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The Knowledge Argument and Epiphenomenalism

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Abstract

Frank Jackson endorses epiphenomenalism because he thinks that his knowledge argument undermines physicalism. One of the most interesting criticisms of Jackson’s position is what I call the ‘inconsistency objection’. The inconsistency objection says that Jackson’s position is untenable because epiphenomenalism undermines the knowledge argument. The inconsistency objection has been defended by various philosophers independently, including Michael Watkins, Fredrik Stjernberg, and Neil Campbell. Surprisingly enough, while Jackson himself admits explicitly that the inconsistency objection is ‘the most powerful reply to the knowledge argument’ he knows of, it has never been discussed critically. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the objection and to identify and consider its implications. The objection is alleged to be based on a causal theory of knowledge. I argue that the objection fails by showing that any causal theory of knowledge is such that it is either false or does not support the inconsistency objection. In order to defend my argument, I offer a hypothesis concerning phenomenal knowledge.

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Notes

  1. For overviews of the debate on the knowledge argument, see Alter (1999, 2007), Stoljar and Nagasawa (2004) and Nagasawa (2009).

  2. After 16 years of defending the knowledge argument, Jackson announced in 1998 that he had changed his mind, stating that although the argument contained no obvious fallacy, its conclusion, that physicalism is false, must be mistaken. In this paper, I am concerned only with Jackson’s original antiphysicalist position. See Jackson (1995, 1998, 2003, 2004).

  3. Strictly speaking, the inconsistency objection is not a response to the knowledge argument per se, but to the joint holding of cogency of the knowledge argument and epiphenomenalism. Jackson calls the inconsistency objection the ‘“there must be a reply” reply’ because he thinks that the objection shows that there must be a successful physicalist reply to the knowledge argument without specifying exactly what the reply is. See Sect. 4 for Jackson’s construal of the inconsistency objection.

  4. See Jackson (1982) for his endorsement of type epiphenomenalism.

  5. Thanks to Alter for drawing my attention to this passage.

  6. In this paper, I focus only on a necessary condition for acquiring knowledge according to a causal theory of knowledge, so that my argument can be applied to as many theories of knowledge as possible.

  7. Skyrms’s objection to the revised theory is particularly strong. See Skyrms (1967).

  8. In order to avoid complications and to emphasise the structural similarity between the Sally and the Mary scenarios I omit some relevant physical and mental events in both Figs. 1 and 2. (To take one example, strictly speaking, there should be intermediate brain states between (φ) and Bm(ψ).) I can omit them legitimately because the revised causal theory says that as long as Bm(ψ) and (ψ) have a common cause they are causally connected. For the complete, and more complex, schema for the Sally scenario see Goldman (1967), p. 365.

  9. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this point.

  10. Some proponents of the inconsistency objection might think that (C3) should cover not only phenomenal knowledge, but also other kinds of knowledge. All that is required, they might claim, is to exclude knowledge about the future from the scope of (C3). I set this point aside because what I say in the main text is applicable to any thesis that holds at least (C3).

  11. See, for instance, Chalmers (2004), Nida-Rümelin (1995, 1998), and Tye (2000).

  12. See, for example, Paxon (1974), Sharpe (1975), and Skyrms (1967).

  13. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for raising these four counterexamples.

  14. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this point. For criticisms of the objection that appeals to the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance see Alter (1998) and Stoljar and Nagasawa (2004).

  15. Jackson (1982, p. 133).

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Acknowledgments

I presented earlier versions of this paper at the Australian National University, the Open University, the University of Birmingham, the University of Ljubljana, the University of Rijeka, the University of Kyoto and the 2006 Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association at the University of Southampton. I would like to thank all in the audience for enjoyable discussions. I am particularly grateful to Torin Alter, David Chalmers, Daniel Stoljar and anonymous referees for constructive comments and useful suggestions.

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    Yujin Nagasawa

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Nagasawa, Y. The Knowledge Argument and Epiphenomenalism. Erkenn 72, 37–56 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-009-9192-8

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