mount an argument against materialism. Here, I want to revisit the argument, laying it out in a more explicit and careful form, and responding to a number of objections. In what follows I will concentrate mostly on the conceivability argument. I think that very similar considerations apply to the other arguments mentioned above, however. In the final section of the paper, I show how this analysis might yield a unified treatment of a number of anti-materialist arguments. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that exclusion arguments cannot exclude non-reductionist physicalist mental properties from being causes without excluding properties that are patently causal as well. List and Stoljar (2017) recently argued that a similar response to exclusion arguments is also available to dualists, thereby challenging the predominant view that exclusion arguments undermine dualist theories of mind. In particular, List and Stoljar maintain that exclusion arguments against dualism require a premise that states that, if a property is metaphysically distinct from (...) the sufficient cause of an effect, this property cannot be a cause of that effect. I argue that this premise is indeed likely to exclude patently causal properties, but that exclusion arguments against dualism do not require this premise. The relation that enables metaphysically distinct properties to cause the same effect in the relevant way turns out to be tighter than the relation typically posited between dualist conscious properties and their underlying physical properties. It is therefore still plausible that the latter causally exclude the former and that compelling exclusion arguments against dualism can be formulated by using a weaker exclusion premise. I conclude by proposing such a formulation. (shrink)

P-zombies are creatures that are physically (functionally, behaviorally) like you and I and yet lack phenomenal consciousness. If such creatures are possible, it’s (typically) taken to show property dualism is true: phenomenal consciousness isn’t reducible to—nor does it supervene on—physical states. If inverted qualia are possible, it’s possible that you and I have identical physical states and yet you see tomatoes as green and I see tomatoes as red. If this is the case, then (again) property (...) class='Hi'>dualism is (typically) taken to be true. In this article, I’ll show that p-zombies and inverted qualia—if they are actually possible—prove more than previously thought: if one thinks p-zombies or inverted qualia are possible, then she should endorse one of the four following theses: (i) substance dualism, (ii) we have even more reason to reject p-zombies and inverted qualia since they entail an even more radical conclusion than previously thought (i.e. substance dualism), (iii) eliminativism about selves, or (iv) friends of p-zombies and inverted qualia have homework: they need to show a relevant, plausible disanalogy between arguments for p-zombies and inverted qualia as traditionally stated and my parallel arguments that entail substance dualism. My purpose here isn’t to defend any of these particular options. Instead, my purpose is to highlight that these are the four options available to take. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the anti‐materialist arguments that purport to show that conscious phenomena are genuinely new, nonphysical features of reality. The anti‐materialist claims that zombies are indeed conceivable. To see why this might make trouble for the materialist, the chapter considers again what is supposed to distinguish materialism from property dualism. Given the characterization of the difference between the materialist and the property dualist, it becomes clear why the conceivability of a zombie counts against materialism. One of (...) the most influential anti‐materialist arguments is the one presented by Frank Jackson. Jackson starts by assuming that the thesis of physicalism entails that all information is physical information. The most straightforward physicalist theory is the Central State Identity Theory (CSIT). According to this view (Smart 1959) conscious mental states, such as pains or visual sensations, are identical to certain states of the central nervous system. The principal objection to this view is its inherent “chauvinism”. (shrink)

Contemporary arguments for forms of psycho-physical dualism standardly depart from phenomenal aspects of consciousness. Conceptual aspects of conscious experience, as opposed to phenomenal or visual/perceptual ones, are often taken to be within the scope of functionalist, reductionist, or physicalist theories. I argue that the particular conceptual structure of human consciousness makes this asymmetry unmotivated. The argument for a form of dualism defended here proceeds from the empirical premise that conceptual structure in a linguistic creature like us is (...) a combinatorial and compositional system that implicates a distinction between simple and complex, or 'atomic' and 'molecular' concepts. The argument is that conceptual atoms, qua atoms, are irreducible to anything else. If so, and if the atoms are essentially semantic, a form of dualism follows: though positively inviting naturalistic inquiry into the semantic and mental aspects of nature, it requires that we look at the mental as a primitive domain of nature. Schematically, then, the argument is as follows: Human consciousness/thought is conceptually structured. The human conceptual system is a 'particulate' system at a syntactic and semantic level of representation. This implies the existence of conceptual 'particles', concepts that have no further semantic decomposition. A conceptual atom cannot be explained in terms of anything that does not involve its own intrinsic properties. Physicalism as normally conceived is inconsistent with and. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim maintains that his ‘exclusion argument’ forces us to accept reductive physicalism, which identifies mental and other high-level properties of the world with lower-level properties, over nonreductive physicalism, which avoids such identifications. According to Kim, the exclusion argument shows that any nonreductive view leads to either epiphenomenalism or unacceptable overdetermination of physical effects by physical causes. However, a popular nonreductive physicalist approach called ‘compatibilism’ aims to show that physicalism need not collapse high-level properties into lower-level physical. Compatibilism (...) attempts to block the exclusion argument by attending to the tight modal relationship between higher and lower properties required by nonreductive physicalism. Unfortunately, a similarly tight modal relationship will be embraced by any dualists who hold that natural laws are metaphysically necessary. Despite its increasingly widespread popularity among nonreductive physicalists, it thus seems that the compatibilist’s proposed solution cannot be upheld without removing the barriers to dualists of this sort. (shrink)

