Are Phenomenal Zombies Really Conceivable?
Murat Aydede
manuscript
details
I argue that if we have a rich enough description of perceptual experiences from an information-theoretic viewpoint, it becomes surprisingly difficult (to put it mildly) to positively conceive philosophical zombies (as complete physical/functional duplicates that lack phenomenal consciousness). Hence, it is at best an open question whether zombies are positively conceivable. My argument requires paying close attention to the direct relation between phenomenology and information.
Chalmers and the Self-Knowledge Problem.
Robert Bass
manuscript
details
In _The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory_, David Chalmers poses an interesting and powerful challenge to materialism or physicalism. Further, he goes a long way towards providing a proof by example that the rejection of materialism need not commit one to scientifically suspicious “ghost in the machine” doctrines, but can be wedded to a generally naturalistic perspective. As an (as yet) unpersuaded physicalist and functionalist, his case against physicalism seems an appropriate target for criticism. However, it would
...
be beyond the scope of the present paper—or anything of similar length—to attempt a full-scale reply. A full-scale reply could be executed in brief compass only if Chalmers were guilty of (and rested his case entirely upon) some relatively simple mistake. But he does not. If he is mistaken, the mistakes are more subtle and difficult to bring to light. Instead, I shall outline the essentials of his case against materialism, attempt to point to one problem that appears to infect his views and argue that, if his position is to be acceptable, he needs to deal with it more adequately than he has so far. (
shrink
The logic of negative conceivability.
Daniel Cohnitz
manuscript
details
Analytic epistemology is traditionally interested in rational reconstructions of cognitive pro- cesses. The purpose of these rational reconstructions is to make plain how a certain cognitive process might eventually result in knowledge or justi?ed beliefs, etc., if we pre-theoretically think that we have such knowledge or such justi?ed beliefs. Typically a rational reconstruction assumes some unproblematic basis of knowledge and some justi?cation-preserving inference pattern and then goes on to show how these two su ce to generate the explicandum.
Remove from this list
Export citation
Resolution Theory: The Hard Problem Reframed.
Hamilton Easton
manuscript
details
The hard problem of consciousness is commonly posed as though mechanism could be fully explained while the central mystery remained untouched: why should any of it be lived from within at all? This paper argues that the problem is partly a framing error. It asks for the wrong kind of explanation, and in doing so makes consciousness look impossible in principle. Resolution Theory offers a different target. Consciousness is not an extra ingredient added to an otherwise finished machine, nor a
...
diffuse property spread throughout reality regardless of structure. It is a threshold phenomenon: the bounded inside formed when memory, stakes, evaluation, resolution, and exposure are unified in one persisting center across time. The paper defends these five requirements as constitutive rather than merely correlational, argues that consciousness is binary at the threshold though scalar in richness thereafter, and shows why thinner notions such as registration, control, optimisation, or representation do not supply rival constitutive conditions. It further argues that once the full recursive unity is granted, the philosophical zombie ceases to be a deep possibility and becomes a contradiction in framing. The result is not a final elimination of mystery, but a narrowing of it. The hard problem is reduced to a deeper problem: why reality is such that a process of this kind can be an inside at all. (
shrink
The early days of specialization and Night of the Living Dead.
Terence Rajivan Edward
manuscript
details
Specialization and the division of labour: you do this and I do that and thereby we more efficiently achieve our individual ends, rather than by one person doing it all. It is a mark of greater civilization according to the great Scottish Enlightenment philosopher-economist Adam Smith (or civilisation, if you prefer that spelling). (What does Smith think of marriage, as traditionally pursued? In 2005, an economist told me that economists generally get married and quite early, but they must be aware
...
of the challenges raised by Smith's recommendation to specialize, which is their recommendation too, or SOME of them must be.) In the early days of specialization, relying on Smith's just-so history, there must have been individuals who were told words to this effect: "I have trained you and you are now better than me in our specialism. But are you better than that person?" So they went to enter into competition with that person, but many diverse specialists were directed to that one person as the one to "beat." Have you seen this zombie film Night of the Living Dead (1968, directed by George A Romero)? I don't recall it well, but are there lots of zombies heading towards one house? It must have been like that! (I just watched the barricading of the house again.). (
shrink
Remove from this list
Export citation
道枢论(Daoshulun)-The theory of the Pivot of the Dao.
Kefan Jiang
manuscript
details
This paper proposes The theory of the Pivot of the Dao (Daoshulun,DSL), aiming to investigate certain issues through the lens of recursivity and non-recursivity. The paper is divided into two main sections: -/- The first section systematically expounds the theoretical foundation of the D-P framework, defining the dialectical relationship between recursivity (P) and non-recursivity (D). Through five core propositions, DSL asserts that the essence of hierarchical evolution lies in the eternal game of recursive chains. -/- The second section explores DSL’s
...
division of rationality, the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) under DSL, and an interpretation of the latent laws governing scientific development. -/- The D-P framework offers a unified explanation for the hierarchical interactions, limitations, and evolutionary patterns of complex systems. Its methodological discussions encompass AI ethics, philosophy of science, and social governance. -/- © 蒋柯帆 2025. This is a preprint version licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). This version supersedes all previous versions uploaded prior to March 13, 2025, which did not carry an explicit license. You are free to share and adapt this material for non-commercial purposes, provided you give appropriate credit to the author. For commercial use, please contact the author. If you need to make any adjustments to the existing categories, please notify me by email in advance so we can coordinate accordingly. (
shrink
The Philosophizing Zombie, Cotard Syndrome, and the Problem of Indeterminacy.
