Robert C. Koons, George Bealer The Waning Of Materialism Oxford University Press ( 2010) PDF
Preview Robert C. Koons, George Bealer The Waning Of Materialism Oxford University Press ( 2010)
THE WANING OF MATERIALISM The Waning of Materialism Editedby ROBERT C. KOONS AND GEORGE BEALER 1 1 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork ©theseveralcontributors2010 Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2010 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData LibraryofCongressControlNumber2010920518 TypesetbyLaserwordsPrivateLimited,Chennai,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby CPIAntonyRowe,Chippenham,Wiltshire ISBN978–0–19–955618–2(hbk.) 978–0–19–955619–9(pbk.) 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Contents Introduction ix PART I: ARGUMENTS FROM CONSCIOUSNESS 1. AgainstMaterialism 3 LaurenceBonJour 2. ASimpleViewofConsciousness 25 AdamPautz 3. SavingAppearances:ADilemmaforPhysicalists 67 CharlesSiewert 4. ThePropertyDualismArgument 89 StephenL.White 5. Kripke’sArgumentAgainstMaterialism 115 EliHirsch 6. TheSelf-ConsciousnessArgument:Functionalismandthe CorruptionofContent 137 GeorgeBealer PART II: ARGUMENTS FROM UNITY AND IDENTITY 7. YouareSimple 161 DavidBarnett 8. PersonsandtheUnityofConsciousness 175 WilliamHasker 9. AnArgumentfromTranstemporalIdentityforSubject–Body Dualism 191 MartineNida-Ru¨melin vi Contents PART III: INTENTIONALITY, MENTAL CAUSATION, AND KNOWLEDGE 10. Burge’sDualism 215 BernardW.Kobes 11. ModestDualism 233 TylerBurge 12. Descartes’RevengePartII:TheSupervenienceArgumentStrikes Back 251 NealJudisch 13. NonreductivePhysicalismorEmergentDualism?TheArgument fromMentalCausation 261 TimothyO’ConnorandJohnRossChurchill 14. EpistemologicalObjectionstoMaterialism 281 RobertC.Koons PART IV: ALTERNATIVES TO MATERIALISM 15. Materialism,MinimalEmergentism,andtheHardProblemof Consciousness 309 TerryHorgan 16. DualizingMaterialism 331 MichaelJubien 17. DualisticMaterialism 349 JosephAlmog 18. VarietiesofNaturalism 365 MarioDeCaro 19. AgainstMethodologicalMaterialism 375 AngusJ.L.Menuge 20. Soul,Mind,andBrain 395 BrianLeftow Contents vii 21. MaterialismDoesNotSavethePhenomena—andtheAlternative WhichDoes 417 UweMeixner 22. SubstanceDualism:ANon-CartesianApproach 439 E.J.Lowe Bibliography 463 Index 483 Introduction Thetwenty-threepapersinthisvolume,bothindividuallyandcollectively,help to show why and in what ways materialism is on the wane. By saying that materialism is on the wane, we do not mean that materialism is in the process of being eclipsed—nor do we mean that materialism is likely to be eclipsed at any point in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there is good reason to think that materialismisaperennialfixtureofphilosophy(nottomentioncognitivescience). After all, materialism is a readily intelligible monistic worldview, appealing in its apparent simplicity, and a natural complement to the impressive ongoing successesinthenaturalsciences. Inspiteofthis,materialismiswaninginanumberofsignificantrespects—one ofwhichistheever-growingnumberofmajorphilosopherswhorejectmaterialism or at least have strong sympathies with anti-materialist views. It is of course commonlythoughtthatover thecourseofthelast sixty orso years materialism achieved hegemony in academic philosophy, and this is no doubt right by certainmeasures—forexample,inabsolutenumberofself-identifiedmaterialist philosophers of mind or in absolute number of books and journal articles defending materialism. It is therefore surprising that an examination of the major philosophers active in this period reveals that a majority, or something approaching a majority, either rejected materialism or had serious and specific doubts about its ultimate viability. The following is just a partial sampling of thesephilosophers,moreorlessinorderofbirth. BertrandRussell,RudolfCarnap,AlonzoChurch,KurtGo¨del,NelsonGoodman,Paul Grice, Stuart Hampshire, Roderick