Throughout the 1990s, Jaegwon Kim developed a line of argument that what purport to be nonreductive forms of physicalism are ultimately untenable, since they cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of mental states. His argument has received a great deal of discussion, much of it critical. We believe that, while the argument needs some tweaking, its basic thrust is sound. In what follows, we will lay out our preferred version of the argument and highlight its essential dependence (...) on a causal-powers metaphysic, a dependence that Kim does not acknowledge in his official presentations of the argument.i We then discuss two recent physicalist strategies for preserving the causal efficacy of the mental in the face of this sort of challenge, strategies that (ostensibly) endorse a causal powers metaphysics of properties while offering distinctive accounts of the physical realization of mental properties. We argue that neither picture can be satisfactorily worked out, and that seeing why they fail strongly suggests that nonreductive physicalism and a causal powers metaphysic are not compatible, as our original argument contends. Since we also believe that robust realism concerning mental causation should not be abandoned, we take the argument of this paper to strongly motivate an account on which the mental is unrealized by and ontologically emergent from the physical. In a final section, we sketch what an ontologically emergentist account of the mental might look like. (shrink)

I attempt to rebut Dean Zimmerman's novel argument (2010), which he presents in support of substance dualism, for the conclusion that, in spite of its popularity, the combination of property dualism with substance materialism represents a precarious position in the philosophy of mind. I take issue with Zimmerman's contention that the vagueness of 'garden variety' material objects such as brains or bodies makes them unsuitable candidates for the possession of phenomenal properties. I also argue that the (...) 'speculative materialism' that is available to a substance materialist property dualist who abandons the identification of persons with such garden variety objects is significantly more attractive than Zimmerman allows. Although I do not attempt to refute its substance dualist rival, I conclude that the combination of property dualism with substance materialism can withstand Zimmerman's objections. (shrink)

Back in the late 1950s, a wonderful thing happened to metaphysics.

This dissertation develops and defends a detailed realist, internalist account of qualia which is consistent with physicalism and which does not resurrect the epistemological 'myth of the Given.' In doing so it stakes out a position in the sparsely populated middle ground between the two major opposing factions on the problem of phenomenal consciousness: between those who think we have a priori reasons to believe that qualia are irreducible to the physical , and those who implicitly or explicitly treat qualia (...) as contentful but non-phenomenal physical properties . ;I present a minimal, non-question-begging definition of "qualia" and then use this definition in a reformulation of the argument from perceiver relativity which shows that qualia must, at least in humans, be properties of states of the central nervous system. That is, brain states do not simply indicate the colours of external objects---they instantiate phenomenal colours. Since brain states are not coloured in the same way as are external objects, I argue that to token phenomenal property F must be to be the first-person phenomenal sensation of F. I build on this position to argue that the phenomenal apprehension of qualia, is "given"---immediate, certain and private---but that qualia nevertheless do not provide an absolutely certain epistemological foundation since they do not constitute a set of indisputable propositions about facts. I then define what it would be for physicalism to be true of qualia, but argue that the main a priori arguments for and against qualia physicalism---including the logical possibility of zombies and the impossibility of epiphenomenalism---fail. Whether qualia are consistent with physicalism, I claim, is still an open question, answerable only when we discover in more detail how qualia depend upon the brain. ;Although strongly in sympathy with many commonsensical intuitions about qualia, this account stands in contrast to most influential extant theories of qualia, such as eliminativism , externalism , or property-dualism : I conclude the dissertation by using its results to argue explicitly against these three positions. (shrink)

