Robert C. Koons, George Bealer The Waning Of Materialism Oxford University Press ( 2010)

2016·2.8 MB·English

by  Robert C Koons and More

THE WANING OF MATERIALISM
The Waning of Materialism
Editedby
ROBERT C. KOONS AND GEORGE BEALER
1
1
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Contents
Introduction ix
PART I: ARGUMENTS FROM CONSCIOUSNESS
1. AgainstMaterialism 3
LaurenceBonJour
2. ASimpleViewofConsciousness 25
AdamPautz
3. SavingAppearances:ADilemmaforPhysicalists 67
CharlesSiewert
4. ThePropertyDualismArgument 89
StephenL.White
5. Kripke’sArgumentAgainstMaterialism 115
EliHirsch
6. TheSelf-ConsciousnessArgument:Functionalismandthe
CorruptionofContent 137
GeorgeBealer
PART II: ARGUMENTS FROM UNITY AND IDENTITY
7. YouareSimple 161
DavidBarnett
8. PersonsandtheUnityofConsciousness 175
WilliamHasker
9. AnArgumentfromTranstemporalIdentityforSubject–Body
Dualism 191
MartineNida-Ru¨melin
vi Contents
PART III: INTENTIONALITY, MENTAL CAUSATION,
AND KNOWLEDGE
10. Burge’sDualism 215
BernardW.Kobes
11. ModestDualism 233
TylerBurge
12. Descartes’RevengePartII:TheSupervenienceArgumentStrikes
Back 251
NealJudisch
13. NonreductivePhysicalismorEmergentDualism?TheArgument
fromMentalCausation 261
TimothyO’ConnorandJohnRossChurchill
14. EpistemologicalObjectionstoMaterialism 281
RobertC.Koons
PART IV: ALTERNATIVES TO MATERIALISM
15. Materialism,MinimalEmergentism,andtheHardProblemof
Consciousness 309
TerryHorgan
16. DualizingMaterialism 331
MichaelJubien
17. DualisticMaterialism 349
JosephAlmog
18. VarietiesofNaturalism 365
MarioDeCaro
19. AgainstMethodologicalMaterialism 375
AngusJ.L.Menuge
20. Soul,Mind,andBrain 395
BrianLeftow
Contents vii
21. MaterialismDoesNotSavethePhenomena—andtheAlternative
WhichDoes 417
UweMeixner
22. SubstanceDualism:ANon-CartesianApproach 439
E.J.Lowe
Bibliography 463
Index 483
Introduction
Thetwenty-threepapersinthisvolume,bothindividuallyandcollectively,help
to show why and in what ways materialism is on the wane. By saying that
materialism is on the wane, we do not mean that materialism is in the process
of being eclipsed—nor do we mean that materialism is likely to be eclipsed at
any point in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there is good reason to think that
materialismisaperennialfixtureofphilosophy(nottomentioncognitivescience).
After all, materialism is a readily intelligible monistic worldview, appealing in
its apparent simplicity, and a natural complement to the impressive ongoing
successesinthenaturalsciences.
Inspiteofthis,materialismiswaninginanumberofsignificantrespects—one
ofwhichistheever-growingnumberofmajorphilosopherswhorejectmaterialism
or at least have strong sympathies with anti-materialist views. It is of course
commonlythoughtthatover thecourseofthelast sixty orso years materialism
achieved hegemony in academic philosophy, and this is no doubt right by
certainmeasures—forexample,inabsolutenumberofself-identifiedmaterialist
philosophers of mind or in absolute number of books and journal articles
defending materialism. It is therefore surprising that an examination of the
major philosophers active in this period reveals that a majority, or something
approaching a majority, either rejected materialism or had serious and specific
doubts about its ultimate viability. The following is just a partial sampling of
thesephilosophers,moreorlessinorderofbirth.
