The Conceptual Link from Physical to MentalOUP Oxford, 31 jan 2013 - 228 pagina's How are truths about physical and mental states related? Physicalism entails that non-physical truths are redescriptions of a world specifiable in narrowly physical terms. In The Conceptual Link from Physical to Mental Robert Kirk argues that physicalists must therefore hold that the physical truth 'logico-conceptually' entails the mental truth: it is impossible for broadly logical and conceptual reasons that the former should have held without the latter. 'Redescriptive physicalism' is a fresh approach to the physical-to-mental connection that he bases on these ideas. Contrary to what might have been expected, this connection does not depend on analytic truths: there are holistic but non-analytic conceptual links, explicable by means of functionalism—which, he argues, physicalism entails. Redescriptive physicalism should not be confused with 'a priori physicalism': although physicalists must maintain that phenomenal truths are logico-conceptually entailed by physical truths, they must deny that they are also entailed a priori. Kripke-inspired 'a posteriori physicalism', on the other hand, is too weak for physicalism, and the psycho-physical identity thesis is not sufficient for it. Though non-reductive, redescriptive physicalism is an excellent basis for dealing with the problems that mental causation raises for other non-reductive views. 'Cartesian intuitions' of zombies and transposed qualia may seem to raise irresistible objections; Kirk shows that the intuitions are false. As to the 'explanatory gap', there is certainly an epistemic gap, but it has a physicalistically acceptable explanation which deals effectively with the problem of how the physical and functional facts fix particular phenomenal facts. |
Inhoudsopgave
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Redescription and logicoconceptual entailment | 7 |
3 Logicoconceptual entailment and other notions | 24 |
4 Supervenience | 47 |
5 Psychophysical identity and functionalism | 57 |
6 A posteriori physicalismbut not as we know it | 84 |
7 A priori versus redescriptive physicalism | 103 |
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