Chisholm, Benson Mates, Peter Strawson, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, Jerrold Katz, Alvin Plantinga, Charles Parsons, Jaegwon Kim, George Myro, Thomas Nagel, Robert Adams, Hugh Mellor, Saul Kripke, Eli Hirsch, Ernest Sosa, Stephen Schiffer, Bas van Fraassen, John McDowell, Peter Unger, Derek Parfit, Crispin Wright, Laurence BonJour, Michael Jubien, Nancy Cartwright, Bob Hale,KitFine,TylerBurge,TerenceHorgan,ColinMcGinn,RobertBrandom,Nathan Salmon,JosephLevine,TimothyWilliamson,MarkJohnston,PaulBoghossian,Stephen Yablo,JosephAlmog,KeithDeRose,TimCrane,JohnHawthorne,RichardHeck,David Chalmers.i i Forallthepeoplelisted,wehavedocumentationthattheyeitherrejectedmaterialismorharbored seriousandspecificdoubtsaboutitsultimateviability.Allthelivingphilosopherslisted(Putnam, Searle,Plantinga,Parsons,Kim,Nagel,andallthosefollowing)havegivenusexplicitpermissionto includethemonthelist(underthedescriptionusedinthesentenceprecedingthisone).Limitations onspacepreventusfromgivingathoroughpresentationofcitations;intheBibliography,however, weciterelevantworksbymanyofthesephilosophers.AcommentaboutRussellandCarnapwill behelpfulhere.Russellespoused,atdifferenttimes,phenomenalismandrobustneutralmonism, x Introduction Materialism plainly has not achieved hegemony when it comes to philosophers ofthishighcaliber. Here,then,isonerespectinwhichmaterialismhasbeenonthewane.Wewill identifytwofurtherrespectsinamoment.But,first,itwillbeusefultosayafew morewordsaboutwhatwemeanbymaterialism. MATERIALISM Althoughtheterm‘materialism’hasbeenusedindiversewaysinphilosophy,it traditionallyhashadacomparativelypreciseusewithinphilosophyofmind.In thiscontext,materialismisacertainview,orfamilyofviews,inthemetaphysics of mind. Specifically, materialism is a certain view, or family of views, on the Mind-BodyProblem,whichconcernstheontologicalstatusof,andfundamental metaphysical relationship between, the mental and the physical—between, for instance,mentalpropertiesandphysicalproperties,mentalrelationsandphysical relations, mental events and physical events, people and their bodies. (For simplicity, we will hereafter focus primarily on mental and physical properties (and relations); understanding their relationship arguably provides a key to resolvingtheentireproblem.) Historically,materialismwasjustthereductionistpositionthatmentalprop- ertiesareidenticalto—andinthatsensearenothingbut—physicalproperties. (Idealism was the competing reductionist answer to the Mind-Body Problem, reducing physical properties to mental properties.) Throughout most of the history of philosophy, materialism took the form of what today we call the Identity Theory, according to which mental properties are identical to internal bodily properties, whether they be the properties associated with Democritean atoms,Hobbesianmotionsinthebodyor,inourperiod,electrochemicalinter- actions at the neurological level. (Of course, nothing prevents such a theory from incorporating environmental factors in order to accommodate content externalism;forus,thiskindofextendedtheorywouldstillcountasamaterialist ontologicalreduction.)In thefirst half of theTwentiethCenturyanotherform of materialist reductionism emerged, namely, Behaviorism, according to which mentalpropertiesareidenticaltobehavioralproperties(dispositionsofthebody tobehaveincertainwaysincertaincircumstances).Inthe1960sand’70sathird form of reductionism gained prominence, namely, functionalism, according to which our standard mental properties and relations (being conscious, thinking, eachofwhichisantitheticaltoReductiveMaterialismandalsotothethesisthatphysicalproperties aremetaphysicallypriorto—andhenceareasuperveniencebasefor—mentalproperties.See,e.g., Russell(1956).TheyoungCarnap(oftheAufbau)wasaphenomenalist.ThematureCarnap(of ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’) endorsed a form of anti-realism incompatible with the