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175Does representationalism undermine the knowledge argument?In Torin Andrew Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism, Oxford University Press. pp. 65--76. 2006.The knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism, the view that the world is entirely physical. The argument first establishes the existence of facts about consciousness that are not a priori deducible from the complete physical truth, and then infers the falsity of physicalism from this lack of deducibility. Frank Jackson gave the argument its classic formulation. But now he rejects the argument . On his view, it relies on a false conception of sensory experience, which should be replaced with…Read more
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1564Social Externalism and the Knowledge ArgumentMind 122 (486). 2013.According to social externalism, it is possible to possess a concept not solely in virtue of one’s intrinsic properties but also in virtue of relations to one’s linguistic community. Derek Ball (2009) argues, in effect, that (i) social externalism extends to our concepts of colour experience and (ii) this fact undermines both the knowledge argument against physicalism and the most popular physicalist response to it, known as the phenomenal concept strategy. I argue that Ball is mistaken about (i…Read more
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470Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2006.What is the nature of consciousness? How is consciousness related to brain processes? This volume collects thirteen new papers on these topics: twelve by leading and respected philosophers and one by a leading color-vision scientist. All focus on consciousness in the "phenomenal" sense: on what it's like to have an experience. Consciousness has long been regarded as the biggest stumbling block for physicalism, the view that the mind is physical. The controversy has gained focus over the last few…Read more
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178Mary's new perspectiveAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (4): 585-84. 1995.I wish to consider an objection to Frank Jackson's knowledge argument recently made by Derk Pereboom.
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176Free acts and robot catsPhilosophical Studies 102 (3): 345-57. 2001.‘Free action’ is subject to the causal theory of reference and thus that The essential nature of free actions can be discovered only by empirical investigation, not by conceptual analysis. Heller ’s proposal, if true, would have significant philosophical implications. Consider the enduring issue we will call the Compatibility Issue : whether the thesis of determinism is logically compatible with the claim that.
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216Epistemicism and the combined spectrumRatio 17 (3): 241-255. 2004.Derek Parfit's combined-spectrum argument seems to conflict with epistemicism, a viable theory of vagueness. While Parfit argues for the indeterminacy of personhood, epistemicism denies indeterminacy. But, we argue, the linguistically based determinacy that epistemicism supports lacks the sort of normative or ontological significance that concerns Parfit. Thus, we reformulate his argument to make it consistent with epistemicism. We also dispute Roy Sorensen's suggestion that Parfit's argument re…Read more
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559A limited defense of the knowledge argumentPhilosophical Studies 90 (1): 35-56. 1998.Mary learns all the physical facts that one can learn by watching lectures on black-on-white television. According to Jackson, Mary learns new facts when she leaves the room and has color experiences, and that this undermines physicalism. Physicalists have responded by denying the new facts thesis; they argue, she acquires abilities, acquaintance knowledge, or new guises. I argue that the NFT is more plausible than any of the proposed alternatives. I also argue that the NFT does not undermine ph…Read more
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215The hard problem of consciousnessIn T. Bayne, A. Cleeremans & P. Wilken (eds.), Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.As I type these words, cognitive systems in my brain engage in visual and auditory information processing. This processing is accompanied by subjective states of consciousness, such as the auditory experience of hearing the tap-tap-tap of the keyboard and the visual experience of seeing the letters appear on the screen. How does the brain's activity generate such experiences? Why should it be accompanied by conscious experience in the first place? This is the hard problem of consciousness.
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38Review of P. Ludlow, Y. Nagasawa & D. Stoljar, There's Something about Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson's Knowledge Argument (review)PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 11. 2005.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 ex…Read more
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150On Two Alleged Conflicts Between Divine AttributesFaith and Philosophy 19 (1): 47-57. 2002.Some argue that God’s omnipotence and moral perfection prevent God from being afraid and having evil desires and thus from understanding such states—which contradicts God’s omniscience. But, I argue, God could acquire such understanding indirectly, either by (i) perceiving the mental states of imperfect creatures, (ii) imaginatively combining the components of mental states with which God could be acquainted, or (iii) having false memory traces of such states. (i)–(iii) are consistent with the p…Read more
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10This volume presents thirteen new essays on phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge: twelve by philosophers and one by a scientist. In this introduction, we provide some background and summarize the essays.
