Abstract not found

The debate over physicalism in philosophy of mind can be seen as concerning an inconsistent tetrad of theses: (1) if physicalism is true, a priori physicalism is true; (2) a priori physicalism is false; (3) if physicalism is false, epiphenomenalism is true; (4) epiphenomenalism is false. This paper argues that one may resolve the debate by distinguishing two conceptions of the physical: on the theory-based conception, it is plausible that (2) is true and (3) is false; on the object-based conception, it is plausible that (3) is true and (2) is false. The paper also defends and explores the version of physicalism that results from this strategy.

Formal ontology, as the science of the formal relations that structure reality as a whole, aims at a theory of categories corresponding to the most general features of possible objects, whether existing or non-existing. The present paper is an attempt to summarise and extend recent research in analytical metaphysics in a formalised theory of objects. Existence is characterised as a formal property, suggesting that the use of quantifiers alone does not involve any existential assumptions about the objects quantified over. However, the only non-existing objects allowed for in the present account are real or objective possibilities. De re modalities as well as ontological dependence are defined on the basis of a counterpart-theoretic specification of possibilia. The present framework allows for necessary and non-relative identity as well as for a granular parthood relationship satisfying the thesis of composition as partial identity. The paper culminates in the formalisation of an Aristotelian four-category ontology allowing for universals and particulars, substances and particularised properties; in this context, the redundance of higher-order material universals as well as moderate haecceitism is argued for. After a short analysis of relationality and extrinsicness, a theory of spatial and temporal objects is sketched and a temporal counterpart theory is proposed as a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics. The paper concludes with some general remarks on the relation between ontology and the theory of subjectivity, defending a modal approach to consciousness and a counterpart theoretic analysis of intentionality.

Several different approaches to the conceptual analysis of causation are guided by the idea that a cause is something that makes a difference to its effects. These approaches seek to elucidate the concept of causation by explicating the concept of a difference-maker in terms of better-understood concepts. There is no better

Mathematics can provide precise formulations of relatively vague concepts and problems from the real world, and bring out underlying structure common to diverse scientific areas. Sometimes very natural mathematical concepts lie neglected and not widely understood for many years, before their fundamental relevance is recognised and their explanatory power is fully exploited. The notion of definability in a structure is such a concept, and Turing’s [77] 1939 model of interactive computation provides a fruitful context in which to exercise the usefulness of definability as a powerful and widely applicable source of understanding. In this article we set out to relate this simple idea to one of the oldest and apparently least scientifically approachable of problems — that of realistically modelling how mental properties supervene on physical ones. Mathematics can provide precise formulations of relatively vague concepts and problems from the real world, and bring out underlying structure common to diverse scientific areas. Sometimes very natural mathematical concepts lie neglected and not widely understood for many years, before their fundamental relevance is recognised and their explanatory power is fully exploited. Previously we have argued that the notion of definability in a structure is such a concept, and pointed to Turing’s [77] 1939 model of interactive computation as providing a fruitful context in which to exercise the usefulness of definability as a powerful and widely applicable source of understanding. Below, we relate this simple idea to one of the oldest and apparently least scientifically approachable of problems — that of realistically modelling how mental properties supervene on physical ones. We will first briefly review the origins with René Descartes of mind-body dualism, and the problem of mental causation. We will then summarise the subsequent difficulties encountered, and their current persistence, and the more recent usefulness of the concept of supervenience in

Acknowledgements Thanks to Leslie Smith, the rest of the Computing Science dept, and the ex-members of the CCCN. The University and the Computing Science department provided funding for this project. M. Elton deserves thanks for showing me how difficult it is to go head- to-head with contemporary philosophers who have abandonded `old fashioned ' notions of empirical validity, epistemological justification, and ontological grounding. Thanks most of all to friends who aren't in any way associated with the university, the department, or what I did here. They provided a nicely separate world away from the invented world of academia to which I could escape. M S and R deserve special mention, as does L who showed me something real at a point where I thought it wasn't. I ought to point out that this is all Darragh Smyths fault. And I'd like to thank my parents, our parents, those beings that crawled, in the spirit of scientific enterprise and discovery, from the sea into the trees (and later that descended from the trees) all those years ago. Without you, I wouldn't be here, I'd be in the sea, like the dolphins, having a whale of a time. i

h we rather doubt that the world would come to an end, perhaps Fodor is closer to the mark in claiming that if intentional irrealism is correct and commonsense intentional psychology really were to collapse, that would be, beyond 1 We are grateful to Brian McLaughlin for many hours of helpful discussion. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at CUNY Graduate Center, Notre Dame University, and the University of North Carolina - Greensboro. Comments and criticisms from those audiences are acknowledged with thanks. 2 Fodor (1990a), p. 156. 2 comparison, the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species.... The collapse of the supernatural didn't compare. 3 Very well, then, let's agree that intentional irrealism is a very radical doctrine. But why on earth should anyone worry about it? Why does anyone think it is even remotely plausible? In the quote with which we began this paper Fodor

The aim of the present thesis is to examine the idea tea ment3 stt3 and consciousness in general arenot144 above and beyond neural processes int he human brain. TotM4 end, prominent positnt fromto modern philosophy oft3 mind are crit723M reviewed. A detailed

The paper aims at meeting Blackburn’s challenge (1971, 1984, 1985) to explain the non-reductive supervenience of moral predicates on natural ones. It offers a critical examination of Hare’s model of moral thinking (1981) which can be used as a candidate for such an explanation. It is argued that, as it stands, Hare’s model fails to meet Blackburn’s challenge. Yet some revisions of the model are suggested, and it is claimed that the improved version does supply the required explanation. The model suggested in the paper carries a meta-ethical implication concerning the superiority of the anti-realist understanding of moral discourse. Various philosophers in the field of ethics have claimed that ethical predicates supervene on natural ones. This claim has found consensus among philosophers with very different approaches to ethics such as Moore (1922) the

ABSTRACT: Exploring intentionality from an externalist perspective, I distinguish three kinds of intentionality in the case of seeing, which I call transparent, translucent, and opaque respectively. I then extend the distinction from seeing to knowing, and then to believing. Having explicated the three-fold distinction, I then critically explore some important consequences that follow from granting that (i) there are transparent and translucent intentional states and (ii) these intentional states are mental states. These consequences include: first, that existential opacity is neither the mark of intentionality nor of the mental; second, that Sellars has not shown that all intentionality is non-relational; third, that a key Quinean argument for semantic indeterminacy rests on a false premise; fourth, that perceptual experience is intentional on Alston’s Theory of Appearing; fifth, that either some mental causation is more than internal physiological causation or some mental states are epiphenomenal. I.