BertrandRussell,RudolfCarnap,AlonzoChurch,KurtGo¨del,NelsonGoodman,Paul
Grice, Stuart Hampshire, Roderick Chisholm, Benson Mates, Peter Strawson, Hilary
Putnam, John Searle, Jerrold Katz, Alvin Plantinga, Charles Parsons, Jaegwon Kim,
George Myro, Thomas Nagel, Robert Adams, Hugh Mellor, Saul Kripke, Eli Hirsch,
Ernest Sosa, Stephen Schiffer, Bas van Fraassen, John McDowell, Peter Unger, Derek
Parfit, Crispin Wright, Laurence BonJour, Michael Jubien, Nancy Cartwright, Bob
Hale,KitFine,TylerBurge,TerenceHorgan,ColinMcGinn,RobertBrandom,Nathan
Salmon,JosephLevine,TimothyWilliamson,MarkJohnston,PaulBoghossian,Stephen
Yablo,JosephAlmog,KeithDeRose,TimCrane,JohnHawthorne,RichardHeck,David
Chalmers.i
i Forallthepeoplelisted,wehavedocumentationthattheyeitherrejectedmaterialismorharbored
seriousandspecificdoubtsaboutitsultimateviability.Allthelivingphilosopherslisted(Putnam,
Searle,Plantinga,Parsons,Kim,Nagel,andallthosefollowing)havegivenusexplicitpermissionto
includethemonthelist(underthedescriptionusedinthesentenceprecedingthisone).Limitations
onspacepreventusfromgivingathoroughpresentationofcitations;intheBibliography,however,
weciterelevantworksbymanyofthesephilosophers.AcommentaboutRussellandCarnapwill
behelpfulhere.Russellespoused,atdifferenttimes,phenomenalismandrobustneutralmonism,
x Introduction
Materialism plainly has not achieved hegemony when it comes to philosophers
ofthishighcaliber.
Here,then,isonerespectinwhichmaterialismhasbeenonthewane.Wewill
identifytwofurtherrespectsinamoment.But,first,itwillbeusefultosayafew
morewordsaboutwhatwemeanbymaterialism.
MATERIALISM
Althoughtheterm‘materialism’hasbeenusedindiversewaysinphilosophy,it
traditionallyhashadacomparativelypreciseusewithinphilosophyofmind.In
thiscontext,materialismisacertainview,orfamilyofviews,inthemetaphysics
of mind. Specifically, materialism is a certain view, or family of views, on the
Mind-BodyProblem,whichconcernstheontologicalstatusof,andfundamental
metaphysical relationship between, the mental and the physical—between, for
instance,mentalpropertiesandphysicalproperties,mentalrelationsandphysical
relations, mental events and physical events, people and their bodies. (For
simplicity, we will hereafter focus primarily on mental and physical properties
(and relations); understanding their relationship arguably provides a key to
resolvingtheentireproblem.)
Historically,materialismwasjustthereductionistpositionthatmentalprop-
ertiesareidenticalto—andinthatsensearenothingbut—physicalproperties.
(Idealism was the competing reductionist answer to the Mind-Body Problem,
reducing physical properties to mental properties.) Throughout most of the
history of philosophy, materialism took the form of what today we call the
Identity Theory, according to which mental properties are identical to internal
bodily properties, whether they be the properties associated with Democritean
atoms,Hobbesianmotionsinthebodyor,inourperiod,electrochemicalinter-
actions at the neurological level. (Of course, nothing prevents such a theory
from incorporating environmental factors in order to accommodate content
externalism;forus,thiskindofextendedtheorywouldstillcountasamaterialist
ontologicalreduction.)In thefirst half of theTwentiethCenturyanotherform
of materialist reductionism emerged, namely, Behaviorism, according to which
mentalpropertiesareidenticaltobehavioralproperties(dispositionsofthebody
tobehaveincertainwaysincertaincircumstances).Inthe1960sand’70sathird
form of reductionism gained prominence, namely, functionalism, according to
which our standard mental properties and relations (being conscious, thinking,
eachofwhichisantitheticaltoReductiveMaterialismandalsotothethesisthatphysicalproperties
aremetaphysicallypriorto—andhenceareasuperveniencebasefor—mentalproperties.See,e.g.,
Russell(1956).TheyoungCarnap(oftheAufbau)wasaphenomenalist.ThematureCarnap(of
‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’) endorsed a form of anti-realism incompatible with the
sortofmaterialismprominentoverthecourseofthelastsixtyorsoyears.LiketheyoungCarnap,
NelsonGoodmanandBensonMateswerealsophenomenalists,notmaterialists.