sortofmaterialismprominentoverthecourseofthelastsixtyorsoyears.LiketheyoungCarnap, NelsonGoodmanandBensonMateswerealsophenomenalists,notmaterialists. Introduction xi etc.)areidenticalto(andhencereducibleto)second-orderproperties:specifically, mentalpropertiesare held tobe definablein termsof thecharacteristicinterac- tions of their first-order ‘realizer’ properties with one another and the external environment—whereintheactualworld,andperhapsallpossibleworlds,these first-order realizer properties are physical properties (presumably, the sort of physical properties invoked by the Identity Theory).ii On a strong version of this view (hereafter called ‘Functionalism’), the realizers of mental properties are necessarily first-order physical properties, from which it follows that mental propertiesarenecessarilysecond-orderphysicalpropertiesandthereforebelongto thegeneralontologicalcategoryofphysical property.iii LiketheIdentityTheory andBehaviorism,FunctionalismqualifiesasaformofReductiveMaterialism. There is a weaker version of functionalism according to which, even though mentalpropertiesarereducibletosecond-orderpropertiesandeventhoughtheir realizerpropertiesintheactualworldarephysical,itisnotnecessarythattherealizer propertiesbephysical.Ifthisviewwerecorrect,however,mentalpropertieswould notbelongtotheontologicalcategoryofphysicalproperty.Toseewhy,consider a world in which the realizer properties are not physical (a possibility implied by this version of functionalism). Plainly, the inhabitants of such a world would be mistaken if they were to assert that mental properties belong to the ontological category of physical property. Therefore, since properties cannot changeontologicalcategory,itfollowsthatitwould,intheactualworld,likewise be a mistake for us to assert that mental properties belong to the ontological categoryofphysicalproperty;onthecontrary,mentalpropertieswouldneedto belongtoanentirelydifferentontologicalcategory.Giventhis,thisweakversion of functionalism does not count as a form of Reductive Materialism, unlike ii David Lewis construes his functionalism as a form of first-order Identity Theory. This construalisdependentonhisimplausibleviewthatourparadigmaticmentalexpressionsarenon- rigiddesignatorsofmentalpropertiesandrelations.Thisviewoftheseexpressionsfailsforallofour corementalverbsandverbphrases:‘thinks’,‘believes’,‘perceives’,‘experiences’,‘senses’,‘feels’,‘is awareof’,‘isconsciousof’,etc.Byapplyingtheoperationofrelation-abstractiontotheseexpressions, we get the following relation-abstracts: ‘the relation of thinking’, ‘the relation of believing’, etc. Suchexpressionsarerigiddesignators,asLewishimselfacknowledges,andtheydenotecoremental relations(therelationofthinking,therelationofbelieving,etc.).Analogouslyforverbphrasessuch as‘thinksthathumanbeingsexist’:theassociatedpropertyabstract‘thepropertyofthinkingthat humanbeingsexist’rigidlydenotesthepropertyofthinkingthathumanbeingsexist.Expressions like‘pain’,bycontrast,donotevendenoteproperties.Ontwocoreusesoftheexpression‘pain’(the coreuses,webelieve),‘pain’functionsasacountnounwhichappliestopains,anditalsofunctions asanassociatedmassnounformoreorlesspain(moreorlessinintensityorextent)orforsome pain(someamountofpain).Thementalpropertyassociatedwiththecount-nounuseisthesortal propertyofbeingapain,andthementalpropertyassociatedwiththemass-nounuseistheproperty of being some pain. The associated property-abstracts ‘being a pain’ and ‘being some pain’ are rigiddesignatorsoftheseproperties.OnLewis’sfunctionalism,therefore,alloftheabovemental propertiesandrelations(thepropertyofbeingapain,thepropertyofthinkingthathumanbeings exist, the relation of thinking, etc.) are rigidly designated second-order properties and relations. Thatis,Lewis’sfunctionalismisjustanotherinstanceoffunctionalism,asitwascharacterizedin thetext. iii Putnam(1970)proposedthisreductiveversionoffunctionalismbuthassincerenouncedit.
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