Dmitry Kolomytsev
manuscript
details
The philosophical zombie — a being physically and functionally identical to a conscious human yet devoid of phenomenal experience — is widely regarded as conceivable without contradiction. This paper argues that such conceivability is an artifact of model-closure: the tacit assumption that the functional organization of a conscious system can be exhaustively specified within a closed state-space. The argument turns on a distinction between two forms of incompleteness. Uncertainty is the redistribution of probabilities among already given alternatives. Indeterminacy is the
...
principled incompleteness of the space of possibilities itself, generated by self-reference. When functional identity is defined as algorithmic sameness within a closed state-space, indeterminacy is excluded in advance — and it is this exclusion that makes the zombie scenario appear non-contradictory. Cotard syndrome is used as a natural experiment that reveals phenomenality to be constitutive rather than incidental. Attempts to repair this within a closed framework — by adding informational parameters for presence or self-modelling — are shown to reproduce the problem structurally rather than solve it. The deeper reason for these failures is structural: no closed model can be equivalent to the system it models. The thought experiment of the philosophizing zombie brings this to a limit — the requirement of full functional identity undermines itself as soon as it is applied to genuine philosophical reflection. What makes the zombie persuasive is a commitment shared by physicalism, illusionism, and mysterianism alike: the demand for a closed ontological foundation. The paper concludes that consciousness is the mode of existence of a self-referential system within the horizon of its own structural incompleteness, and that the search for a closed foundation of consciousness does not illuminate it but dissolves it. (
shrink
Transcending zombies.
Pete Mandik
manuscript
details
I develop advice to the reductionist about consciousness in the form of a transcendental argument that depends crucially on the sorts of knowledge claims concerning consciousness that, as crucial elements in the anti-reductionists’ epistemicgap arguments, the anti-reductionist will readily concede. The argument that I develop goes as follows. P1. If I know that I am not a zombie, then phenomenal character is (a certain kind of) conceptualized egocentric content. P2. I know that I am not a zombie. P3. Phenomenal character
...
is (a certain kind of) conceptualized egocentric content. P4. Fixing my physical properties fixes my conceptualized egocentric contents. C. Fixing my physical properties fixes my phenomenal properties. (
shrink
Remove from this list
Export citation
1 citation
The Obvious Argument for the Inconceivability of Zombies.
Drew McDermott
manuscript
details
Zombies are hypothetical creatures identical to us in behavior and internal functionality, but lacking experience. When the concept of zombie is examined in careful detail, it is found that the attempt to keep experience out does not work. So the concept of zombie is the same as the concept of person. Because they are only trivially conceivable, zombies are in a sense inconceivable.
Beyond Reference: A Calculus of Qualia.
P. Merriam
M. A. Z. Habeeb
manuscript
details
This paper introduces the Calculus of Qualia (CQ), a novel formal system that transcends the referential paradigm of traditional language by incorporating non-referential terms. These terms directly present phenomenal experiences, such as blackness, rather than referring to them, addressing longstanding limitations in expressing subjective consciousness. Building on insights from phenomenology and philosophy of mind, CQ defines qualations—expressions involving non-referential terms--qualia--with distinct logical behaviors like instance preservation and resistance to collapse. The framework offers new tools to formalize the hard problem of
...
consciousness and challenges classical thought experiments like the zombie argument, suggesting that qualia’s irreducibility demands a presentational rather than referential approach. This calculus bridges rigorous analysis and experiential meaning, opening pathways for rethinking language, consciousness, and their formal representation. (
shrink
Stratification of Reality at Points of Matter Bifurcation.
Oleksii Tsoi
manuscript
details
The work develops a philosophical framework intended to formally reveal the ontological and epistemological limits of cognition. Through a model-theoretic and formal-epistemic analysis of purely material universes, it demonstrates that behavioural and computational models of consciousness are internally incomplete, and that the scientific method is limited by the formal conditions of its own applicability. It establishes that no regularity within the structure of a signal can justify the attribution of consciousness to its source without introducing additional ontological presuppositions. The critique
...
of reductionism is complemented by a demonstration of the internal incompleteness of symbolic and theoretical systems. On the basis of these limits, a constructive metarational framework is proposed that integrates diverse theories of truth, reconceptualizes the criteria of scientific adequacy, and posits consciousness as the ontological condition for the possibility of knowledge and objectivity. (
shrink
Response to Dominic gregory’s ‘conceivability and apparent possibility’.
Ross Cameron
manuscript
details
forthcoming in a collection of papers (from OUP, edited by Bob Hale) given at the Arché modality conference, St Andrews University, 7th-9th June 2006.
Remove from this list
Export citation
Physicalism or Anti-Physicalism: A Disjunctive Account.
Umut Baysan
Nathan Wildman
forthcoming
Erkenntnis
:1-17.
details
In this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness: consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are
...
false. Furthermore, making use of the resources of this view, we formulate distinct forms of both physicalism and anti-physicalism. On these formulations, it is easy to see how physicalists and anti-physicalists can accommodate the modal intuitions of their opponents regarding zombies and anti-zombies. We conclude that these formulations of physicalism and anti-physicalism are superior to their more traditional counterparts. (
shrink
The Status of Consciousness in Nature.
Berit Brogaard
forthcoming
In Steven Miller,
The Constitution of Consciousness, Volume 2
. John Benjamins.
details
The most central metaphysical question about phenomenal consciousness is that of what constitutes phenomenal consciousness, whereas the most central epistemic question about consciousness is that of whether science can eventually provide an explanation of phenomenal consciousness. Many philosophers have argued that science doesn't have the means to answer the question of what consciousness is (the explanatory gap) but that consciousness nonetheless is fully determined by the physical facts underlying it (no metaphysical gap). Others have argued that the explanatory gap in
...
the sciences entails a metaphysical gap. The explanatory gap exists, they say, because there are two fundamental properties in the world that do not reduce to one another: Phenomenal and physical. This position is also known as 'property dualism'. A famous argument, formulated and defended at great length by David Chalmers, uses conceptual tools to argue for a metaphysical gap. When we just look at what the notion of phenomenal consciousness implies, we will find that it doesn't rule out that there could be entities functionally and physically identical to us but without phenomenal consciousness. A couple of further argumentative steps can get us from here to the conclusion that laying down the physical facts of our world does not necessitate phenomenal consciousness. I argue that this argument is compelling but that accepting the conclusion doesn't have the implication that science cannot discover what consciousness is. I begin by outlining and assessing a number of different positions philosophers and scientists have recently defended regarding the link between neurological systems and consciousness, I then argue that even if property dualism is true, that doesn't necessarily prevent the sciences from discovering what constitutes consciousness. That is, there may be no explanatory gap even if there is a metaphysical gap. (
shrink
Remove from this list
Export citation
1 citation
(1 other version)
Is Mereology Not a Guide to Conceivability?
