Somewhat loose arguments that non-reductive physicalist realism is untenable. Anomalous monism makes the mental irrelevant, functionalism is compatible with species-specific reduction, and supervenience is weak or reductive.

In his 1994 paper, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet affirmed that he found a way to test the interaction between the mind and the brain. He believed that this procedure would also test the reality of a non-physical mind, emerging from neural activity. In 2000 John Searle objected to Libet’s evident dualism, affirming that the mind is not a hypothesis to test but a datum to be explained. According to Searle, Libet’s problem arose from accepting the Cartesian distinction of ‘mind’ and ‘body’, (...) obsolete categories from an old philosophy. Searle’s solution implied the rejection both of dualism and reductive materialism, suggesting a non-reductive materialism. This first-person ontology, as Searle calls it, aims at preserving, against reductive materialism, the essential features of consciousness, i.e. subjective, qualitative and unified. Searle argued, however, that the nature of consciousness remained biological. Dan Zahavi’s thesis is that a phenomenological approach to the self and consciousness can offer a complementing alternative to the contemporary comprehension of the nature of consciousness. Engaged in an open dialogue with neuroscience and cognitive science in his dealings with consciousness, Zahavi holds, nonetheless, that this notion cannot be completely understood without reference to the notion of the self. Thus, this paper will analyse Zahavi’s ideas about the self and consciousness in Subjectivity and Selfhood as to evaluate whether his phenomenological approach is able to overcome the materialist tones of Searle’s philosophy of mind, opening the possibility of a non-reductive comprehension of human beings. (shrink)

Persons and Minds is an inquiry into the possibilities of materialism. Professor Margolis starts his investigation, however, with a critique of the range of contemporary materialist theories, and does not find them viable. None of them, he argues, "can accommodate in a convincing way the most distinctive features of the mental life of men and oflower creatures and the imaginative possibilities of discovery and technology" (p. 8). In an extraordinarily rich analysis, Margolis carefully considers and criticizes mind-body identity theories, (...) physicalism, eliminative materialism, behaviorism, as inadequate precisely in that they are reductive. He argues, then, for ramified concepts of emergence, and embodiment which will sustain a philosophically coherent account both of the distinctive non-natural character of persons and of their being naturally embodied. But Margolis provokes us to ask, what is an em bodied mind? The crucial context for him is not the plain physical body as such, but culture. "Persons", he writes, "are in a sense not natural entities: they exist only in cultural contexts and are identifiable as such only by refer ence to their mastery of language and of whatever further abilities presuppose such mastery" (p. 245). The hallmark of persons, in Margolis's account, is their capacity for freedom, as well as their physical endowment. Thus he writes, " . . . their characteristic powers - in effect, their freedom - must inform the order of purely physical causes in a distinctive way" (p. 246). (shrink)

Can physicalism (or materialism) be non-reductive? I provide an opinionated survey of the debate on this question. I suggest that attempts to formulate non-reductive physicalism by appeal to claims of event identity, supervenience, or realization have produced doctrines that fail either to be physicalist or to be non-reductive. Then I treat in more detail a recent attempt to formulate non-reductive physicalism by Derk Pereboom, but argue that it fares no better.

이 논문은 엘리자베스 그로스의 육체유물론이 신유물론의 렌즈로 가장 잘 독해할 수 있음을 보인 후, 그의 ‘문지방’으로서의 몸이나 ‘비환원적 성차’와 같은 개념이야말로 생물학적 결정론이나 사회구성주의적 환원이라는 극단에 빠지지 않고 ‘몸’을 설명하는 이론임을 주장하고자 한다. 이를 위해 필자는 이 논문에서 우선 로지 브라이도티와 함께 신유물론 페미니즘이 물질을 살아있는 것, 다층적 관계를 맺는 이질적 집합체, 서로 다른 권력의 위치를 체현함, 되기의 과정으로 재형상화하고 있음을 설명한다. 나아가 필자는 그로스의 ‘문지방’으로서의 몸이야말로 이러한 신유물론적 물질 개념에 토대를 두고 있음을 보여준다. 이로써 몸은 수동성 대상이 아니라 몸과 (...) 정신, 자연과 문화가 쌍방향적으로 복잡하게 관계를 맺고 있는 체현의 지점이 되며, 안과 밖의 드나듦 속에서 지속되면서도 변이하는 살아있는 물질이 된다. 마지막으로 필자는 몸의 무쌍한 흐름과 변화를 강조하는 그로스가 “비환원적 성차”를 포기하지 않는 이유를 신유물론적으로 설명하고, 성차를 성차 되기로 독해할 때 생물학적 결정론이나 사회구성적 환원주의라는 오명 나아가 트랜스섹슈얼을 배제한다는 오해로부터 벗어날 수 있음을 보여준다. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom has recently elaborated a formulation of non-reductive physicalism in which supervenience does not play the central role and realization plays no role at all; he calls his formulation “robust non-reductive physicalism”. This paper argues that for several reasons robust non-reductive physicalism is inadequate as a formulation of physicalism: it can only rule out fundamental laws of physical-to-mental emergence by stipulating that there are no such laws; it fails to entail the supervenience of the mental on (...) the physical; it appeals to two relations that are physicalistically unacceptable; and it rules out certain epistemically possible ways that the world might turn out to be according to current physics. This paper further argues that the difficulties faced by Pereboom’s robust non-reductive physicalism can all be avoided if physicalism is instead formulated by appeal to a carefully-defined relation of realization. (shrink)

