Brian Loar on Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts

Article Sidebar

PDF
Published: Nov 26, 2013
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.11.2007.266

Main Article Content

Karol Polcyn

Abstract

Brian Loar argues that we can account for the conceptual independence of coextensive terms purely psychologically, by appealing to conceptual rather than semantic differences between concepts, and that this leaves room for assuming that phenomenal and physical concepts can be coextensive on a posteriori grounds despite the fact that both sorts of concepts refer directly (by having the same reference-fixers and referents). I argue that Loar does not remove the mystery of the coextensiveness of those concepts because he does not offer any explanation of why they should be coextensive. Secondly, I argue that even if we grant that phenomenal and physical concepts can be coextensive on a posteriori grounds, we are committed to holding that there are two different and essential modes of presentation of phenomenal properties, the physical and the phenomenal, and that this precludes us from seeing phenomenal properties as essentially physical in an unrelativized sense.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Polcyn, Karol. 2013. “Brian Loar on Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts”. Diametros, no. 11 (November):10-39. https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.11.2007.266.
Issue
No. 11 (2007)
Section
Articles

By submitting his/her work to the Editorial Board, the author accepts, upon having his/her text recommended for publication, that Diametros applies the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license to the works we publish. Under this license, authors agree to make articles legally available for reuse, without permission or fees. Anyone may read, download, copy, print, distribute or reuse these articles without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. The author holds the copyright without any other restrictions. Full information about CC-BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Author Biography

Karol Polcyn

Karol Polcyn: dr, adiunkt w Instytucie Filozofii Uniwersytetu Szczecinskiego
Share |
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

References

Chalmers [1996] – D. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1996.

Chalmers [1999] – D. Chalmers, Materialism and the Metaphysics of Modality, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research” (59) 1999, p. 473-96.

Chalmers [2003] – D. Chalmers, The Content and Epistemology of Phenomenal Belief, [in:] Consciousness, ed. Q. Smith and A. Jokic, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003.

Jackson [1982] – F. Jackson, Epiphenomenal Qualia, “Philosophical Quarterly” (32) 1982, p. 127-36.

Jackson [2002] – F. Jackson, Mind and Illusion, URL = <http://humanities.ucsc.edu/NEH/jackson.htm>.

Kripke [1980] – S. Kripke, Naming and Necessity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1980.

Levine [1983] – J. Levine, Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap, “Pacific Philosophical Quarterly” (64) 1983, p. 354-61.

Levine [1993] – J. Levine, On Leaving Out What It Is Like, [in:] Consciousness, ed. M. Davies and G. Humphreys, Blackwell, Oxford 1993.

Levine [2001] – J. Levine, Purple Haze, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001.

Loar [1997] – B. Loar, Phenomenal States (second edition), [in:] The Nature of Consciousness, ed. N. Block, O. Flanagan, G. Güzeldere, MIT, Cambridge 1997.

Loar [1999] – B. Loar, David Chalmers’s The Conscious Mind, “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research” (59) 1999, p. 465-72.

Papineau [1999] – D. Papineau, Mind the Gap, “Philosophical Perspectives” (12) 1999.

Papineau [2002] – D. Papineau, Thinking about Consciousness, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002.

Perry [2001] – J. Perry, Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness, MIT Press, 2001.

Sturgeon [1994] – S. Sturgeon, The Epistemic View of Subjectivity, “Journal of Philosophy” (91) 1994, p. 221-35.

Tye [1999] – M. Tye, Phenomenal Consciousness: the Explanatory Gap as a Cognitive Illusion, “Mind” (108) 1999, p. 705-25. Reprinted in Tye [2000].

Tye [2000] – M. Tye, Consciousness, Color, and Content, MIT Press, 2000.

Tye [2003] – M. Tye, A Theory of Phenomenal Concepts, “Philosophy” 2003, URL = <http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/philosophy/faculty/tye/Theory.pdf>.