1 Grasping Properties I will present an argument for property dualism. The argument employs a distinction between having a concept of a property and grasping a property via a concept. If you grasp a property P via a concept C, then C is a concept of P. But the reverse does not hold: you may have a concept of a property without grasping that property via any concept. If you grasp a (...) property, then your cognitive relation to that property is more intimate then if you just have some concept or other of that property. To grasp a property is to understand what having that property essentially consists in. (shrink)

Since the seventeenth century, mind-body dualism has undergone an evolution, both in its metaphysics and its supporting arguments. In particular, debates in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England prepared the way for the fall of substance dualism—the view that the human mind is an immaterial substance capable of independent existence—and the rise of a much less radical property dualism. The evolution from the faltering plausibility of substance dualism to the growing appeal of property dualism depended (...) on at least two factors. On the one hand, there was an increasing recognition of the causal and ontological interdependence of mind and body. Important here was a growing appreciation of the dependence of thought and perception on complex activities in the brain. On the other hand, there was a reconceptualization of the nature of matter; no longer inert and passive, matter came to be viewed as active in its own right. The old arguments lost much of their force, opening the door to a new sort of argument. Rather than appealing to the supposed immaterial nature of mental substance and volition, arguments for dualism began to appeal to the subjective nature of conscious experience—and its inexplicable emergence from the brain—as proof of the ontological distinctiveness of conscious properties. Consequently, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the ascent of a more plausible, but still very problematic, property dualism, a position that to this day enjoys significant support. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Forgeries and Art Evaluation:An Argument for Dualism in AestheticsTomas Kulka (bio)If a fake is so expert that even after the most thorough and trustworthy examination its authenticity is still open to doubt, is it or is it not as satisfactory a work of art as if it were unequivocally genuine? 1It is a wonderful moment in the life of a lover of art when he finds himself (...) suddenly confronted with a hitherto unknown painting by a great master, untouched, on the original canvas, and without any restoration, just as it left the painter's studio. And what a picture! Neither the beautiful signature... nor the pointillé on the bread which Christ is blessing, is necessary to convince us that we have here—I am inclined to say—the masterpiece of Johannes Vermeer of Delft... quite different from all his other paintings and yet every inch a Vermeer. In no other picture by the great master of Delft do we find such sentiment, such a profound understanding of the Bible story—a sentiment so nobly human expressed through the medium of highest art.2The author of these lines is Professor Abraham Bredius, the nestor of Holland's art historians and the greatest authority on seventeenth-century Dutch painting. The source is The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, the most prestigious periodical for the history of art of the period. The year is 1937. The painting, however, is not a masterpiece of Vermeer but a fake produced by the mediocre Dutch artist Han van Meegeren.The Problem of ForgeryMany art dealers have been financially ruined, and many art historians academically discredited, because of incorrect attribution. Apart from the practical problems that worry curators and art historians, there is also a theoretical problem, which has become a subject of heated discussions since the late 1960s. The dispute gained a momentum with the publication of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art. In its third chapter titled "Art and Authenticity," [End Page 58] which put the problem of forgeries on the agenda of contemporary aesthetics, Goodman states that a "philosopher of art caught without an answer to [the] question... why there is any aesthetic difference between a deceptive forgery and an original work... is at least as badly off as a curator of paintings caught taking a Van Meegeren Vermeer for a Vermeer."3Although the literature on the problem of forgeries is extensive, the answers that have been put forward fall roughly into three categories: the formalist answer, which states that there is no aesthetic difference between an original painting and a deceptive forgery; the reductionist answer, which claims that there is such a difference and that it can be traced to the minute physical differences between originals and its copies; and the historicist answer, which also asserts that there must be an aesthetic difference but claims that it stems from the different histories of the two objects.The most prominent proponent of the formalist approach is Monroe C. Beardsley. His theory is based on the assumption that "two objects that do not differ in any observable qualities cannot differ in aesthetic value."4 Aesthetic formalism, as the name suggests, maintains that works of art should be judged according to their form. Only the visual features of the painted surface—the configuration of its lines and colors, composition, spatial relations, texture, design, etc., are relevant for its appreciation. The subject of our evaluation is the finished product, not the information pertaining to the history of its production. Who, when, and where painted the picture, just like the intentions of the painter, are irrelevant for the assessment of its aesthetic qualities. Only the "internal" properties, that is, the properties of the "work itself," count. The "external" properties, by which Beardsley means anything that "relates to something existing before the work itself, to the manner in which it was produced, or its connection to antecedent objects," have no bearing on aesthetic value. Hence the conclusion that if fakes resemble the original "in their internal characteristics, so that no one could tell them apart just by looking at them" there can be no aesthetic difference between them.5 Originality is thus excluded... (shrink)