The rise of foundational dualism and the eclipse of the body -- "Body am I entirely, and nothing else": non-reductive materialism and the struggle against dualism -- Toward a materialist phenomenology of religion -- The phenomenology of embodiment and the study of religion -- Religious bodies as social artifacts -- Holding social constructionism in check: the recovery of the active, lived body -- A cultural neurophenomenology of religion: enter the embodied mind -- The eclipse of practice: textualism at (...) large -- "Ceci n'est pas un texte": from textualism to practice -- Expanding the conversation on emplaced religion -- Mobility, networks, and ecology. (shrink)

This paper describes the affinities between Socinian and Unitarian materialism. Based on different philosophical traditions, the Socinian Christoph Stegmann and the Unitarian Joseph Priestley developed a strong “system of materialism” which fit very well with Christian doctrines and the Bible. The conviction that the whole man is material and therefore mortal became the common basis for these radical thinkers. Stegmann formulated within the Aristotelian tradition a “non-reductive” materialism in which matter, not form, became the fundamental principle (...) of all living things. Priestley, on the other hand, created his “absolute” materialism by developing a new understanding of the concept of matter according to the philosophical rules of Isaac Newton. The paper will discuss the affinities and differences between these two different concepts of materialism. The idea of a thinking matter, most prominently formulated by John Locke, will serve as a link between them. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that it cannot, and that this (...) implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding. In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology. Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm. Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds. (shrink)

In Mind in a Physical World (1998), Jaegwon Kim has recently extended his ongoing critique of `non-reductive materialist' positions in philosophy of mind by arguing that Nagel's model of reduction is the wrong paradigm in terms of which to contest the issue of psychophysical reduction, and that an altogether different model of scientific reduction – a functional model of reduction – is needed. In this paper I argue, first, that Kim's conception of the Nagelian model is substantially impoverished and (...) potentially misleading; second, that his own functional model is problematic in several respects; and, third, that the basic idea underlying his functional model can well be accommodated within a properly reinterpreted Nagelian model. I conclude with some reflections on the issue of psychophysical reduction. (shrink)

Some of the oldest and deepest questions in philosophy fall under the umbrella of consciousness and mind: What is the mind and how is it related to the body? What provides our thoughts with content? How is consciousness related to the natural world? Do we have distinctive causal powers? Analytic philosophers have made significant progress on these and related problems in the last century. Given the high volume of work on such topics, this chapter is necessarily selective. It offers major (...) touchstones but is slanted in favor of work that touches base with the sciences. The chapter starts by describing the progression of thought on the mind-body problem, from dualism and behaviorism to non-reductive materialism. It then describes the problem of intentionality, with a focus on partial solutions from Dretske and Millikan, ending with a brief discussion of 4E theories of mental content. The section on the problem of consciousness starts with the well-known knowledge and modal arguments before describing some attempted initial solutions, such as eliminative materialism and panpsychism. Finally, there is a brief section on agency and free will, which focuses on the link between free will and consciousness. (shrink)

This paper characterizes a form of materialism which is strongly anti?reductionist with regard to mental predicates. It argues against the functionalist views of writers such as Brian Loar on the basis that the counterfactual interdependencies of intentional states are governed by constraints of rationality embodied in semantic links which cannot be captured in non?intentional, functionalist terms. However, contrary to what is commonly supposed, such anti?reductionism requires neither instrumentalism about the mental nor opposition to a causal explanatory view of intentional (...) explanation. The paper therefore aims to show that a realist causal explanatory view of psychological states is compatible with a non?reductive materialism (a position excluded by Brian Loar in his recent book Mind and Meaning). (shrink)

Contemporary materialist theories purporting to account for experience are seriously flawed, for they fail to accommodate the full range of human experience, especially paranormal experience. Substance Dualism (SD) is re-examined in light of this experience,including telepathy and clairvoyance, mediumship, the near-death experience, and reincarnation cases involving children’s memories. A different kind of materialism postulating degrees of fi neness and vibration—one prefigured by the ancient Stoics and developed hereunder the heading Transcendental Materialism (TM)—is also explored. The inadequacies of both (...) reductive and non-reductive materialism are shown. McGinn, Chalmers, and Searle are given special attention. (shrink)