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741Does synesthesia undermine representationalism?PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12. 2006.Does synesthesia undermine representationalism? Gregg Rosenberg (2004) argues that it does. On his view, synesthesia illustrates how phenomenal properties can vary independently of representational properties. So, for example, he argues that sound/color synesthetic experiences show that visual experiences do not always represent spatial properties. I will argue that the representationalist can plausibly answer Rosenberg
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123Symbolic Meaning and the Confederate Battle FlagPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 7 (2-3): 1-4. 2000.The Confederate Battle Flag (CBF) is in the news again. On January 16th, 2000, 46,000 people came to Columbia, South Carolina, to protest its display over the state’s capital dome. On July 1st, the CBF was removed. But on the same day, it was raised in front of the Statehouse steps. The controversy has received a great deal of media coverage and was a factor in the 2000 presidential primaries. CBF displays raise a philosophical question I wish to address: What determines whether a symbol or symb…Read more
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2391Phenomenal knowledge without experienceIn Edmond Wright (ed.), The case for qualia, Mit Press. pp. 247. 2008.: Phenomenal knowledge usually comes from experience. But it need not. For example, one could know what it’s like to see red without seeing red—indeed, without having any color experiences. Daniel Dennett (2007) and Pete Mandik (forthcoming) argue that this and related considerations undermine the knowledge argument against physicalism. If they are right, then this is not only a problem for anti‐physicalists. Their argument threatens to undermine any version of phenomenal realism— the view that …Read more
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249Nothing matters in survivalThe Journal of Ethics 9 (3-4): 311-330. 2005.Do I have a special reason to care about my future, as opposed to yours? We reject the common belief that I do. Putting our thesis paradoxically, we say that nothing matters in survival: nothing in our continued existence justifies any special self-concern. Such an "extreme" view is standardly tied to ideas about the metaphysics of persons, but not by us. After rejecting various arguments against our thesis, we conclude that simplicity decides in its favor. Throughout the essay we honor Jim Rach…Read more
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470The knowledge argumentA Field Guide to the Philosophy of Mind. 1999.Frank Jackson first presented the Knowledge Argument in "Epiphenomenal Qualia" 1982). The KA is an argument against physicalism, the doctrine that everything is physical. The general thrust of the KA is that physicalism errs by misconstruing or denying the existence of the subjective features of experience. Physicalists have given numerous responses, and the debate continues about whether the KA ultimately succeeds in refuting any or all forms of physicalism. Jackson himself has recently.
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165Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism, by Derk PereboomMind 121 (484): 1115-1122. 2012.
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6A 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…Read more
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147On the conditional analysis of phenomenal conceptsPhilosophical Studies 134 (2). 2006.Zombies make trouble for physicalism. Intuitively, they seem conceivable, and many take this to support their metaphysical possibility – a result that, most agree, would refute physicalism. John Hawthorne (2002) [Philosophical Studies 109, 17–52] and David Braddon-Mitchell (2003) [The Journal of Philosophy 100, 111–135] have developed a novel response to this argument: phenomenal concepts have a conditional structure – they refer to non-physical states if such states exist and otherwise to phy…Read more
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540Know-how, ability, and the ability hypothesisTheoria 67 (3): 229-39. 2001.David Lewis and Laurence Nemirow claim that knowing what an experience is like is knowing-how, not knowing-that. They identify this know-how with the abilities to remember, imagine, and recognize experiences, and Lewis labels their view ‘the Ability Hypothesis’. The Ability Hypothesis has intrinsic interest. But Lewis and Nemirow devised it specifically to block certain anti-physicalist arguments due to Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson . Does it?
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235Does the ignorance hypothesis undermine the conceivability and knowledge arguments? (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (3): 756-765. 2009.No Abstract
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142QualiaIn L. Nadel (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group. 2003.Introduction Qualia and causation Do qualia exist? Qualia and cognitive science Qualia and other mental phenomena Knowledge of qualia Are qualia irreducible?
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34Nagel on Imagination and PhysicalismJournal of Philosophical Research 27 143-158. 2002.In “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Thomas Nagel argues that we cannot imagine what it is like to be a bat or presently understand how physicalism might be true. Both arguments have been seriously misunderstood. I defend them against various objections, point out a problem with the argument against physicalism, and show how the problem can be solved.
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80According to Garrett, Chalmers
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171The knowledge argumentIn Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, Blackwell. pp. 396--405. 2007.The knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism, the doctrine that the world is entirely physical. Physicalism is widely accepted in contemporary philosophy. But some doubt that phenomenal consciousness.
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1Kulvicki’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…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |