Abstract
Though not myself a physicalist, I develop a new argument against antiphysicalist positions that are motivated by zombie arguments. I first identify four general features of phenomenal states that are candidates for non-physical types; these are used to generate different types of zombie. I distinguish two antiphysicalist positions: strict dualism, which posits exactly one general non-physical type, and pluralism, which posits more than one such type. It turns out that zombie arguments threaten strict dualism and some pluralist positions as much as they threaten physicalism—indeed, more so, since such positions need zombies to motivate them as alternatives to physicalism—and that the only pluralist position that escapes zombie arguments has a radically inflated ontology.
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Notes
I assume that A grounds B only if A metaphysically necessitates B. For concision, I will generally leave the about-our-world restriction and irreducibility requirement implicit.
I think my argument can be extended to views that deny that all truths are grounded in fundamental truths on the ground that for every level, there exists a more fundamental level by using (something like) Montero’s (2006, p. 187) technique for defining ‘physicalism’ so as to allow for its truth in infinitely decomposable worlds. Since I cannot attempt that extension here, I set such views aside.
Of course, formulating physicalism (and its rivals) is, in general, a tricky business. Formulating physicalism in terms of grounding is no exception. Though imperfect, the formulation in the main text suffices for my purposes. I adopt it primarily for convenience. Once I have presented my argumentative strategy using this formulation, applying the strategy with other common formulations of physicalism should be fairly straightforward. For discussion of how to formulate physicalism in terms of grounding, see Bennett (2011), Dasgupta (2014), and Goff (ms). For a formulation of physicalism about consciousness in terms of grounding, see Chalmers (2015, p. 248).
I label this position ‘strict dualism’ rather than just ‘dualism’ because dualism is rarely characterized as being committed to there being exactly (as opposed to at least) two irreducible general types of truths (which is not to say that it is generally characterized as not being so committed).
Some panpsychist positions that take fundamental (proto)phenomenal qualities to pervade the external world are antiphysicalist, not idealist. For example, a panpsychist who takes the physical to consist in structure and dynamics and thinks that fundamental structure and dynamics are necessary (albeit not sufficient) to ground all truths, would be an antiphysicalist, not an idealist.
I will not attempt to characterize the physical, except to say that (a) my discussion is neutral between the standard characterizations of the physical and could be run in terms of any of them, and (b) my preferred characterization, cashes physicality out in terms of structure and dynamics (Chalmers 2010, p. 120).
I focus on four features of phenomenal states that pose explanatory gaps, but there are others. For example, there is arguably a gap between phenomenal (spatial, temporal, mereological) structure and physical structure. [Cf. Chalmers (forthcoming, §3, §4.7, §8).] For reasons I hope to discuss on another occasion, I believe this gap cannot serve the same role in motivating conceivability arguments as the ones I discuss in the main text. Pan(proto)psychist views also face a number of explanatory gaps, such as those that arise between macro-subjects and micro-subjects, macro-qualities and micro-qualities, and macro-experiences and micro-experiences. [See Chalmers (forthcoming 2015) and Goff (2009).] Though some gaps that pan(proto)psychism faces are not relevant for my purposes, some gaps that I do discuss have been raised for pan(proto)psychism. Another gap resides between types and individuals. Even if we could explain why a physical type’s instantiation necessitated a phenomenal type’s instantiation, there would remain a question as to why an instance of that physical type co-obtains with a particular instance of that phenomenal type, as opposed to another instance of that type. I set this gap aside because it is a special case of what we might call the haecceity–non-haecceity gap, which arises in some form regardless of one’s account of consciousness [cf. Lewis (2009, pp. 209–210, fn15)]. Intentional features of phenomenal states arguably pose a further gap. [See Goff (2012) and Pautz (2009).] However, delving into the metaphysics of intentionality would take us too far astray. I also set aside the subjective–objective(/physical) gap [e.g. see Nagel (1974, 1986)] because I have no clear notion of it that differs from notions of other explanatory gaps. Finally, there is arguably a gap between the normative properties of experience (and mentality more generally) and the physical. [See Lee (2013) and Sosa (2011).] However, the (alleged) a priori metaphysical supervenience of the normative (e.g. on the natural) poses an obstacle to using the normative in zombie arguments of the sort I offer below; see Yetter-Chappell and Chappell (2013, fn11).