The paper brings existential temporality, as developed in the work of phenomenologists Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Husserl, into dialogue with historical materialism. What results is the development of a theoretical background for what the author terms futural materialism, which is taken to be a complimentary logical extension of historical materialist projects. To this end, it is suggested that the past and the future are best understood as materially existing in the present in an immanent way, mediated by conscious beings (...) in the form of memory, projection, residual effect, and affect. Put differently, the present's presence in the past and future play a determining roll in those temporal dimensions, which subsequently fold back into the configuration of the present. Following Nietzsche and drawing influence from Guattari and Deleuze, it is argued that past and future are relatively fluid tools to be purposively deployed in the present for particular purposes rather than being transcendent facts which subjectivity must merely contend with. It is further asserted that as part of a broader non-reductive material monist project of social transformation, both futural and historical materialism are necessary considerations. (shrink)

The nature of consciousness is considered one of science’s most perplexing and persistent mysteries. We all know the subjective experience of consciousness, but where does it arise? What is its purpose? What are its full capacities? The assumption within today’s neuroscience is that all aspects of consciousness arise solely from interactions among neurons in the brain. However, the origin and mechanisms of qualia are not understood. David Chalmers coined the term “the hard problem” to describe the difficulties in elucidating the (...) origins of subjectivity from the point of view of reductive materialism. We propose that the hard problem arises because one or more assumptions within a materialistic worldview are either wrong or incomplete. If consciousness entails more than the activity of neurons, then we can contemplate new ways of thinking about the hard problem. This review examines phenomena that apparently contradict the notion that consciousness is exclusively dependent on brain activity, including phenomena where consciousness appears to extend beyond the physical brain and body in both space and time. The mechanisms underlying these “non-local” properties are vaguely suggestive of quantum entanglement in physics, but how such effects might manifest remains highly speculative. The existence of these non-local effects appears to support the proposal that post-materialistic models of consciousness may be required to break the conceptual impasse presented by the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

This is a first tentative examination of the possibility of reinstating reduction as a valid candidate for presenting relations between mental and physical properties. Classical Nagelian reduction is undoubtedly contaminated in many ways, but here I investigate the possibility of adapting to problems concerning mental properties an alternative definition for theory reduction in philosophy of science. The definition I offer is formulated with the aid of non-monotonic logic, which I suspect might be a very interesting realm for testing notions concerning (...) localized mental-physical reduction. The reason for this is that non-monotonic reasoning by definition is about appeals made not only to explicit observations, but also to an implicit selection of background knowledge containing heuristic information. The flexibility of this definition and the fact that it is not absolute, i.e. that the relation of reduction may be retracted or allowed to shift without fuss, add at least an interesting alternative factor to current materialist debates. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 25(2) 2006: 102-112. (shrink)

This dissertation is a critical assessment of Wilfrid Sellars' Scientific Realism. ;The dissertation has ten chapters, whose topics are as follows: I classify Sellars' position as a variety of Non-Reductive Scientific Materialism. I discuss the Manifest/Scientific Image distinction. I reject the identification of the Manifest Image with a Common Sense Image on the ground that the Common Sense Image recognizes the existence of irreducible absolute processes, while the Manifest Image does not. I discuss the topic of ontological commitment. (...) I propose that we substitute for the Manifest Image a Common Sense Image which has a mixed ontology of events and substances. I focus on the intentionality-body problem. I believe that a large portion of the polemics over intentionality can be accounted for by a failure to demarcate non-conceptual from conceptual intentionality. I locate Sellars' position in current philosophical psychology. Sellars defends both functionalism and introspection. He tries to give a theoretical account of our introspective knowledge of thoughts and sensations on a behavioristic basis. My conclusions are that his argument does not go through, and that perhaps all non-overtly linguistic thoughts are non-conceptual. I offer a transcendental argument for a version of epistemological foundationalism. I clarify the concept of the Given in Sellars. I both defend and criticize his position on the Given. I defend Sellars' argument for the rejection of the Given from William Robinson's attack; but I defend C. I. Lewis' position on the Given from Sellars' attack. I deal with the epistemological and the ontological problems of perception. The conclusion I reach on the epistemological problem is that sensa are given through a phenomenological reduction. The conclusion I reach on the ontological problem is that Sellars is correct in his view that sensa exist as causal mediatory absolute processes in perception. I spell out the implications of my disagreement with Sellars on epistemology. The main implication is that in higher animals there is an evolutionarily endowed intractable representational system. I call this view Animal Realism. (shrink)

