hard problem of consciousness

Question 1

What is a conceptual analysis?

Answer 1

An attempt to provide a set of conditions that provide the meaning of a concept. An analysis of the concept.

Question 2

What kind of conceptual analysis of consciousness do people think is required to establish the truth of physicalism?

Why is this a problem?

Answer 2

A analysis of consciousness in at least functionalist if not physical terms.

Many agree that consciousness cannot be analysed functionally or in the terms of physics and that, if it were, consciousness would be left out.

Question 3

Who think the explanatory gap is closable?

Answer 3

Nagel, he argues that we are like the scientifically naive who do not yet have the concepts to make sense of the data.

Question 4

who thinks our cognitive limitations prevents the gap from being closable?

Answer 4

McGinn

Question 5

What is the conceptual analysis thesis?

Answer 5

The thesis that if no conceptual analysis of consciousness in functional or physical terms is available then the explanatory gap between the physical and the phenomenal will never close.

Question 6

What is Kripkes distinction between the necessary and the a priori?

Answer 6

Some necessary truths are not a priori. For instance, that water = H20 is not an a priori truth, but it is necessary. We might imagine (it is conceivable that) water turned out to be something other than H20 but this is impossible.

Question 7

what is a concept?

Answer 7

The mental analog of a word. A concrete mental representation.

Question 8

What does Quine argue in ‘Materialism and qualia: the explanatory gap’

Answer 8

That Kripke’s argument against psycho-physical identities works best as an epistemological argument not a metaphysical one. e.g., it points to an explanatory gap not a metaphysical one. (Apparently Levine interpreted Kipke’s argument incorrectly in the first place though. )

Question 9

When was the term ‘physicalism’ first introduced in philosophy?

By whom?

Answer 9

1930s

Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap

Question 10

What was Rudolf and Carnaps understnading of physicalism?

Answer 10

Every statement is equivalent in meaning to some physical statement.

Question 11

In the physicalism discussion, what is:

The interpretation question
- the condition question
- the completeness question
The truth question

Answer 11

What does it mean to say that everything is physical
- what does it mean for something to be physical
- what relation or relations must obtain between everything and the physical if physicalism is to be true
Is it true that everything is physical

Question 12

What is supervenience physicalism?

Answer 12

A modal characterisation of physicalism wherein physicalism is true of a possible world iff a world which is a physical duplicate of that world is a duplicate of the world simpliciter.

Question 13

What are the kinds of identity physicalism?

Answer 13

Type physicalism, token physicalism.

Question 14

What is token physicalism?

Answer 14

Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff for every particular (object, event or process) x that exists at w, there is some physical particular y such that x = y

Question 15

What is type physicalism?

Answer 15

Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff every property instantiated at w is identical to a physical property.

Question 16

What are the two version of realisation physicalism?

Answer 16

second-order physicalism
sub-set physicalism

Question 17

What is second order physicalism?

Answer 17

Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff every property instantiated at w is either a physical property or is second-order realized in a physical property.

Question 18

What is a second order property?

Answer 18

The property of having some property that has a certain causal or theoretical role. The property something has in virtue of other properties.

Question 19

What is subset physicalism

Answer 19

Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff every property instantiated at w is either a physical property or is subset realized in a physical property.

Question 20

What does it mean to be subset realised

Answer 20

a property F realizes a property G if and only if (a) G has some set of causal powers or features S; (b) F has some set of causal powers or features S; and (c) S is a subset of S.

Question 21

What is grounding physicalism

Answer 21

Physicalism is true at a possible world w iff every property instantiated at w is either a physical property or is grounded in a physical property.

Question 22

What are the different kinds of reductive physicalism?

Answer 22

(1) conceptual reduction. every mental concept can be analysed with a physical concept.
(2) logical derivation of one theory from another theory via bridge principles.
(3) properties expressed by the predicate of one theory (mental for instance) are identical to properties expressed by predicate in another (physical ) theory.

Question 23

What is a posteriori physicalism? Is it reductive or non-reductive?

Answer 23

If S then S* is necessary and a posteriori. Where S is the physical nature of the world and S* is the total nature of the world.

Sometimes considered to be non-reductive physicalism.

Question 24

What is Davidsons anomolous monism?

Answer 24

All events have physical properties, and some have mental properties as well. The mental properties are not causially efficacious (According to Kim)

Question 26

What is the grain problem?

Answer 26

If, as Russel argues, the immediate objects of awareness are brain states in themselves, why do they seem so radically different to what knowledge of physiology of the brain would lead us to expect?

Question 27

Who wrote a paper on the grain problem? When?

Answer 27

Michale Lockwood, 1993 in ‘Objections to physicalism’