Torin Alter

According to Russellian monism, phenomenal consciousness is constituted by inscrutables: intrinsic properties that categorically ground dispositional properties described by fundamental physics. On Russellian physicalism, those inscrutables are construed as protophenomenal properties: non-structural properties that both categorically ground dispositional properties and, perhaps when appropriately structured, collectively constitute phenomenal properties. Morris and Brown argue that protophenomenal properties cannot serve this purpose, given assumptions Russellian monists typically make about the modal profile of such properties. Those assumptions, it is argued, entail that protophenomenal properties are ‘experience specific’, that is, they are individuated by their potential to constitute phenomenal properties, and are thus not genuinely physical. However, we argue, that reasoning assumes that physical inscrutables must be individuated in terms of their grounding roles. Not only is that assumption questionable: it is antithetical to Russellian monism.

How could physicalism be true of a world in which there are no fundamental physical phenomena? A familiar answer, due to Barbara Gail Montero and others, is that physicalism could be true of such a world if that world does not contain an infinite descent of mentality. Christopher Devlin Brown has produced a counterexample to that solution. We show how to modify the solution to accommodate Brown’s example: physicalism could be true of a world without fundamental physical phenomena if that world does not contain an infinite descent of mentally constituted mentality. This solution is independently plausible and is available to physicalists of virtually all significant varieties.

RÉSUMÉMichael Tye soutient que certains noms sont vagues parce qu'ils réfèrent à des objets vagues. Tye, cependant, ne distingue pas entre référer à un objet vague et référer vaguement. Je suggère, à partir de certaines suppositions, que les noms vagues doivent référer vaguement. Et si les noms vagues doivent référer vaguement, alors l'argument de Tye échoue, puisque des noms qui réfèrent à des objets vagues n'ont pas besoin de référer vaguement. Néanmoins, l'indétermination dans la méta-sémantique de la relation d'être porteur d'un nom peut créer des noms qui réfèrent vaguement. Cette conclusion ne dépend pas de la supposition que les noms ont un contenu descriptif, ni de l'idée que les énoncés d'identitè peuvent être indéterminés quant à leur valeur de vérité.

The supervenience requirement on physicalism says roughly that if physicalism is true then mental properties supervene on fundamental physical properties. After explaining the basis of the requirement, I defend it against objections presented by Lei Zhong (“Physicalism without supervenience,” Philosophical Studies 178 (5), 2021: 1529–44), Barbara Gail Montero (“Must physicalism imply supervenience of the mental on the physical?” Journal of Philosophy 110, 2013: 93–110), and Montero and Christopher Devlin Brown (“Making room for a this-worldly physicalism,” Topoi 37 (3), 2018: 523–32).

The titular ‘Mary’ refers to Jackson’s famous protagonist. Her story takes place in the future, when all physical facts have been discovered. This includes “everything in completed physics, chemistry, and neurophysiology, and all there is to know about the causal and relational facts consequent upon all this, including of course functional roles”. Mary learns all this by watching lectures on a monochromatic television monitor. But she spends her life in a black-and-white room and has no color experiences. Then she leaves the room and sees colors for the first time.

Physicalism is standardly construed as a form of monism, on which all concrete phenomena fall under one fundamental type. It is natural to think that monism, and therefore physicalism, is committed to a supervenience claim. Monism is true only if all phenomena supervene on a certain fundamental type of phenomena. Physicalism, as a form of monism, specifies that these fundamental phenomena are physical. But some argue that physicalism might be true even if the world is disorderly, i.e., not ordered by supervenience relations in the way commonly supposed (Montero in J Philos 110:92–110, 2013; Leuenberger in Inquiry 57:151–174, 2014; Montero and Brown in Topoi 37(3):523–532, 2018; Zhong in Philos Stud 178(5):1529–1544, 2021). Unless these authors intend to challenge the claim that physicalism is a type of monism—a claim so central to the dialectic in philosophy of mind that rejecting it risks changing the subject—they are committed to challenging a supervenience requirement for monism. We argue that monism entails that there are substantial supervenience relations among concrete phenomena: relations that would not obtain in a disorderly world. Our argument thus has implications for debates about physicalism and supervenience, and sheds light on an under-discussed issue: what is implied by classifying a theory in the philosophy of mind as a form of monism? We also argue that physicalism’s commitment to monism creates problems for _via negativa_ physicalism, on which the physical is characterized negatively.

This book defends Frank Jackson’s knowledge argument against physicalism. According to physicalism, consciousness is a physical phenomenon. The knowledge argument stars Mary, who learns all objective, physical information through black-and-white media and yet acquires new information when she first sees colors for herself: information about what it is like to see in color. Based partly on that case, Jackson concludes that not all information is physical. The book argues that the knowledge argument succeeds in refuting all standard versions of physicalism: versions on which consciousness is grounded by what objective science reveals. It also argues that given further, plausible assumptions, the knowledge argument leads to Russellian monism, on which there are intrinsic properties that both constitute consciousness and underlie properties physics describes, such as mass and charge. It explains how the knowledge argument establishes those two conclusions and defends the argument against numerous objections.

Ideal for courses in consciousness and the philosophy of mind, Consciousness and The Mind-Body Problem: A Reader presents thirty-three classic and contemporary readings, organized into five sections that cover the major issues in this debate: the challenge for physicalism, physicalist responses, alternative responses, the significance of ignorance, and mental causation. Edited by Torin Alter and Robert J. Howell, the volume features work from such leading figures as Karen Bennett, Ned Block, David J. Chalmers, Frank Jackson, Colin McGinn, David Papineau, and many others

This chapter explains how the knowledge argument works and describes various physicalist responses to the knowledge argument. Frank Jackson first presented the knowledge argument in his 1982 paper, “Epiphenomenal Qualia”. “Qualia” refers to phenomenal properties: properties such as those Mary is said to understand only after leaving the room. Not everyone shares Jackson's opinion that epiphenomenalism is the best option for knowledge argument proponents. And some argue that there are versions of physicalism that the knowledge argument does not rule out. The most widely discussed such view is physicalist Russellian monism. Russellian monism combines two ideas. First, basic physics tells us about spatiotemporal‐causal structure but is silent about what underlies that structure. Second, there are intrinsic properties that both underlie that structure and constitute consciousness. Physicalist Russellian monism adds that those intrinsic properties are physical, even though they are not described by physics.