This chapter argues that materialism is vulnerable to two kinds of epistemological objections: transcendental arguments, that show that materialism is incompatible with the very possibility of knowledge; and defeater arguments, that show that belief in materialism provides an effective defeaters to claims to knowledge. It constructs objections of these two kinds in three areas of epistemology: our knowledge of the laws of nature (and of scientific essences), our knowledge of the ontology of material objects, mathematical and logical (...) knowledge. The chapter argues that these epistemological weaknesses place the materialist in a dialectically weak position in respect of ontological identity claims, since the materialist cannot know the causal powers or persistence conditions of material objects. It also argues that the materialist can provide no non-circular account of epistemic normativity. Anti-realist accounts of normativity are unavailable because normativity is already implicated in all intentionality. Moreover, materialists face a fatal dilemma in attempting to carry out an etiological reduction of teleological norms, since neither Humean nor anti-Humean accounts of causation yield defensible results. (shrink)

Mental, mathematical, and moral facts are difficult to accommodate within an overall worldview due to the peculiar kinds of properties inherent to them. In this paper I argue that a significant class of social entities also presents us with an ontological puzzle that has thus far not been addressed satisfactorily. This puzzle relates to the location of certain social entities. Where, for instance, are organizations located? Where their members are, or where their designated offices are? Organizations depend on their members (...) for their existence, but the members of an organization can be where the organization is not. The designated office of an organization, however, need be little more than a mailbox. I argue that the problem can be solved by conceptualizing the relation between social entities and non-social entities as one of constitution, a relation of unity without identity. Constituted objects have properties that cannot be reduced to properties of the constituting objects. Thus, my attempt to solve the Location Problem results in an argument in favor of a kind of non-reductive materialism about the social. (shrink)

For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's approach on (...) the larger philosophical landscape, vis-à-vis various other approaches frequently discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind. This comparative discussion will further illuminate Kim's own position, and also will serve as groundwork for subsequent discussion. In Section 4 I will point out certain persistent internal tensions in Kim's philosophical position on the mind--body problem, tensions that emerge especially clearly against the backdrop of Section 3's comparative discussion of Kim's position relative to various competing positions. In the remainder of the paper I will focus on two issues at the heart of his position, with particular attention to what he says about them in some of the more recent papers and the postscripts in Kim [1993]. First, how should a materialist understand the notion that the mental is 'determined' by the physical? More specifically, what role, if any, should be played by the concept of supervenience in explicating this kind of determination relation? Kim's views on this matter have recently changed, and I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his own latest remarks on it. This is the business of Section 5. Second, need a viable materialism assert that mentalistic psychology is reducible to neurobiology? More specifically, should a materialist insist on reducibility, despite the currently influential line of argument used by non-reductive materialists, the 'multiple realization' argument? On this matter too, Kim's views have changed somewhat; again, I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his recent thinking. This is the business of Section 6. (shrink)

Theological materialism, it is argued, provides an important ethical orientation towards climate change. Following the tradition of practical materialism inaugurated by Karl Marx, materialism is here interpreted in a non-reductive sense that includes a stress on human praxis. Such a materialism is comprehensive in the sense that it identifies the sources of climate change as twofold: as rooted in a capitalist crisis and as rooted in a crisis in our conditions of life. Such a (...) class='Hi'>materialism is also theological: it is ‘flesh made word’ (Nicholas Lash). One implication of this theological materialism is that creation is to be understood as good. This theme is explored by way of the ‘revolt of nature’: this trope provides a theological way of exploring nature in a changing climate. At the conclusion, critical issues raised by the title, Thinking like an animal, are addressed. (shrink)

I develop a variant of the constraint interpretation of the emergence of purely physical (non-biological) entities, focusing on the principle of the non-derivability of actual physical states from possible physical states (physical laws) alone. While this is a necessary condition for any account of emergence, it is not sufficient, for it becomes trivial if not extended to types of constraint that specifically constitute physical entities, namely, those that individuate and differentiate them. Because physical organizations with these features are in fact (...) interdependent sets of such constraints, and because such constraints on physical laws cannot themselves be derived from physical laws, physical organization is emergent. These two complementary types of constraint are components of a complete non-reductive physicalism, comprising a non-reductive materialism and a non-reductive formalism. (shrink)

In this essay, I respond to Žižek's charges that my turns to biology risk naturalizing away key features of non-natural subjectivity à la German idealism and Lacanianism. The crux of this dispute between him and me concerns how close to or far from a life-science-based naturalism a materialist theory of the subject with allegiances to Kant, Hegel, Freud, and Lacan should be. I contend that materialism must be closer to naturalism than Žižek allows— while insisting simultaneously that the spontaneous (...) naturalism of the cutting edge of the life sciences isn’t the semi-reductive paradigm Žižek believes it to be. (shrink)

