Sven Walter

In der Debatte zwischen Dualisten und Physikalisten spielen Zombies seit geraumer Zeit eine entscheidende Rolle – physikalische Duplikate phänomenal bewusster Lebewesen, die selbst nicht phänomenal bewusst sind. Die Vorstellbarkeit bzw. Möglichkeit von Zombies bringt, so die Standardauffassung, den Physikalismus in Schwierigkeiten: Wenn die physikalische Ausstattung der Welt die Welt in ihrer Gesamtheit determiniert, wie vom Physikalismus gefordert, dann kann es keine physikalischen Duplikate phänomenal bewusster Lebewesen geben, die nicht ebenfalls phänomenal bewusst sind. Die Arbeit argumentiert dafür, dass die Standardauffassung falsch ist. Aus den üblicherweise angestellten Überlegungen ergibt sich kein zwingendes Argument gegen den Physikalismus, sondern bestenfalls die überraschende Konsequenz, dass Physikalisten wie Dualisten ihre jeweilige Position nicht als kontingent betrachten können, und schlimmstenfalls die nicht minder überraschende Konsequenz, dass der Dualismus falsch ist, wenn der Physikalismus mit der Möglichkeit von Zombies unverträglich ist.The debate between dualism and physicalism has recently been dominated by zombies—physical duplicates of phenomenally conscious beings that lack phenomenal consciousness. According to the standard view, the conceivability or possibility of zombies creates a serious problem for physicalism: If the physical make-up of the word determines the world in its entirety, as physicalism maintains, then there can be no physical duplicates of phenomenally conscious beings that are not phenomenally conscious. This paper argues that the standard view is wrong. The considerations usually appealed to do not yield a convincing argument against physicalism. At best, they result in the surprising claim that physicalists and dualists cannot understand their respective views as a contingent claim; at worst , they yield the no less surprising result that dualism is wrong if physicalism is incompatible with the possibility of zombies

Epistemological approaches to mental causation argue that the notorious problem of mental causation as captured in the question “How can irreducible, physically realized, and potentially relational mental properties be causally efficacious in the production of physical effects?” has a very simple solution: One merely has to abandon any metaphysical considerations in favor of epistemological considerations and accept that our explanatory practice is a much better guide to causal relevance than the metaphysical reasoning carried out from the philosophical armchair. I argue that epistemological approaches to mental causation do not enjoy any genuine advantage over theories which treat the problem of mental causation as a genuinely metaphysical problem

Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have defended a non-reductive account of causal relevance known as the ‘program explanation account’. Allegedly, irreducible mental properties can be causally relevant in virtue of figuring in non-redundant program explanations which convey information not conveyed by explanations in terms of the physical properties that actually do the ‘causal work’. I argue that none of the possible ways to spell out the intuitively plausible idea of a program explanation serves its purpose, viz., defends non-reductive physicalism against Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument according to which non-reductive physicalism is committed to epiphenomenalism because irreducible mental properties are ‘screened off’ from causal relevance by their physical realizers. Jackson and Pettit’s most promising explication of a program explanation appeals to the idea of invariance of effect under variation of realization , but I show that invariance of effect under variation of realization is neither necessary nor sufficient for causal relevance

During the past decade, the so-called “hypothesis of cognitive extension,” according to which the material vehicles of some cognitive processes are spatially distributed over the brain and the extracranial parts of the body and the world, has received lots of attention, both favourable and unfavourable. The debate has largely focussed on three related issues: (1) the role of parity considerations, (2) the role of functionalism, and (3) the importance of a mark of the cognitive. This paper critically assesses these issues and their interconnections. Section 1 provides a brief introduction. Section 2 argues that some of the most prominent objections against the appeal to parity considerations fail. Section 3 shows that such considerations are nevertheless unsuitable as an argument for cognitive extension. First, the actual argumentative burden is carried by an underlying commitment to functionalism, not by the parity considerations themselves. Second, in the absence of an independently motivated mark of the cognitive, the argument based on parity considerations does not get off the ground, but given such a mark, it is superfluous. Section 4 argues that a similar dilemma arises for the attempt to defend cognitive extension by a general appeal to functionalism. Unless it can be independently settled what it is for a process to be cognitive, functionalism itself will be undermined by the possibility of cognitive extension. Like parity considerations, functionalism is thus either unable to support cognitive extension or superfluous. Hence, nothing short of the specification of an appropriate mark of the cognitive that can be fulfilled not only by intracranial but also by extended processes will do as an argument for cognitive extension.