Daniel Giberman
forthcoming
Erkenntnis
details
Zombies are non-conscious physical duplicates of conscious physical entities. It has been argued that the conceivability of zombies supports their (metaphysical) possibility (Chalmers in The conscious mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996; in The two-dimensional argument against materialism, pp 414–201, 2010a, in The character of consciousness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010b). This is important because if zombies are possible then physicalism is false. The jury has been out for decades on the possibility of zombies. This essay argues in a new
...
way that either zombies are inconceivable or conceivability isn’t a valid guide to possibility. Either way, the threat to physicalism from zombies is neutralized. The central idea, which is developed by examining the mereological argument against zombies (Giberman in Mind 124: 121–146, 2015), is based on the premise that, for arbitrary conscious particular x, it is conceivable that consciousness facts about x are entirely independent of mereological-cum-spatiotemporal complexity facts about x. This premise is required for the conceivability of zombies, lest room be left for consciousness to be fixed by exact mereological-cum-spatiotemporal resemblance to a conscious entity. Yet the premise also clears the way for the conceivability of a version of panpsychism modally potent enough for its conceivability either to render zombies inconceivable or to undermine the conceivability-possibility link. (
shrink
Non-Player Characters in the Real World: A Threefold Problem for Theodicies.
Netanel Ron
forthcoming
Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
details
Non-player characters, or “NPCs", are characters in video games and in tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons who are controlled by the game itself or by the storyteller, rather than by one of the players. NPCs in the real world would appear as normal living creatures, yet they would lack phenomenal consciousness. According to a popular theodical approach, God enables evil to exist because it is necessary for bringing about a greater good. However, some theodicies are built around greater
...
goods that are obtainable even if conscious creatures hardly ever suffer and instead instances of evil mostly affect NPCs who conscious creatures cannot recognize as such. I characterize these theodicies as “NPC-inviting theodicies”, as they invite the thought that God should make NPCs exist in the real world to bring about plentiful goods with hardly any creaturely suffering. Examples of NPC-inviting theodicies include several free-will theodicies and the soul-making theodicy. I argue that NPC-inviting theodicies cannot explain why God would enable conscious creatures to undergo a great deal of suffering rather than NPCs, and I show this to be problematic for those theodicies in three ways. I then consider four possible responses on behalf of NPC-inviting theodicies. (
shrink
The Non-Reductionist View of the Self in Tension with the Block Universe.
Jean Campos
2026
Acta Analytica
41.
details
This paper advances the thesis that there is a substantive tension between the Non-Reductionist View of the Self, according to which the self is fundamental (irreducible to physical or psychological states or processes) and indivisible (not composed of parts), and the Block Universe Theory, which holds that all events and moments coexist within a four-dimensional reality. The paper develops this thesis by presenting two arguments: the Temporal Zombie Argument and the Epistemic Zombie Argument. The former argument contends that combining the
...
Non-Reductionist View of the Self with the Block Universe Theory entails the existence of philosophical zombies, whereas the latter argument suggests that we could have lived our entire lives among such entities without realising it. If this line of reasoning is correct, non-reductionists cannot coherently adopt the Block Universe Theory as their temporal framework; conversely, block universe theorists cannot endorse the Non-Reductionist View of the Self without facing these problems. (
shrink
Mental Causation: From Kim’s Argument to Qualia in a Physicalist Perspective.
Leonardo Capitaneo
2025
Dissertation, University of Turin
details
The aim of this dissertation is to present the problem of mental causation and to attempt a physicalist solution that can also account for qualia, which have long been considered the last stronghold for the irreducibility of the mind to the physical. The first chapter is devoted to identifying the best metaphysical theory of the mental that can both account for mental causation and withstand Kim’s argument. After a detailed exposition of Kim’s argument, the limits of type-identity theory are discussed,
...
particularly Hilary Putnam’s critique known as “multiple realizability.” As an alternative to type-identity theory, the two main variants of functionalism—role functionalism and occupant functionalism—are analyzed, with the latter ultimately showing greater theoretical advantages. The problems of functionalism are presented, particularly its inability to account for qualia. In this context, Ned Block’s “Chinese Brain” argument is examined, and its limits are identified, showing that the argument’s conclusion cannot be taken for granted. For this reason, a thought experiment is developed to demonstrate the incapacity of physicalist language to describe qualia, highlighting its theoretical advantages over Block’s thought experiment; even if a Chinese Brain possessed qualia, a functionalist language would not be able to describe them. The second chapter addresses the “explanatory gap” problem formulated by Levine, often used to support non-reductive positions. Chalmers’ “philosophical zombies” thought experiment is presented and analyzed to show that qualia are not reducible to something physical. Another thought experiment is then developed to demonstrate that, at least intuitively, qualia seem necessary for certain human behaviors, and that if the zombie thought experiment assumes the absence of qualia, the physics of that world would need to predetermine all the zombies’ behaviors. It is shown that this would imply the conceivability of a physically predetermined zombie world, and therefore also its metaphysical possibility. This intuition is further analyzed through a counterfactual approach based on the similarity between possible worlds according to Lewis’ counterfactual theory, showing that a counterfactual of the type “if there were no qualia, then some behaviors could not occur” is true. Finally, an argument is proposed suggesting that if qualia are indeed necessary for certain types of behavior, then the zombie thought experiment cannot succeed. If the physics of the zombie world must allow actions that in the actual world would occur only due to the presence of qualia, then a zombie world is possible only if qualia are included in its physical description. This shows that, although qualia cannot be described by a physicalist language, they can nonetheless be accommodated within a physicalist metaphysics. (
shrink
La tesi della rivelazione e il problema mente-corpo.