La denominada 'estrategia del explanandum dual' ha sido utilizada en el pasado para enfrentar problemas de distinta clase, entre los que se cuentan el debate 'explicación vs. comprensión' y el problema de cómo las razones pueden explicar la conducta. Esta estrategia puede ser descripta someramente como un intento de resolver la rivalidad explicativa entre dos explicaciones por medio de la división del explanandum. En este artículo se analiza el uso que Ausonio Marras ha hecho de ella. Este autor ha sostenido (...) que su utilización permite enfrentar el problema de la ineficacia causal de las propiedades mentales, problema que ha representado una seria amenaza en las últimas dos décadas para el programa del materialismo no reduccionista. Se intentará mostrar que la estrategia sugerida no puede ser exitosa frente a este problema a menos que pueda proveerse de una explicación exitosa de cómo las propiedades mentales pueden mantener su eficacia causal completa, y que la respuesta que se ofrece no satisface esta exigencia. The dual explanandum strategy' has been used in the past to contend some quite different problems, including the 'explanation vs. understanding' debate and the problem of how reasons can explain behavior. This strategy can be roughly described as an intent to solve the explanatory rivalry between two explanations by means of the division of the explanandum. In this paper I want to analyze the use of this strategy by Ausonio Marras, who has claimed that it allows us to face the problem of causal inefficacy of mental properties. This problem has arisen in the last two decades in the context of non reductive materialism and has become a serious menace to this program. I try to show that this strategy can not work out this problem unless it can be provided with a successful account of the way that mental properties can keep their complete causal efficacy, and the answer he offers does not satisfy this demand. (shrink)

The growing field of neuro-philosophy throws up important issues for our society about how we understand the persistence of personal identity over time: if my brain is damaged or otherwise altered, do I become a different person? This chapter explores some of the work of the French neuro-philosopher Catherine Malabou as she asks, and tries to answer, this fundamental question about who we think we are, giving a non-reductive materialist account of self-identity. I argue that Malabou has implicit within (...) her writing the seeds of a more adequate account which would not understand identity and personhood to be immanent to the material brain but would embrace a broader notion of identity distributed across relationships, institutions, and shared common narratives. (shrink)

In his Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground: An Essay in Naturalistic Epistemology, Hilary Kornblith presents an argument for the justification of induction that is bold, brilliant, and plausible, but radically incomplete. In the development of this position, Kornblith relies heavily on the philosophical work of Richard Boyd as well as on some empirical psychological studies. As Kornblith sees it, the philosophical position entailed by his proposed solution to the problem is a thoroughgoing, realistic, scientific materialism. I will argue (...) that the brand of realism that Kornblith’s solution to the problem of induction presupposes is inexplicable within the context of the non-reductive materialism that he espouses. Although Kornblith provides us with valuable elements for a solution to the problem of induction, it needs to be supplemented with something like a renovated Aristotelian notion of form in order for the solution to be plausible. (shrink)

The goal of the symposium 'Integrating Perspectives on the Relation between Mind and Brain' was to get people with different views and from different disciplines to open up a dialogue by focusing on answering a set of questions. In this paper I present a view of the relation between the mind and the brain that is informed by recent work in the philosophy of science. The basic idea is that the mind is more than the brain because mental states are (...) identical to the activity of groups of organized neurons. Unlike the standard non-reductive materialism irreducibility is not seen as related to multiple realisability. The upshot is that we can bring the relation between the mind and the brain in line with other clear cases of ontological emergence, we can see how psychology can be an independent science, and yet how important explanatory connections can be made between psychology and neuroscience. (shrink)

Otto Neurath presents a very different picture from that of the standard logical positivist: not only with his mature theory of science, but also with his intellectual development. Given Neurath’s contribution to “the” philosophy of the Vienna Circle, the roots of logical empiricism must accordingly be located not only where they have long been recognized to lie, namely in the stunning advances of physical science and logic and mathematics in the late 19th and early 20th century, but also in the (...) comparatively less satisfying state of social science at the time. Neurath’s non-reductively naturalistic theory of science may be understood as much as a response to the state of early 20th century social science as, say, Carnap’s logically oriented rational reconstructionism may be understood as a response to the advances of the then new physics and new logic. (shrink)

The elusive relationship between the mental domain and the physical brain, known as the mind-body problem, is still a hot topic of discussion among philosophers and neuroscientists. Rather than solving this problem, our pilot study addresses the question as to whether personality features could influence intuitions of the mind-body problem, or more precisely, whether it is possible to identify a person’s intuitive inclinations toward dualism or materialism and their inclinations toward reduction of the mind to the brain. For the (...) purposes of this pilot study, we developed a questionnaire, which employed several theories of analytic philosophy of the mind, in order to determine which category the participants would belong to. These main categories were dualism, non-reductive materialism and reductive materialism. To test whether personality features affect preferences for these categories, the participants were investigated by Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). We found significant differences in the self-transcendence dimension of the TCI between participants who were evaluated as dualists and those who were assessed as reductive materialists. Our data show that the personality dimension of self-transcendence correlates with intuitive inclination toward reductive materialism or dualism. In addition, our results suggest that ideas, theories, and hypothetical solutions of the mind-body problem and possibly even conclusions, acceptance, and disputations of thought experiments of philosophy of the mind can be biased by personality traits. This fact should be taken into account in future discussions of the philosophy of the mind and may also be important for empirical research and an empirical understanding of the mind. (shrink)

