Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism (Philosophy of Mind)

In this book, Derk Pereboom explores how physicalism might best be formulated and defended against the best anti-physicalist arguments. Two responses to the knowledge and conceivability arguments are set out and developed. The first exploits the open possibility that introspective representations fail to represent mental properties as they are in themselves; specifically, that introspection represents phenomenal properties as having certain characteristic qualitative natures, which these properties might actually lack. The second response draws on the proposal that currently unknown fundamental intrinsic properties provide categorical bases for known physical properties and would also yield an account of consciousness. While there are non-physicalist versions of this position, some are amenable to physicalism. The book's third theme is a defense of a nonreductive account of physicalism. The type of nonreductivism endorsed departs from others in that it rejects all token identity claims for psychological and microphysical entities. The deepest relation between the mental and the microphysical is constitution, where this relation is not to be explicated by the notion of identity. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1. The Knowledge Argument and Introspective Inaccuracy......Page 20 2. Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap......Page 40 3. Conceivability Arguments and Qualitative Inaccuracy......Page 58 4. Qualitative Inaccuracy and Recent Objections to Conceivability Arguments......Page 77 5. Russellian Monism I......Page 96 6. Russellian Monism II......Page 113 7. Robust Nonreductive Physicalism......Page 134 8. Mental Compositional Properties......Page 159 Conclusion......Page 181 Bibliography......Page 184 C......Page 198 K......Page 199 P......Page 200 S......Page 201 Z......Page 202 G......Page 204 P......Page 205 Z......Page 206 The knowledge argument and introspective inaccuracy Phenomenal concepts and the explanatory gap Conceivability arguments and qualitative inaccuracy Qualitative inaccuracy and recent challenges to conceivability arguments Russellian monism I Russellian monism II Robust nonreductive physicalism Mental compositional properties. In this work, Derk Pereboom explores how physicalism might best be formulated and defended against the best anti-physicalist arguments. Two responses to the knowledge and conceivability arguments are set out and developed