Bruno Cortesi
2025
Aphex
31:98-140.
details
La tesi della rivelazione asserisce che pensare ad un’esperienza nei termini dell’effetto che fa averla consente di comprendere qual è la natura di quell’esperienza. In questo testo viene presentato un argomento filosofico che mira a confutare il fisicalismo sulla coscienza partendo dalla rivelazione e da premesse aggiuntive. Ciascuna premessa viene esaminata analiticamente. Vengono descritte una strategia argomentativa a favore della rivelazione ed alcune obiezioni rilevanti. Infine, vengono brevemente esaminate le relazioni concettuali che legano l’argomento della rivelazione a tre noti argomenti
...
anti-fisicalisti: l’argomento modale di Saul Kripke, l’argomento della conoscenza di Frank Jackson e l’argomento bi-dimensionale di David Chalmers. (
shrink
In Defence of Cosmopsychism: A Fundamental Approach to the Problem of Consciousness.
Khai Wager
2025
London: Bloomsbury Academic.
details
Is the cosmos itself conscious, and could our minds be aspects of its vast, overarching consciousness? -/- In this ambitious and original study, Khai Wager defends cosmopsychism, the view that the universe as a whole is conscious and that individual minds like ours derive from this cosmic consciousness. Wager situates cosmopsychism within what he calls the landscape of fundamental consciousness, bringing it into productive dialogue with closely related views such as panpsychism, panqualityism, and perennialism. The result is a fresh perspective
...
on one of philosophy's deepest puzzles: the nature and origin of consciousness. -/- The problem of phenomenal consciousness asks how subjective experience can emerge from non-conscious matter. Fundamental approaches reject the idea that consciousness arises from non-conscious matter, instead proposing that it is present at the most basic level of reality. Panpsychism-the most prominent such view-holds that all fundamental microphysical entities are conscious. This, however, leads to the combination problem: how do billions of micro-level minds combine to form distinct macro-level minds like ours? Cosmopsychism offers a radical alternative: rather than being formed from a combination of micro-level instances of consciousness, individual minds derive from a larger, cosmic-level consciousness. As a result, cosmopsychism sidesteps the combination problem entirely. However, a new and equally pressing challenge arises-the derivation problem: how do individual minds derive from the cosmic consciousness? -/- Through rigorous and insightful analysis, Wager argues that cosmopsychism can navigate these problems and offers a compelling alternative to both physicalism and panpsychism. As such, this first book-length treatment of cosmopsychism makes an illuminating contribution to debates about the nature of reality and our place within it. (
shrink
Phenomenal Properties and the Intuition of Distinctness: the View from the Inside.
Andrew Melnyk
2024
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
details
We experience the intuition of distinctness when, for example, we attend introspectively to the phenomenal redness of a current visual sensation and it seems to us that that very property could not literally be a physical property of neural activity in a certain tiny region of our brain. The book begins by arguing that the intuition of distinctness underlies certain otherwise puzzling attitudes manifested in debates both inside and outside philosophy about whether physicalism (or materialism) can accommodate phenomenal properties (or
...
qualia). It then argues systematically against the dualist suggestion that the intuition of distinctness gives us reason to reject the physicalist view that phenomenal properties are physical, and to adopt property dualism instead. In the course of the argument, it defends an unorthodox version of representationalism and offers positive accounts of what makes our introspective knowledge of phenomenal properties special, how introspection could tell us that an introspected property is physical, and what the subjectivity of phenomenal properties could be. Finally, after critically surveying previous attempts to account for the intuition of distinctness consistently with physicalism, it elaborates a novel explanation of the intuition of distinctness. The intuition arises because introspection is, in a certain way, conceptually encapsulated, as a result of which we are unable to do something that we can do in the case of every other kind of identity claim that we believe or entertain, and therefore unable to believe, or even to imagine believing, that an introspected phenomenal property is physical. (
shrink
Should Materialists Be Afraid of Zombies?
Konstantin Morozov
2024
Date Palm Compote
19:8-10.
details
We can formulate the zombie argument in two versions: strong and weak. In its weak version, the zombie argument asserts an explanatory gap between facts about human physiology and subjective mental life. According to this argument, since we can conceive of zombies, there is some epistemic gap between our neurophysiology and the phenomenal consciousness that accompanies it. By “conceivability” here is meant not simply the ability to imagine a zombie, but rather the ability to conceive of the idea of ​​a
...
zombie in a logically consistent way. That is, a zombie is conceivable if we can conceive of the idea of ​​a zombie without finding an obvious contradiction in it [Chalmers 2013, 128]. This in itself does not prove that consciousness is non-physical. Perhaps consciousness is somehow reducible to physical processes, but we don't yet know how. Perhaps advanced physics of the future will provide an answer to the question of how exactly the physical brain generates subjective consciousness [Stoljar 2006], or perhaps it will forever remain a mystery [McGinn 1989]. In any case, the conceivability of zombies and the resulting epistemic gap do not in themselves refute materialism (the same as “physicalism”). A stronger version of the argument, defended by David Chalmers, suggests that the conceivability of zombies entails their possibility. And if zombies are possible, then physicalism is false. For in that case, the gap between physical and phenomenal facts is no longer simply epistemic, but rather ontological. The real possibility of zombies means that the full set of physical facts is not sufficient for phenomenal consciousness to exist. There must be other non-physical (mental) entities, facts, or properties that provide consciousness. The world we live in is then dualistic, since it contains both physical and mental entities, facts and properties. (
shrink
Causalità del mentale: dall'argomento di Kim ai qualia in una prospettiva fisicalista.
Leonardo Capitaneo
2023
Dissertation, Università Degli Studi di Torino
details
Lo scopo dell’elaborato è presentare il problema della causalità del mentale e cercare di dare una soluzione fisicalista al problema che possa includere anche i qualia, da sempre considerati come l’ultima difesa a favore dell’irriducibilità della mente al fisico. Il primo capitolo ha il compito di trovare la teoria metafisica del mentale migliore che riesca sia a rendere conto della causalità del mentale e sia a resistere all’argomento di Kim. Dopo aver esposto in dettaglio l’argomento di Kim sono affrontati i
...