There are three major theses in Plantinga’s latest version of his evolutionary argument against naturalism. (1) Given materialism, the conditional probability of the reliability of human cognitive mechanisms produced by evolution is low; (2) the same conditional probability given reductive or non-reductive materialism is still low; (3) the most popular naturalistic theories of content and truth are not admissible for naturalism. I argue that Plantinga’s argument for (1) presupposes an anti-materialistic conception of content, and it therefore (...) begs the question against materialism. To argue for (2), Plantinga claims that the adaptiveness of a belief is indifferent to its truth. I argue that this claim is unsupported unless it again assumes an anti-materialistic conception of content and truth. I further argue that Plantinga’s argument for (3) is not successful either, because an improved version of teleosemantics can meet his criticisms. Moreover, this version of teleosemantics implies that the truth of a belief is (probabilistically) positively related to its adaptiveness, at least for simple beliefs about physical objects in human environments. This directly challenges Plantinga’s claim that adaptiveness is indifferent to truth. (shrink)

In Explaining Attitudes, Baker argues that we should treat our everyday practices as relevant to metaphysical debates, resulting in a stance of realism with respect to intentional explanations. In this chapter I will argue that if one is going to be a practical realist about anything, it should be the self, or subject of attention. I will use research on attention combined with the stance of practical realism to argue in favor of a substantive self. That is, I will present (...) an account of the self that directs and controls attention, in line with our everyday view of the self. I will contrast this account with what I call the “illusion view,” which presents the self and its apparent causal power in the case of attention as an illusion. My account of the self will make use of several of Baker's ideas, including non-reductive materialism and broad supervenience. (shrink)

This paper defends and develops an argument against epiphenomenalism, broadly construed. I argue first for a definition of epiphenomenalism which includes ‘non-reductive’ materialism as well as classical dualistic epiphenomenalism. I then present an argument that if epiphenomenalism were true it would be impossible to know about or even refer to our conscious states -- and therefore impossible even to formulate epiphenomenalism. David Chalmers has defended epiphenomenalism against such arguments; I consider this defence and attempt to show that it (...) fails. I conclude that an adequate account of mental causation requires us to abandon the principle of the causal closure of the physical, and attempt to rebut charges that it would be ‘unscientific’ to do so. (shrink)

The topics that I shall consider are these: (1) Causal Explanatoriness of the Attitudes (Dretske, Elugardo); (2) The “Brain-Explain” Thesis and Metaphysical Constraints on Explanation (Antony, Elugardo); (3) Causal Powers of Beliefs (Meyering); (4) Microreduction (Beckermann); (5) Non-Emergent, Non-Reductive Materialism (Antony); (6) The Master Argument Against the Standard View (Dretske, Antony, Elugardo); (7) Practical Realism Extended (Meijers); (8) Alternative to Both the Standard View and Practical Realism (Newen).

Herein, I distinguish between two basic, fundamental conceptions of the sorts of negativity associated with subjectivity throughout modern European philosophy up to the present: on the one hand, a mystical vision in which the unexplained explainer of a mysterious nothingness is appealed to as a ground-zero given; on the other hand, a materialist idea according to which the real privative causes of absences and antagonisms are internally generated out of precisely specifiable natural and human historical processes involving accumulations of multitudes (...) of concrete elements and features. Arguing against the former as complacently resting upon the dogma of a “myth of the non-given” (to borrow a phrase from Wilfrid Sellars so as to refer to the notion of the factical givenness of negativity as itself non-given), I plead for the latter and sketch a dialectical-speculative “more is less” dynamic in which surpluses of positivity immanently give rise to negativities. This dynamic is an essential part of a non-reductive materialism including within itself lacks and conflicts as causally efficacious factors. I flesh out these lines of thought through reinterpretations of the transition from the organic to the anthropological in Hegel as well as the mirror stage as an account of ego- and subject-formation in Lacan. (shrink)

The metaphysical relation of supervenience has seen most of its service in the fields of the philosophy of mind and ethics. Although not repaying all of the hopes some initially invested in it – the mind-body problem remains stubbornly unsolved, ethics not satisfactorily naturalized – the use of the notion of supervenience has certainly clarified the nature and the commitments of so- called non-reductive materialism, especially with regard to the questions of whether explanations of supervenience relations are required (...) and whether such explanations must amount to a kind of reduction. (shrink)