"Cartesian Dualism" is a systematic examination of a version of mind-body dualism in light of recent work in the philosophy of mind and the theory of reference. I analyze Descartes' modal argument for dualism and argue that some of the principal objections against dualism are not decisive. The thesis is divided into five sections. ;The first section sets forth the main features of Descartes' ontology and his theory of mind. I defend Descartes' theory of individuation (...) and discuss recent conceptions of physical objects and properties. ;In the second section I argue that there are serious problems facing theories of mind that eliminate a phenomenological first person perspective. I criticize several attempts to analyze inverted spectrum and qualia thought experiments from a functionalist perspective. I also consider recent theories of reference which hold that a person's identification of her psychological state is dependent upon her physical environment and the conventional meaning of words. ;The third section examines several treatments of first person reference that are incompatible with Cartesian dualism. I review work by Malcolm, Anscombe, Kenny, Strawson, and Mackie. ;The fourth section outlines Descartes' arguments for mind-body dualism which appear in his major works and correspondence. I clarify the use of de re and de dicto modality in different versions of the modal argument and formulate that I take to be an at least prima facie plausible version of the argument. ;Section five focuses upon two major objections to dualism. The first is the dualism leads to intractable problems concerning the individuation of persons. The second challenges the dualist interactionist on the basis of an ostensibly plausible principle of causation. It seems that causal relations among particulars derive from relations among the particulars' properties and relations. It is not clear what properties and relations a nonphysical person might instantiate that would account for the causal relations between it and some physical object. I maintain that neither objection is decisive. (shrink)

A popular response to the Exclusion Argument for physicalism maintains that mental events depend on their physical bases in such a way that the causation of a physical effect by a mental event and its physical base needn’t generate any problematic form of causal overdetermination, even if mental events are numerically distinct from and irreducible to their physical bases. This paper presents and defends a form of dualism that implements this response by using a dispositional essentialist view of (...) properties to argue that the psychophysical laws linking mental events to their physical bases are metaphysically necessary. I show the advantages of such a position over an alternative form of dualism that merely places more “modal weight” on psychophysical laws than on physical laws. The position is then defended against the objection that it is inconsistent with dualism. Lastly, some suggestions are made as to how dualists might clarify the contribution that mental causes make to their physical effects. (shrink)

1 Grasping Properties I will present an argument for property dualism. The argument employs a distinction between having a concept of a property and grasping a property via a concept. If you grasp a property P via a concept C, then C is a concept of P. But the reverse does not hold: you may have a concept of a property without grasping that property via any concept. If you grasp a (...) property, then your cognitive relation to that property is more intimate then if you just have some concept or other of that property. To grasp a property is to understand what having that property essentially consists in. (shrink)

In a series of influential articles Jaegwon Kim has developed strong arguments against nonreductive physicalism as a possible solution to the problem of mental causation. One of them is the Supervenience Argument which states that assuming the mental/physical supervenience thesis, the causal closure principle, the exclusion principle with the no-overdetermination requirement and property dualism we obtain the conclusion that mental causation is unintelligible. On the other hand Collin McGinn has argued that a solution to the mind-body problem (...) is forever beyond our reach: we can never understand how the brain produces consciousness and therefore the relation between them must remain mysterious. The main aim of the paper is to demonstrate that Kim's Supervenience Argument corroborates McGinn's pessimistic conclusion (of course, if we do not assume any form of reductive physicalism or epiphenomenalism). Thereby it tries to show that the Supervenience Argument could be treated as a justification of non-constructive naturalism (aka new misterianism): we do not understand mental causation, because we cannot understand how the brain generates consciousness. It also suggest considering possibility that the thesis of causal closure of the physical domain might entail the cognitive closure thesis (the claim that those properties of the brain which are responsible for conscious processes are in principle cognitively closed to us). (shrink)

This chapter discusses author's view a Thomistic‐like dualism. Next, it lays out the details of his position and he argues that it has certain advantages over physicalist treatments of the human person, and, to a lesser degree, over alternate versions of substance dualism. Then, he responds to some objections against his position. He accepts constituent realism regarding properties (and relations), according to which properties (and relations) are universals that, when exemplified (and they need not be to exist), become (...) constituents of the ordinary particulars that have them. Furthermore, with the Thomistic framework in mind, the chapter offers his view of a human person. Finally, there is the argument that attempts to show that the unity of consciousness cannot be explained if one is a brain, because a brain is just an aggregate of different physical (separable) parts. (shrink)