limiti della teoria dell’identità di tipo, in particolare viene esposta la critica di Hilary Putnam conosciuta come “realizzabilità multipla”. Come alternativa all’identità di tipo sono state analizzate le due principali varianti del funzionalismo, ovvero quello del ruolo e quello dell’occupante, e infine quest’ultimo è risultato avere maggiori vantaggi teorici. Sono stati esposti i problemi del funzionalismo e in particolare il problema dell’incapacità del linguaggio funzionalista di rendere conto dei qualia. A tal proposito è stato esposto l’argomento del “cervello-cinese” di Ned Block e ne sono stati individuati i limiti mostrando che la conclusione dell’argomento non può essere data per scontata. Per quest’ultimo motivo è stato elaborato un esperimento mentale volto a mostrare l’incapacità del linguaggio fisicalista nel descrivere qualia, e ne sono stati mostrati i vantaggi teorici rispetto all’esperimento mentale di Block; anche se un cervello-cinese presentasse qualia, un linguaggio funzionalista non potrebbe descriverli. Nel secondo capitolo è esposto il problema del “gap esplicativo” elaborato da Levine, utilizzato spesso a supporto di posizioni non riduzioniste. È stato esposto e analizzato l’esperimento mentale degli “zombie filosofici” di David Chalmers volto a dimostrare che i qualia non sono riducibili a qualcosa di fisico. È stato poi elaborato un altro esperimento mentale volto a mostrare che almeno intuitivamente, i qualia sembrano essere necessari per il darsi di alcuni comportamenti umani e che se l’esperimento mentale degli zombie prevede l’assenza di qualia allora la fisica di quel mondo dovrebbe essere in grado di predeterminare tutti i comportamenti degli zombie. Si è mostrato che così facendo si ammetterebbe la concepibilità di un mondo-zombie fisicamente predeterminato, e dunque anche la possibilità metafisica. È stata analizzata questa intuizione attraverso un’analisi controfattuale incentrata sulla somiglianza tra mondi possibili secondo la teoria dei controfattuali di Lewis, mostrando che un controfattuale del tipo “se non ci fossero qualia, allora alcuni comportamenti non potrebbero darsi” risulta vero. Infine viene proposto un argomento che dovrebbe mostrare, che se effettivamente i qualia sono necessari per alcuni tipi di comportamenti, allora l’esperimento mentale degli zombie non può funzionare. Se la fisica del mondo zombie deve permettere il realizzarsi di azioni che nel mondo attuale avverrebbero solo per la presenza di qualia, allora un mondo-zombie è possibile solo se si includono nella fisica di quel mondo anche i qualia. Questo mostra che seppure i qualia non possono essere descritti da un linguaggio fisicalista possono essere compresi in una metafisica fisicalista. (
shrink
Phänomenale Begriffe.
Martina Fürst
2023
In Vera Hoffmann-Kolss & Nicole Rathgeb,
Handbuch Philosophie des Geistes
. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler. pp. 297-307.
details
Viele unserer Bewusstseinszustände sind dadurch charakterisiert, dass es irgendwie für uns ist (Nagel 1974), in diesen Zuständen zu sein. In der Philosophie des Geistes werden derartige Zustände als ‚phänomenale Zustände‘ bezeichnet. ‚Phänomenale Begriffe‘ sind nun spezielle Begriffe, mittels derer wir uns auf phänomenale Zustände beziehen. Paradigmatische Beispiele für phänomenale Zustände, von denen wir einen phänomenalen Begriff besitzen können, sind das bewusste Erlebnis, die Farbe Blau zu sehen, den Klang einer Violine zu hören oder Schmerz zu fühlen. Zentral ist, dass sich
...
phänomenale Begriffe auf besondere Art und Weise auf diese Zustände beziehen – sie konzeptualisieren sie anhand ihrer subjektiven, phänomenalen Eigenschaften (d.h. anhand ihrer ‚Qualia‘). (
shrink
Reflections on the Foundations of Russellian Physicalism.
Mirza Mehmedovic
2023
Giornale di Metafisica. Nuova Serie Torino
1 (Il Processo e l'Idea):195-211.
details
Russellian monism is the doctrine according to which physical properties, usually described as structural and dynamic, are grounded in categorical properties, often characterised as phenomenal or proto-phenomenal properties, of which physics leaves us ignorant, and therefore often called inscrutables or quiddities. Several authors claim that this doctrine derives its raison d’être from an attempt to overcome the insuperable difficulties posed to physicalism by the conceivability and knowledge arguments. There are several versions of this doctrine, the best known of which is
...
panprotopsychism, but which has turned out to be affected by modified versions of the arguments against the competing doctrines. In this paper, after having introduced some main themes related to Russellian monism, I will discuss the reasons for understanding it as a form of physicalism. (
shrink
Lightweight and Heavyweight Anti-physicalism.
Damian Aleksiev
2022
Synthese
200 (112):1-23.
details
I define two metaphysical positions that anti-physicalists can take in response to Jonathan Schaffer’s ground functionalism. Ground functionalism is a version of physicalism where explanatory gaps are everywhere. If ground functionalism is true, arguments against physicalism based on the explanatory gap between the physical and experiential facts fail. In response, first, I argue that some anti-physicalists are already safe from Schaffer’s challenge. These anti-physicalists reject an underlying assumption of ground functionalism: the assumption that macrophysical entities are something over and above
...
the fundamental entities. I call their position “lightweight anti-physicalism.” Second, I go on to argue that even if anti-physicalists accept Schaffer’s underlying assumption, they can still argue that the consciousness explanatory gap is especially mysterious and thus requires a special explanation. I call the resulting position “heavyweight anti-physicalism.” In both cases, the consciousness explanatory gap is a good way to argue against physicalism. (
shrink
(1 other version)
The Inconceivability Argument.
Brian Cutter
2022
Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
9.
details
This paper develops and defends a new argument against physicalist views of consciousness: the inconceivability argument. The argument has two main premises. First, it is not (ideally, positively) conceivable that phenomenal truths are grounded in physical truths. (For example, one cannot positively conceive of a situation in which someone has a vivid experience of pink wholly in virtue of the movements of colorless, insentient atoms.) Second, (ideal, positive) inconceivability is a guide to falsity. I attempt to show that the inconceivability
...
argument enjoys a significant advantage over the more familiar conceivability argument. One can reasonably endorse the inconceivability argument without endorsing the conceivability argument, but one cannot reasonably endorse the conceivability argument without also endorsing the inconceivability argument. (
shrink
Zombie intuitions.