Adorno’s ‘addendum’ names the experience by which socially constrained agents are jolted into resistance against their suffering. The impulse to action is simultaneously intra-mental and somatic, and thus forms the locus of a jointly conscious and bodily impetus to confronting the ideological and material forces that produce contemporary unfreedom. In this way the ‘addendum’ is a historically developing, indeterminate, yet inexhaustible glimmer of hope for both agents and theorists who make social suffering central to their critical analysis. This article explores (...) the structure of the addendum by unpacking its presentation first in Negative Dialectics and then by way of the one-sided and cautionary illustrations of Buridan’s ass and Hamlet in the History and Freedom lectures. While aesthetic, ideal, affect-centered and Freudian interpretations of the addendum have been developed, appreciating the somatic or bodily, the intra-mental or conscious, and the historicized accounts of nature and reason that Adorno weaves together to explain ever-present possibilities of resistance requires instead a non-reductive materialist and dialectical lens. (shrink)

For three decades the writings of Jaegwon Kim have had a major influence in philosophy of mind and in metaphysics. Sixteen of his philosophical papers, together with several new postscripts, are collected in Kim [1993]. The publication of this collection prompts the present essay. After some preliminary remarks in the opening section, in Section 2 I will briefly describe Kim's philosophical 'big picture' about the relation between the mental and the physical. In Section 3 I will situate Kim's approach on (...) the larger philosophical landscape, vis-à-vis various other approaches frequently discussed in contemporary philosophy of mind. This comparative discussion will further illuminate Kim's own position, and also will serve as groundwork for subsequent discussion. In Section 4 I will point out certain persistent internal tensions in Kim's philosophical position on the mind--body problem, tensions that emerge especially clearly against the backdrop of Section 3's comparative discussion of Kim's position relative to various competing positions. In the remainder of the paper I will focus on two issues at the heart of his position, with particular attention to what he says about them in some of the more recent papers and the postscripts in Kim [1993]. First, how should a materialist understand the notion that the mental is 'determined' by the physical? More specifically, what role, if any, should be played by the concept of supervenience in explicating this kind of determination relation? Kim's views on this matter have recently changed, and I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his own latest remarks on it. This is the business of Section 5. Second, need a viable materialism assert that mentalistic psychology is reducible to neurobiology (and ultimately to physics)? More specifically, should a materialist insist on reducibility, despite the currently influential line of argument used by non-reductive materialists, the 'multiple realization' argument? On this matter too, Kim's views have changed somewhat; again, I will discuss the issue with particular attention to his recent thinking. This is the business of Section 6. (shrink)

As formulated by Duncan Pritchard and John McDowell, epistemological disjunctivism is the claim that perceptual experience can provide the subject with epistemic justification that is reflectively accessible and externally grounded at the same time. Pritchard calls this thesis ‘the holy grail of epistemology’, since it reconciles two traditionally rival theories of justification, namely epistemic internalism and epistemic externalism. The main objection against epistemological disjunctivism thus understood is that it does not do justice to the well-known internalist intuitions expressed in The (...) New Evil Demon and Brain-in-a-Vat scenarios. I defend epistemological disjunctivism from this objection by indicating that those who apply to such scenarios commit themselves to implausible views in the philosophy of mind. I conclude that epistemological disjunctivism accurately expresses the epistemological attitude of a non-reductive materialist regarding the body-mind problem. (shrink)