Introduction xi
etc.)areidenticalto(andhencereducibleto)second-orderproperties:specifically,
mentalpropertiesare held tobe definablein termsof thecharacteristicinterac-
tions of their first-order ‘realizer’ properties with one another and the external
environment—whereintheactualworld,andperhapsallpossibleworlds,these
first-order realizer properties are physical properties (presumably, the sort of
physical properties invoked by the Identity Theory).ii On a strong version of
this view (hereafter called ‘Functionalism’), the realizers of mental properties
are necessarily first-order physical properties, from which it follows that mental
propertiesarenecessarilysecond-orderphysicalpropertiesandthereforebelongto
thegeneralontologicalcategoryofphysical property.iii LiketheIdentityTheory
andBehaviorism,FunctionalismqualifiesasaformofReductiveMaterialism.
There is a weaker version of functionalism according to which, even though
mentalpropertiesarereducibletosecond-orderpropertiesandeventhoughtheir
realizerpropertiesintheactualworldarephysical,itisnotnecessarythattherealizer
propertiesbephysical.Ifthisviewwerecorrect,however,mentalpropertieswould
notbelongtotheontologicalcategoryofphysicalproperty.Toseewhy,consider
a world in which the realizer properties are not physical (a possibility implied
by this version of functionalism). Plainly, the inhabitants of such a world
would be mistaken if they were to assert that mental properties belong to the
ontological category of physical property. Therefore, since properties cannot
changeontologicalcategory,itfollowsthatitwould,intheactualworld,likewise
be a mistake for us to assert that mental properties belong to the ontological
categoryofphysicalproperty;onthecontrary,mentalpropertieswouldneedto
belongtoanentirelydifferentontologicalcategory.Giventhis,thisweakversion
of functionalism does not count as a form of Reductive Materialism, unlike
ii David Lewis construes his functionalism as a form of first-order Identity Theory. This
construalisdependentonhisimplausibleviewthatourparadigmaticmentalexpressionsarenon-
rigiddesignatorsofmentalpropertiesandrelations.Thisviewoftheseexpressionsfailsforallofour
corementalverbsandverbphrases:‘thinks’,‘believes’,‘perceives’,‘experiences’,‘senses’,‘feels’,‘is
awareof’,‘isconsciousof’,etc.Byapplyingtheoperationofrelation-abstractiontotheseexpressions,
we get the following relation-abstracts: ‘the relation of thinking’, ‘the relation of believing’, etc.
Suchexpressionsarerigiddesignators,asLewishimselfacknowledges,andtheydenotecoremental
relations(therelationofthinking,therelationofbelieving,etc.).Analogouslyforverbphrasessuch
as‘thinksthathumanbeingsexist’:theassociatedpropertyabstract‘thepropertyofthinkingthat
humanbeingsexist’rigidlydenotesthepropertyofthinkingthathumanbeingsexist.Expressions
like‘pain’,bycontrast,donotevendenoteproperties.Ontwocoreusesoftheexpression‘pain’(the
coreuses,webelieve),‘pain’functionsasacountnounwhichappliestopains,anditalsofunctions
asanassociatedmassnounformoreorlesspain(moreorlessinintensityorextent)orforsome
pain(someamountofpain).Thementalpropertyassociatedwiththecount-nounuseisthesortal
propertyofbeingapain,andthementalpropertyassociatedwiththemass-nounuseistheproperty
of being some pain. The associated property-abstracts ‘being a pain’ and ‘being some pain’ are
rigiddesignatorsoftheseproperties.OnLewis’sfunctionalism,therefore,alloftheabovemental
propertiesandrelations(thepropertyofbeingapain,thepropertyofthinkingthathumanbeings
exist, the relation of thinking, etc.) are rigidly designated second-order properties and relations.
Thatis,Lewis’sfunctionalismisjustanotherinstanceoffunctionalism,asitwascharacterizedin
thetext.
iii Putnam(1970)proposedthisreductiveversionoffunctionalismbuthassincerenouncedit.