Eugen Fischer
Justin Sytsma
2021
Cognition
215 (C):104807.
details
In philosophical thought experiments, as in ordinary discourse, our understanding of verbal case descriptions is enriched by automatic comprehension inferences. Such inferences have us routinely infer what else is also true of the cases described. We consider how such routine inferences from polysemous words can generate zombie intuitions: intuitions that are ‘killed’ (defeated) by contextual information but kept cognitively alive by the psycholinguistic phenomenon of linguistic salience bias. Extending ‘evidentiary’ experimental philosophy, this paper examines whether the ‘zombie argument’ against materialism
...
is built on zombie intuitions. We examine the hypothesis that contextually defeated stereotypical inferences from the noun ‘zombie’ influence intuitions about ‘philosophical zombies’. We document framing effects (‘zombie’ vs ‘duplicate’) predicted by the hypothesis. Findings undermine intuitions about the conceivability of ‘philosophical zombies’ and address the philosophical ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Findings support a deflationary response: The impression that principled obstacles prevent scientific explanation of how physical processes give rise to conscious experience is generated by philosophical arguments that rely on epistemically deficient intuitions. (
shrink
If consciousness causes collapse, the zombie argument fails.
Mousa Mohammadian
2021
Synthese
199:1599–1615.
details
Many non-physicalists, including Chalmers, hold that the zombie argument succeeds in rejecting the physicalist view of consciousness. Some non-physicalists, including, again, Chalmers, hold that quantum collapse interactionism, i.e., the idea that non-physical consciousness causes collapse of the wave function in phenomena such as quantum measurement, is a viable interactionist solution for the problem of the relationship between the physical world and the non-physical consciousness. In this paper, I argue that if QCI is true, the zombie argument fails. In particular, I
...
show that if QCI is true, a zombie world physically identical to our world is impossible because there is at least one law of nature, a fundamental law of physics in particular, that exist only in the zombie world but not in our world. This shows that philosophers like Chalmers are committing an error in endorsing the zombie argument and QCI at the same time. (
shrink
Modal arguments against materialism.
Michael Pelczar
2021
Noûs
55 (2):426-444.
details
We review existing strategies for bringing modal intuitions to bear against materialist theories of consciousness, and then propose a new strategy. Unlike existing strategies, which assume that imagination (suitably constrained) is a good guide to modal truth, the strategy proposed here makes no assumptions about the probative value of imagination. However, unlike traditional modal arguments, the argument developed here delivers only the conclusion that we should not believe that materialism is true, not that we should believe that it is false.
Moral zombies: why algorithms are not moral agents.
Carissa Véliz
2021
AI and Society
36 (2):487-497.
details
In philosophy of mind, zombies are imaginary creatures that are exact physical duplicates of conscious subjects but for whom there is no first-personal experience. Zombies are meant to show that physicalism—the theory that the universe is made up entirely out of physical components—is false. In this paper, I apply the zombie thought experiment to the realm of morality to assess whether moral agency is something independent from sentience. Algorithms, I argue, are a kind of functional moral zombie, such that thinking
...
about the latter can help us better understand and regulate the former. I contend that the main reason why algorithms can be neither autonomous nor accountable is that they lack sentience. Moral zombies and algorithms are incoherent as moral agents because they lack the necessary moral understanding to be morally responsible. To understand what it means to inflict pain on someone, it is necessary to have experiential knowledge of pain. At most, for an algorithm that feels nothing, ‘values’ will be items on a list, possibly prioritised in a certain way according to a number that represents weightiness. But entities that do not feel cannot value, and beings that do not value cannot act for moral reasons. (
shrink
Fizikalizm, Bilgi Argümanı ve Felsefi Düşünce Deneyleri.
Alper Bilgehan Yardımcı
Atilla Volkan Çam
2021
Nosyon: Uluslararası Toplum Ve Kültür Çalışmaları Dergisi
1 (8):1-11.
details
Thought experiments, one of the most effective ways of acquiring knowledge, are an intellectual tool frequently used by scientists or thinkers in their fields of study. Thought experiments used to respond to scientific issues are considered scientific thought experiments, while thought experiments used for philosophical problems are called philosophical thought experiments. In this context, firstly, the differences between scientific and philosophical thought experiments are determined in the article. In particular, philosophical thought experiments are often needed in discussions within the field
...
of epistemology. For this reason, in the rest of the study, the knowledge argument put forward against the idea of physicalism, which is one of the important views in epistemology and which claims that the natural world is basically physical and that everything can be explained by physical laws is included. The knowledge argument briefly argues that there are non-physical properties and information that can only be discovered through conscious experience. Accordingly, it is argued that someone who has all physical knowledge about another conscious may lack knowledge of what it would feel like to have subjective experiences of that entity such as qualia. Consequently, the main idea of the article is to reveal how an epistemological thesis has been questioned by various philosophers in the context of philosophical thought experiments such as Mary’s room, ‘What is it like to be a Bat’, The Martian and the Philosophical Zombie. - Bilgi edinmenin en etkili yollarından bir tanesi olarak değerlendirilen düşünce deneyleri bilim insanları ya da düşünürler tarafından kendi çalışma alanları içerisinde sıklıkla başvurulan düşünsel bir araçtır. Bilimsel konulara cevap vermek amacıyla gerçekleştirilen düşünce deneyleri bilimsel düşünce deneyleri olarak değerlendirilirken, felsefi sorunlara yönelik kullanılan düşünce deneyleri ise felsefi düşünce deneyleri olarak adlandırılmaktadır. Bu kapsamda makalede ilk olarak bilimsel ve felsefi düşünce deneyleri arasındaki farklılıklar belirlenmektedir. Özellikle, epistemoloji alanı içerisinde yer alan tartışmalarda felsefi düşünce deneylerine sıklıkla ihtiyaç duyulmaktadır. Bu nedenle çalışmanın devamında epistemolojide önemli görüşlerden bir tanesi olan ve doğal dünyanın en temelde fiziksel olduğu ve fiziksel yasalarla her şeyin açıklanabileceği iddiasında bulunan fizikalizm düşüncesine karşı ileri sürülmüş bilgi argümanına yer verilmektedir. Bilgi argümanı kısaca sadece bilinçli deneyim yoluyla elde edilebilen ve fiziksel olarak ifade edilemeyen öznel deneyimlerin ve özelliklerin olduğunu savunmaktadır. Buna göre, başka bir bilinçli varlık hakkında bütün fiziksel bilgiye sahip olan birinin, o varlığın qualia gibi öznel deneyimlerine sahip olmasının nasıl bir his olduğu konusundaki bilgilerden yoksun olabileceği fikri savunulmaktadır. Bu doğrultuda, makalenin temel savı fizikalizm gibi epistemolojik bir teze Mary’nin Odası, ‘Yarasa Olmak Nasıl Bir Şeydir’, Marslı ve Felsefi Zombi gibi felsefi düşünce deneyleri bağlamında çeşitli filozoflarca nasıl itiraz edildiğini ve düşünce deneylerinin bu bağlamda nasıl kullanıldığını ortaya koymaktır. (
shrink
Material through and through.
