Brendan O'Sullivan

In Max Black’s Objection to Mind–Body Identity, Ned Block seeks to offer a definitive treatment of property dualism arguments that exploit modes of presentation. I will argue that Block’s central response to property dualism is confused. The property dualist can happily grant that mental modes of presentation have a hidden physical nature. What matters for the property dualist is not the hidden physical side of the property, but the apparent mental side. Once that ‘thin’ side is granted, the property dualist has won. I conclude that although Block is wrong to think that the property dualist must argue for so-called thin mental properties, Block, and the physicalist, are able to resist property dualism. But any attempt to bolster this resistance and do more than dogmatically assert the crucial identity runs a serious risk of undermining the physicalism it is meant to save

In this article we aim to see how far one can get in defending the identity thesis without challenging the inference from conceivability to possibility. Our defence consists of a dilemma for the modal argument. Either “pain” is rigid or it is not. If it is not rigid, then a key premise of the modal argument can be rejected. If it is rigid, the most plausible semantic account treats “pain” as a natural-kind term that refers to its causal or historical origin, namely, C-fibre stimulation. It follows that any phenomenon that is not C-fibre stimulation is not pain, even if it is qualitatively similar to pain. This means there could be phenomena that feel like pain but are not pain since they are not C-fibre stimulation. These possible phenomena can be used to explain away the apparent conceivability of pain without C-fibre stimulation. On either horn of the dilemma, the identity theorist has ample resources to respond to Kripke's argument, even without wandering into the contentious territory of conceivability and possibility.

A sizable literature exists concerning the structure of Socrates' argument at Euthyphro 9d–11b. Although there is some dispute, a substitutional reading has emerged as a leading interpretation. However, some rear‐guard maneuvers are in order to defend this reading against its competitors. In this paper, I articulate a substitutional reading and argue that it is invalid on two counts: one, Socrates oversteps the logic of his reductio ad absurdum, and two, he illicitly substitutes coreferring expressions in explanatory contexts. Next, I defend the substitutional reading by (1) rebutting its leading contender, Sharvy's formal causation interpretation, and (2) showing how a similar substitutional argument is made in the Protagoras.

I walk toward the water fountain because I want to get a drink of water . Common sense, and a distinguished philosophical tradition, understand the want and belief here as causing my walking. This presumption, however, is challenged by the physical antecedents of our bodily motions. If we believe that our bodily motions have sufficient physical causes, then , no distinct mental event causes any of our bodily motions; mental events are epiphenomenal. ;A popular resolution identifies particular mental events with physical ones, thereby, forestalling any threat of causal competition. However, a new threat of exclusion emerges when we attend to the mental features of events. Many have argued that even if mental events cause bodily motions, the mental properties of those events are rendered causally irrelevant by the physical properties whose instantiations are sufficient for bodily motions. ;I show that previous philosophers have failed to articulate adequately a concept of causal relevance. I define two broad approaches to causal relevance, one analyzing causal relevance in terms of sufficiency, the other, necessity. Focusing on the latter, I offer two precise concepts of causal relevance. I show that on the first, although mental properties are causally relevant, the notion of relevance is too weak. On the second, I maintain that any attempt to secure causal relevance for mental properties by distinguishing between actions and bodily motions is doomed to fail. In the course of this discussion, I contend that a widely held resolution of the exclusion problem, one that exploits strong supervenience, fails. ;In my concluding chapter, I explain and defend of kind of reduction of mental to physical properties that is compatible with multiple realizability and the lack of strict psychophysical laws. Furthermore, I argue that one can adopt this form of reductionism independently of an adherence to functionalism. Finally, I show that a denial of functionalism leaves such a reductionist in a much better position to accommodate the qualitative aspects of mental states in a broadly physical worldview

A sizable literature exists concerning the structure of Socrates' argument at Euthyphro 9d–11b. Although there is some dispute, a substitutional reading has emerged as a leading interpretation. However, some rear‐guard maneuvers are in order to defend this reading against its competitors. In this paper, I articulate a substitutional reading and argue that it is invalid on two counts: one, Socrates oversteps the logic of his reductio ad absurdum, and two, he illicitly substitutes coreferring expressions in explanatory contexts. Next, I defend the substitutional reading by (1) rebutting its leading contender, Sharvy's formal causation interpretation, and (2) showing how a similar substitutional argument is made in the Protagoras.

It is widely thought that functionalism and the qualia theory are better positioned to accommodate the ‘affective’ aspect of pain phenomenology than representationalism. In this paper, we attempt to overturn this opinion by raising problems for both functionalism and the qualia theory on this score. With regard to functionalism, we argue that it gets the order of explanation wrong: pain experience gives rise to the effects it does because it hurts, and not the other way around. With regard to the qualia theory, we argue that it fails to capture the sense in which pain 's affective phenomenology rationalises various bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. Representationalism, in contrast, escapes both of these problems: it gets the order of explanation right and it explains how pain 's affective phenomenology can rationalise bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. For this reason, we argue that representationalism has a significant advantage in the debates about pain 's affective phenomenology. We end the paper by examining objections, including the question of what representationalists should say about so-called ‘disassociation cases’, such as pain asymbolia