‘Acquaintance’ might work just as well as a term for picking out this phenomenon as ‘awareness’. Both terms have connotations (access consciousness and representational content in the case of ‘awareness’ and, in the case of ‘acquaintance’ sense data and foundational epistemology) that are not built into the notion I am using. See Pautz (2009) for argument that we bear an irreducible “consciousness relation” to the (“sensible”) properties that determine phenomenal character.
A tricky issue here that I will mention only to set aside: there is an intuition to the effect that the type of awareness we have of qualities is also constitutive of states—such as cognition, moods, and emotions—that do not (obviously) involve qualities. However, it is difficult to say what the immediate objects of such awareness are if not qualities. To avoid having to address this issue in what follows, I stipulate that ‘awareness’ is to be understood narrowly as the awareness of qualities.
Cf. Chalmers (2015, §7, forthcoming, §6.4).
Cf. (Chalmers forthcoming, p. 5). For a good discussion of phenomenal unity, see Bayne and Chalmers (2003).
The gloss, which I will sometimes use, of A as the conjunction of awareness truths is potentially misleading. For on a one way of understanding the gloss, A’s conjuncts include truths about unified awareness (e.g. that the gustatory quality someone is aware of is an object of a unified awareness of both that quality and a color quality). This understanding obscures the distinction between awareness and unity. The way to avoid this obscuration is to understand A as the conjunction of truths about which entities (namely which qualities) are objects of awareness and as not having conjuncts about how the awareness of said objects is unified.
For example, to avoid trivializing the entailment from P to Q, truths that mention the co-existence of physical truths alongside qualitative truths need to be excluded from figuring as conjuncts in P. Similarly, negative sentences such as “nothing instantiates a certain qualitative property” need to be excluded from Q—otherwise, the possibility of P~Q may not entail the falsity of physicalism. See Chalmers (2010, p. 143) for two ways of dealing with the latter problem. Indexical truths, if they are to be regarded as distinct from physical truths but not of the sort that falsify physicalism, also require treatment—see Chalmers (2010, pp. 160–163) for suggestions for how to handle them.
One of the drawbacks of ideal positive conceivability is that the sense of imagination in terms of which it is defined is, even if intuitive, difficult to nail down precisely. [See (Goff (2009, p. 295, fn7) for more on this point, and Chalmers (2002) for an attempted characterization of the type of imagination in question.] I will not attempt to make progress on this issue here.
A worry that is sometimes raised is that we are not in a position to evaluate the ideal conceivability of scenarios because we are not ideal agents. See Chalmers (2010, p. 155) for a reply.
Or identify an ambiguity in the argument and claim that which premise is false depends on which disambiguation is adopted, as Russellian monists sometimes do.
Of course, because one does not know all the physical truths about the actual world, one does not know the exact physical details that should be built into the scenario under consideration. The proponent of this argument will insist that this does not pose a serious objection since it is clear enough that however the physical details are filled in one will not be forced to bring the qualitative features of the actual world along with them.
Strictly speaking, one could hold that the possibility of P~Q does not imply that there are fundamental qualitative truths on the ground that the qualitative may follow from fundamental proto-qualitative truths that are neither physical nor qualitative. I suppress this type of qualification below, as proto-truths of type X will generally pose just as much of a problem for strict dualism as fundamental truths of type X.
Here is a two-dimensional semantics version of the argument, modeled after Chalmers’s (2010, p. 149) two-dimensional argument against materialism:
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D1. P~Q is primarily conceivable.
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D2.0. If P~Q is primarily conceivable, then P~Q is 1-possible.
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D2.5. If P~Q is 1-possible, then P~Q is 2-possible.
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Lemma I*: So, P~Q is 2-possible.
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D3. PQ~A is primarily conceivable.