A symbol might have racist connotations in the sense that a substantial portion of the relevant population associates it with racist values or institutions. A governmental symbol display might therefore carry racist connotations that the government doesn’t intend, including connotations that haven’t always been attached to the symbol. So I claimed recently in the pages of this journal (Alter 2000b). I also explained how those claims create problems for some of George Schedler’s (1998) main views about governmental displays of the Confederate battle flag. In his response, Schedler rejects my claims, arguing that they lead to absurdities when applied to various examples. He adds that one of his examples brings into question my “political savvy” (Schedler 2000, p. 5). Be that as it may, his arguments against my claims are entirely without force, and serve to confirm the weakness of his initial position. So I’ll argue. I’ll also identify a problematic assumption in our dispute, which is not uncommon in discussions of symbolic meaning and racist speech.

The God Dialogues is an intriguing and extensive philosophical debate about the existence of God. Engaging and accessible, it covers all the main arguments for and against God's existence, from traditional philosophical "proofs" to arguments that involve the latest developments in biology and physics. Three main characters represent the principal views: Theodore Logan, the theist; Eva Lucien, the atheist; and Gene Sesquois, the agnostic. Their debate takes place during a post-college cross-country road trip during which Gene expresses dismay over his future. He wants to do something meaningful with his life but is at a loss as to how to proceed, despite having just earned a degree in engineering. Gene's quandary precipitates a discussion of the meaning of life and its connection to God's existence. This in turn leads to vigorous debates about morality and theism, evidence for and against God's existence, probability and the rationality of belief, and the relationship between faith and reason. The strongest arguments from all three perspectives are fairly represented. An annotated list of suggested readings directs readers to relevant and helpful primary sources.Assuming no background knowledge, The God Dialogues is ideal for courses in the philosophy of religion, an excellent supplement for introduction to philosophy courses, and a compelling introduction for anyone with an interest in the subject.

Sawyer characterizes the zombie intuition as the claim that zombies are metaphysically possible. That’s not what I mean by the phrase. On my usage, ‘the zombie intuition’ refers to a conceivability claim: the claim that there’s no a priori incoherence in the hypothesis of a minimal physical/functional duplicate of the actual world but without consciousness, i.e., that PT&~Q is conceivable. The claim is the first step of a two-step argument, the second step of which is to infer the corresponding metaphysical possibility. The inference is controversial, but that’s not my concern here. By ‘the zombie intuition’, I mean the first step, which is a claim of conceivability, not metaphysical possibility.

I examine the notion of knowing what an experience or emotion it is like. What kind of knowledge is this? Is it, for example, a species of factual knowledge? If so, what sort of fact is known by someone who possesses this kind of knowledge? ;Knowing what it is like plays a central role in a recent, influential argument, which runs : complete knowledge of the physical facts would fail to provide one with knowledge of what it is like to taste a lemon or see red; therefore, there must be more to such experiences than the events involving only physical phenomena, and so materialism must be false. I argue that this argument involves an ineliminable illicit inference from epistemological premises about how we know about mental and physical events to a metaphysical conclusion about the nature of these events, and that materialism is compatible with the argument's epistemological underpinnings. ;Failure to appreciate this point has led materialists to advance reductionist theories of knowing what it is like, including the theory that it is a species of "ability knowledge" and the theory that it is a species of "acquaintance knowledge". I argue that all such reductionist theories are untenable: someone who does not know what it is like to see red is missing some bona fide factual knowledge about that experience. Given plausible assumptions, it follows that this factual knowledge cannot be acquired by discursive means alone. ;There is a prima facie tension between this "discursive unlearnability" thesis and the plausible idea that the representational resources of our language enable us to speak about that with which we are not directly acquainted, but others with whom we communicate are directly acquainted--an idea that gains support from recent work in semantics by Kripke, Kaplan, Donnellan, and others. I argue that the conflict is only apparent. However, the discursive unlearnability thesis does contradict the widely held view that all facts can be expressed in the language of objective science , and are in principle accessible to any rational creature with an intellectual capacity sufficiently powerful to understand that language

Kulvicki’s goal is to give a representationalist account of what it’s like to see a property that is “fully externalist about perceptual representation” (p. 1) and yet accommodates a certain “internalist intuition” (p. 4), which he describes as follows: “something about what it is like to see a property is internally determined, dependent only on the way one is built from the skin in” (p. 3). He illustrates this intuition with an inverted spectrum case and the manifest-image problem. On his view, there’s an apparent conflict between the intuition and representationalism. That’s because, on representationalism, “what it is like to see a shade of color can be exhaustively explained in terms of what is perceptually represented” (p. 1) and, he claims, “all representational facts are externally determined” (p. 4). In short, if what it’s like is partly internally determined, then how can it be fully explained in terms of externally determined representational facts?

In The Nature of Consciousness, Mark Rowlands argues that phenomenal properties, which constitute what it is like to have a conscious experience, are “transcendental”: that they are properties by which we are conscious of the nonphenomenal world, but they are not objects of conscious awareness or even linguistic reference. He uses that conclusion to support a mysterian position on the explanatory-gap problem: that it is impossible to understand how phenomenal consciousness arises from physical systems such as the brain.