Andrew M. Bailey
2020
Philosophical Studies
177 (8):2431-2450.
details
Materialists about human persons think that we are material through and through—wholly material beings. Those who endorse materialism more widely think that everything is material through and through. But what is it to be wholly material? In this article, I answer that question. I identify and defend a definition or analysis of ‘wholly material’.
Can the Russellian Monist Escape the Epiphenomenalist’s Paradox?
Lok-Chi Chan
2020
Topoi
39 (5):1093-1102.
details
Russellian monism—an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (The analysis of matter, Routledge, London, 1927/1992)—is roughly the view that physics can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not their categorical (or intrinsic) properties, whereas our qualia are constituted by those categorical properties. In this paper, I will discuss the relation between Russellian monism and a seminal paradox facing epiphenomenalism, the paradox of phenomenal judgment: if epiphenomenalism is true—qualia are causally inefficacious—then any judgment
...
concerning qualia, including epiphenomenalism itself, cannot be caused by qualia. For many writers, including Hawthorne (Philos Perspect 15:361–378, 2001), Smart (J Conscious Stud 11(2):41–50, 2004), and Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (The philosophy of mind and cognition, Blackwell, Malden, 2007), Russellian monism faces the same paradox as epiphenomenalism does. I will assess Chalmers’s (The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) and Seager’s (in: Beckermann A, McLaughlin BP (eds) The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. Oxford University Press, New York, 2009) defences of Russellian monism against the paradox, and will put forward a novel argument against those defences. (
shrink
The modal argument improved.
Brian Cutter
2020
Analysis
80 (4):629-639.
details
The modal argument against materialism, in its most standard form, relies on a compatibility thesis to the effect that the physical truths are compatible with the absence of consciousness. I propose an alternative modal argument that relies on an incompatibility thesis: The existence of consciousness is incompatible with the proposition that the physical truths provide a complete description of reality. I show that everyone who accepts the premises of the standard modal argument must accept the premises of the revised modal
...
argument, but not vice versa. (
shrink
Dualism: How Epistemic Issues Drive Debates About the Ontology of Consciousness.
Brie Gertler
2020
In Uriah Kriegel,
The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness
. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
details
A primary goal of this chapter is to highlight neglected epistemic parallels between dualism and physicalism. Both dualist and physicalist arguments employ a combination of empirical data and armchair reflection; both rely on considerations stemming from how we conceptualize certain phenomena; and both aim to establish views that are compatible with scientific results but go well beyond the deliverances of empirical science. -/- I begin the chapter by fleshing out the distinctive commitments of dualism, in a way that illuminates the
...
interplay of epistemic and metaphysical elements within the dualist position. Section 2 outlines two influential arguments for dualism and explains how dualists defend those arguments from key criticisms. Sections 3 and 4 examine the most powerful objections to dualism: that it is inferior to physicalism as regards the theoretical virtue of simplicity, and that it cannot explain mental causation. I show that each of these objections to dualism depends on substantial assumptions that cannot be empirically justified. The objection from mental causation additionally rests on an ambitious assumption about how we conceptualize physical phenomena. Section 5 briefly reviews how epistemic considerations inform arguments on both sides of this debate. (
shrink
Phenomenal Consciousness: A Critical Analysis of Knowledge Argument Inverted Spectrum Argument and Conceivability Argument.
Manas Kumar Sahu
2020
Journal of Advances in Education and Philosophy
4 (4):160-166.
details
The objective of this paper is to defend the non-reductive thesis of phenomenal consciousness. This paper will give an overview of the arguments for the non-reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness and justify why the reductionist approach is implausible in the context of explaining phenomenal subjective experience. The debate between reductionist and non-reductionist on the project of demystifying and mystifying phenomenal consciousness is driven by two fundamental assumptions-1) Reductive-Naturalistic Objectivism, 2) Phenomenal Realism. There are several arguments for the irreducibility of phenomenal
...
consciousness; this paper will focus on the inverted spectrum argument, knowledge argument, and the conceivability argument. (
shrink
Chalmers v Chalmers.
Daniel Stoljar
2020
Noûs
54 (2):469-487.
details
This paper brings out an inconsistency between David Chalmers's dualism, which is the main element of his philosophy of mind, and his structuralism, which is the main element of his epistemology. The point is ad hominem , but the inconsistency if it can be established is of considerable independent interest. For the best response to the inconsistency, I argue, is to adopt what Chalmers calls ‘type‐C Materialism’, a version of materialism that has been much discussed in recent times because of
...
its promise to move us beyond the stand‐off between standard versions of materialism and dualism. In turn, if that version of materialism is true, both dualism and structuralism should be rejected. (
shrink
Russellian monism and mental causation.