This book evaluates the widespread preference in philosophy of mind for varieties of property dualism over other alternatives to physicalism. It takes the standard motivations for property dualism as a starting point and argues that these lead directly to nonphysical substances resembling the soul of traditional metaphysics. In the first half of the book, the author clarifies what is at issue in the choice between theories that posit nonphysical properties only and those that posit nonphysical substances. (...) The crucial question, he argues, is whether one posits nonphysical things that satisfy an Aristotelian-Cartesian independence definition of substance: nonphysical things that could exist in the absence of anything else. In the second half, the author argues that standard and Russellian monist forms of property dualism are far less plausible than we usually suppose. Most significantly, the presuppositions of one of the leading arguments for property dualism, the conceivability argument, lead by parity of reasoning to the view that conscious subjects are nonphysical substances. He concludes that if you posit nonphysical properties in response to the mind-body problem then you should be prepared to posit nonphysical substances as well. Mainstream philosophy of mind must take nonphysical substances far more seriously than it has done for the best part of a century. The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Frank Jackson formulated his knowledge argument as an argument for dualism. In this paper I show how the argument can be modified to also establish the irreducibility of the secondary qualities to the properties of physical theory, and ultimately "secondary quality eliminativism"- the view that the secondary qualities are physically uninstantiated.

Descartes maintained substance dualism, the thesis that no substance has both mental and material properties. His main argument for this thesis, the so-called separability argument from the Sixth Meditation (AT VII: 78) has long puzzled readers. In this paper I argue that Descartes’ independence conception of substance (which Descartes presents in article 51 of the Principles) is crucial for the success of the separability argument and that Descartes used this conception of substance to defend his (...) class='Hi'>argument for substance dualism from an important objection. (shrink)

Descartes maintained substance dualism, the thesis that no substance has both mental and material properties. His main argument for this thesis, the so-called separability argument from the Sixth Meditation (AT VII: 78) has long puzzled readers. In this paper I argue that Descartes' independence conception of substance (which Descartes presents in article 51 of the Principles) is crucial for the success of the separability argument and that Descartes used this conception of substance to defend his (...) class='Hi'>argument for substance dualism from an important objection. (shrink)

In recent literature on the metaphysics of consciousness, and in particular on the prospects of physicalism, there are two interesting strands of discussion. One strand concerns the so-called ‘thesis of revelation’, the claim that the essences of phenomenal properties are revealed in experience. The other strand concerns the intuition of dualism, the intuition that consciousness is nonphysical. With a particular focus on the former, this paper advances two main arguments. First, it argues that the thesis of revelation is intuitive; (...) it is part of our ordinary, implicit conception of experience. Second, it brings the two strands of discussion together and puts forward a rational explanation of the intuition of dualism in terms of the intuitiveness of the thesis of revelation. (shrink)

In our exchange in the book, C. S. Lewis’s Christian Apologetics: Pro and Con, edited by Gregory Bassham, David Kyle Johnson argued that four naturalistic views, property dualism, the identity theory, epiphenomenalism, and eliminative materialism, can all meet the challenge posed by a C. S. Lewis–style argument from reason. I maintain that his response fails to take into account what a consistent naturalism is committed to, and that his defenses of these positions fail to put those positions (...) in the clear. (shrink)

There has in recent years been a significant surge of interest in non-materialist accounts of the mind. Property dualists hold that all substances (concrete particulars that persist over time) are material, but mental properties are distinct from physical properties. Substance dualists maintain that the mind or person is a non-material substance. This article considers the prospects for substance dualism given the current state of the debate. The best known type of substance dualism, Cartesian dualism, has traditionally (...) faced a number of objections, but many contemporary philosophers have sought to avoid these by formulating novel versions of the view. I identify three central claims held in common by all forms of substance dualism, consider recent arguments for these claims, and assess how successfully different types of substance dualism respond to the traditional objections. I argue that most contemporary forms of the view still face one or more of three major challenges, from bundle theories of the self, from the recently developed “phenomenal concepts strategy”, and from worries about explanatory simplicity. (shrink)

In this paper, I should like to argue against both eliminative materialism and substance/property dualism, aiming more specifically at the reductionist arguments offered by the Churchlands’ and Swinburne’s versions thereof, insofar as they undermine moral beliefs qua first-personish accounts dismissed as folk psychology by the former, as the latter regards them as supervening on natural events extendedly, that is, necessarily both ways of the biconditional linking mental and physical substances (for every A-substance x there is a B-substance y, (...) such that necessarily if y exists x exists). (shrink)