Determinist thought with its sui generis view on life, nature and being as a whole is a point of view that could be observed in many different cultures and beliefs. It was thanks to Greek thought that it ceased to be a cultural element and transformed into a systematic cosmology. Schools such as Leucippos, then Democritos and Stoa attempted to integrate the determinist philosophy into ontology and cosmology. In the course of time, physics and metaphysics-based determinism approaches were introduced, and (...) a wide spectrum has emerged from genetics to behaviorism, from culture to psychology, from atomism to divinity. Determinism, whether physical or metaphysical origin, ignores freedom of will and deny agency competence over human behavior. Due to this feature, it is opposed by ethical theories, legal philosophies and religions. When the arguments for determinism are possible to disprove logically and philosophically, this is not so easy when the claims base themselves on scientific base. As the logical consequence of this novel fact, it is important to question the epistemological value of scientific knowledge and critically analyze the data of experiments and clinical studies in terms of methodology when answering any hypothesis such as neuro-biological, neuro-psychological, or neuro-theological argumentations. On the other hand, it is necessary to reach alternative experiments on the same subject or to show that it is possible to interpret them in different ways, as in the example of the Libet experiment. The neurobiological determinism based on biological reductionism, emerged as the result of ignoring the ontological difference of the mind, equating the mind with the brain, or defining mentality as an epiphenomenon of the brain. The main divergence stems from the acceptance of materialist philosophy. Paradigms that reduce existence only to matter do not take the metaphysical possibilities into account. In this case, although the problems called qualia or subjective experience stand there unresolved, the claim is preserved. Although many new developments such as the discovery of the entropy law, the big bang theory, and quantum physics have shaken the materialist philosophy, modern science resists an epistemological revision. However, with the current epistemology, it does not seem possible to grasp both the universe and the being as a whole. This is the most important reason why every attempt to understand the nature and spiritual side of human beings fails despite numerous experiments on the brain. However, the human brain is an organ that seems sophisticated and its secrets cannot be easily solved. Since there is not enough information about the brain, there is not enough evidence to claim that the brain, and therefore the mind, are part of the deterministic universe. Increasing brain researches since the last quarter of the twentieth century has revealed that genes, neurons and particularly brain chemistry claim much greater role than expected in human behavior. These results have been instrumentalized by some researchers for a radical claim that free will is an illusion, while by others it has led to the acceptance of will as less important over actions than was thought. Both ideas adopted a model of biological determinism in which freedom of will was ignored. Hypotheses based on controversial interpretations of various experiments raised concerns about religious, moral, and legal responsibility. Although man cannot be thought of as a non-free being from the point of view of common sense, the smog screen over the truth would not be lifted unless the scientific data in question had a correct interpretation. At first glance, it seems unreasonable to discuss universal determinism in the quantum universe. Nevertheless, the claim that strong causality prevails in the material world, including consciousness, remains in place. Therefore, firstly criticizing determinism and then examining biological determinism will help to fix the conceptual framework. This article aims to explain why genetics and neurobiology, while acknowledging their importance in the realization of behavior, can’t completely abolish moral agency. Some hypotheses attribute consciousness and free will to the physico-shimic structure of the brain, the random activity of neurons, or the ability to automatically transform inputs into outputs with the advantage of genetic information. This is the most sensitive and important point of being human; it attacks free will. Paradoxically, while global civilization of our time promises infinite freedom to human beings the science of the same age tries to prove that it is not free. (shrink)

During the 'sixties and 'seventies, Hilary Putnam, Jerry Fodor, and Richard Boyd, among others, developed a type of materialism that eschews reductionist claims.¹ In this view, explana- tions, natural kinds, and properties in psychology do not reduce to counterparts in more basic sciences, such as neurophysiology or physics. Nevertheless, all token psychological entities-- states, processes, and faculties--are wholly constituted of physical entities, ultimately out of entities over which microphysics quantifies. This view quickly became the standard position in philosophy of (...) mind, and reductionism fell out of favor. Recently, however, reductionism has been experiencing a rebirth, and many have suggested that the non-reductive approach was accepted too quickly and too uncritically. In this paper, we attempt to provide a more thorough account of the anti-reductionist position, and, in the process, to defend it against its recent critics. (shrink)

This article raises the question of whether the thought of Mao Zedong is simply derivative from Marxist thought, whether it represents a deviation from Marxist thought, or whether it contains any original contribution to Marxist thought. It discusses such topics as Mao’s concepts of the principal and the non-principal aspect of the contradiction, Mao’s concept of permanent revolution, Mao’s replacement of the industrial proletariat with the peasant farmer class, Mao’s inversion of the classical Marxist position of the base determining the (...) superstructure, Mao’s concept of the complementarity of opposites, Mao’s concept of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, Mao’s reduction of all laws of dialectic to one law. (shrink)

Twenty years ago, Richard Boyd suggested that physicalism could be formulated by appeal to a notion of realization, with no appeal to the identity of the non-physical with the physical. In (Melnyk 2003), I developed this suggestion at length, on the basis of one particular account of realization. I now ask what happens if you try to formulate physicalism on the basis of other accounts of realization, accounts due to LePore and Loewer and to Shoemaker. Having explored two new formulations (...) of physicalism, I conclude that my 2003 formulation remains the most promising. (shrink)

I examine the debate between reductive and non-reductive physicalists, and conclude that if we are to be physicalists, then we should be reductive physicalists. I assess how both reductionists and non-reductionists try to solve the mind-body problem and the problem of mental causation. I focus on the problem of mental causation as it is supposed to be faced by non-reductionism: the so-called overdetermination problem. I argue that the traditional articulation of that problem is significantly flawed, and I (...) show how to articulate it properly: what I call the ‘super-overdetermination problem’. In doing so, I demonstrate that the problem of mental causation faced by non-reductionism is in fact a special case of the mind-body problem, as faced by non-reductionism, and that the former can’t be solved independently of the latter. I then assess the prospects for a particular family of non-reductive views that I call immanentism, and show that they fail to solve the super-overdetermination problem. Finally, I put forward two arguments to support the conclusion that physicalism entails reductionism. Both arguments establish, via distinct reasoning, the proposition that mental property instances are identical to physical property instances; and then each argument employs the inference, which I also defend, that if mental instances are physical instances, then mental properties are physical properties; hence, reductionism follows. (shrink)