Torin Alter
Sam Coleman
2019
Noûs
55 (2):409-425.
details
According to Russellian monism, consciousness is constituted at least partly by quiddities: intrinsic properties that categorically ground dispositional properties described by fundamental physics. If the theory is true, then consciousness and such dispositional properties are closely connected. But how closely? The contingency thesis says that the connection is contingent. For example, on this thesis the dispositional property associated with negative charge might have been categorically grounded by a quiddity that is distinct from the one that actually grounds it. Some argue
...
that Russellian monism entails the contingency thesis and that this makes its consciousness‐constituting quiddities epiphenomenal—a disastrous outcome for a theory that is motivated partly by its prospects for integrating consciousness into physical causation. We consider two versions of that argument, a generic version and an intriguing version developed by Robert J. Howell, which he bases on Jaegwon Kim's well‐known “exclusion argument.” We argue that neither succeeds. (
shrink
Undermining Belief in Consciousness.
Justin Clarke-Doane
2019
Journal of Consciousness Studies
26 (9-10):34-47.
details
Does consciousness exist? In “The Meta-Problem of Consciousness” (MPC) David Chalmers sketches an argument for illusionism, i.e., the view that it does not. The key premise is that it would be a coincidence if our beliefs about consciousness were true, given that the explanation of those beliefs is independent of their truth. In this article, I clarify and assess this argument. I argue that our beliefs about consciousness are peculiarly invulnerable to undermining, whether or not their contents are indubitable or
...
even obvious. However, the reason that they are peculiarly invulnerable to undermining points to a fundamental flaw in modal arguments for dualism. (
shrink
Why Nearly Everything Is Knowable A Priori.
Brian Cutter
2019
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
101 (1):80-100.
details
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
Epistemic Gaps and the Mind-Body Problem.
Thomas Foerster
2019
Dissertation, Cornell University
details
This dissertation defends materialism from the epistemic arguments against materialism. Materialism is the view that everything is ultimately physical. The epistemic arguments against materialism claim that there is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths (for example, that knowing the physical truths does not put you in a position to know the phenomenal truths), and conclude from this that there is a corresponding gap in the world between physical and phenomenal truths, and materialism is false. -/- Chapter 1 introduces
...
materialism and the arguments against materialism that I respond to in this dissertation. -/- Chapters 2 and 3 explore the phenomenal concept strategy (PCS), one promising materialist response to the epistemic arguments against materialism. The PCS admits that there is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths, but claims that it arises because of something special about our concepts of consciousness and not because of something special about consciousness itself. -/- Chapter 4 considers what reason there is to think that there is an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths in the first place. I argue that some arguments might succeed in showing that there is such an epistemic gap, but that if these arguments succeed then they end up vindicating the PCS. -/- Chapter 5 considers more generally what is required for an epistemic gap to exist. In particular, it considers whether conceptual analysis is necessary to close an epistemic gap. (
shrink
Essentialist modal rationalism.
Philip Goff
2019
Synthese
198 (Suppl 8):2019-2027.
details
It used to be thought that rational coherence and metaphysical possibility went hand in hand. Kripke and Putnam put a spanner in the works by proposing examples of propositions which seem to violate this principle. I will propose a nuanced form of modal rationalism consistent with the Kripke/putnam cases. The rough idea is that rational coherence entails possibility when you grasp the essential nature of what you’re conceiving of.
Semantic gaps and protosemantics.
Benj Hellie
2019
In J. Acacio de Barros & Carlos Montemayor,
Quanta and Mind: Essays on the Connection Between Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness
. Cham: Springer Verlag. pp. 201-221.
details
Semantic gaps between physical and mental discourse include the 'explanatory', 'epistemic' (Black-and-White Mary), and 'suppositional' (zombies) gaps; protosemantics is concerned with what is fundamental to meaning. Our tradition presupposes a truth-based protosemantics, with disastrous consequences for interpreting the semantic gaps: nonphysicalism, epiphenomenalism, separatism. Fortunately, an endorsement-based protosemantics, recentering meaning from the world to the mind, is technically viable, intuitively more plausible, and empirically more adequate. But, of present significance, it makes room for interpreting mental discourse as expressing simulations: this blocks
...
the disastrous consequences; and, as a bonus, accommodates hitherto anomalous asymmetries among the various semantic gaps. (
shrink
Mary does not learn anything new: Applying Kim's critique of mental causation to the knowledge argument and the problem of consciousness.
Adam Khayat
2019
Stance
2019 (1):45-55.
details
Within the discourse surrounding mind-body interaction, mental causation is intimately associated with non-reductive physicalism. However, such a theory holds two opposing views: that all causal properties and relations can be explicated by physics and that special sciences have an explanatory role. Jaegwon Kim attempts to deconstruct this problematic contradiction by arguing that it is untenable for non-reductive physicalists to explain human behavior by appeal to mental properties. In combination, Kim’s critique of mental causation and the phenomenal concept strategy serves as
...
an effectual response to the anti-physicalist stance enclosed within the Knowledge Argument and the Zombie Thought Experiment. (
shrink
Two 'Mind-Body' Problems in Descartes and Husserl (MA Thesis).
Andrii Leonov
2019
Dissertation,
details
The main theme of this Thesis is the mind-body problem in Descartes and Husserl. Firstly, the author of this work is dealing with problem through the prism of his own approach. Thus, instead one mind-body problem, the author of this work claims that there are two: the first is ontological (mind-brain relation), while the second is the conceptual one (‘mind’ and ‘body’ as concepts). In Descartes’ Meditations, the ontological level of the problem is explicit, when the conceptual level is implicit.
...
Otherwise, in Husserl’s Crisis and Ideas I, the conceptual level (as the opposition between transcendental phenomenology and natural sciences) of the problem is explicit, while the ontological level is implicit. Though, in his Ideas II (and partially in Crisis), Husserl as it seems mostly deals with ontological level of the problem: the phenomenological ‘solution’ to the ontological mind-body problem can be seen through the description of the body-as-lived (der Leib) as opposed to body-as-physical (der Körper). Secondly, the author of this work is dealing with the question of method where also proposes to interpret Descartes and Husserl’s essences as functions (understood in neither teleological nor causal, but in a neutral way), which could help us overcome ‘crises’ (including the conceptual ‘mind-body’ problem). In the last Chapter of this Thesis, the author looks at the interconnections between Husserlian phenomenology and the contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and tries to clarify the zombie argument and the hard problem of consciousness as presented by the Australian philosopher David Chalmers, from the phenomenological (Husserlian) perspective. (
shrink
Remove from this list
Export citation