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D4.0. If PQ~A is primarily conceivable, then PQ~A is 1-possible.
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D4.5. If PQ~A is 1-possible, then PQ~A is 2-possible.
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Lemma II*: So, PQ~A is 2-possible.
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D5. If P~Q is 2-possible and PQ~A is 2-possible, then strict dualism is false.
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C. So, strict dualism is false.
Similar two-dimensional semantic formulations could be given for the other zombie arguments below. For concision, I omit such formulations. Chalmers’s strategy for justifying premises such as D2.5 and D4.5 is to argue for the (at least partial) coincidence of sentences’ primary and secondary intensions; however, as Chalmers (ibid, pp. 149–152) recognizes, such premises are susceptible to objections from Russellian monism, which reject the intensional coincidence of the sort Chalmers appeals to in order to justify those premises. The strict dualist may appropriate the Russellian monist objection to such premises, but she must do so selectively, lest she give up strict dualism for Russellian monism. Partly because not all Russellian monist style objections are equally plausible, it is not obvious whether the strict dualist can defend her position by selectively appropriating Russellian monist objections in a non-ad hoc fashion. I hope to discuss these matters in more detail on another occasion.
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Also, remember that the argument can be run in terms of ideal negative conceivability if ideal positive conceivability fails.
Well, if awareness requires unity then God couldn’t have created awareness without also creating unity. Still, if he needn’t have created any specific unity relation over the awareness in the world, then after deciding which qualities were to enjoy the privilege of being objects of awareness, he had to make a further decision about which unity relation to confer upon it.
Or fourth, if the physical and qualitative are also distinct types.
The actually possessed qualities, awareness, and unity would then exist unpossessed in the target scenario. Some might find this objectionable because it conflicts with the dictum “no property instantiation without a bearer”. I see no reason to accept this dictum. (A merely apparent reason is its (superficial) similarity with the dictum “No relations without relata”—that dictum is quite plausible. However, eliminativism about relata but not relations is incoherent, whereas eliminativism about bearers but not property instantiations is not.) In any case, subsequent examples will verify PQAU ~ S without conflicting with the noted dictum.
If some truthmakers of PQAU couldn’t exist without possession relations, then God couldn’t have created those truthmakers without creating possession relations. Still, if he needn’t have created any specific set of possession relations, then after deciding how to distribute the truthmakers of PQAU, he had to make a further decision about which possession relations to impose upon it.
In contrast, since zombie arguments against strict dualism are not a chief motivation of physicalism, the physicalist does not risk undermining the motivation for her position by rejecting such arguments as unsound. If she does so, however, she cannot wield such arguments against strict dualists. Still, she can do something almost as good for her position: she can maintain that the strict dualist must treat such arguments as direct threats if they endorse a zombie argument against physicalism, albeit not as direct threats to strict dualism issued by physicalists.
It’s worth noting that Jackson (2003) no longer accepts the knowledge argument.
Plausibly, she gains new indexical knowledge as well (e.g. of the truth that she is in w). However, equally plausibly, this is not the only kind of knowledge she gains: the truth that someone is aware in w is not an indexical truth, but MaryPQ comes to know it. Thus, this knowledge argument is not defused by the “MaryPQ merely gains de se knowledge” response.
She might try to do this by appropriating the phenomenal concept strategy for defending physicalism. When directed at zombie arguments against physicalism, this strategy (of which there are number of versions) proceeds by trying to identify a distinctive feature of phenomenal concepts that explains why zombies would be conceivable even if physicalism were true, thereby undermining the inference from the conceivability of zombies to their possibility. [E.g. see Balog (2012).] Similarly, the pluralist might try to resist the applications of CPP within the above argument by appealing to distinctive features of our qualitative, awareness, unity, and possession concepts to explain why the scenarios invoked by the argument would be conceivable even if they were impossible. Though this response deserves further investigation, I am pessimistic about it for two reasons. First, the pluralist would have to apply this strategy selectively, lest her view collapse into a physicalist version of the phenomenal concept strategy. But I do not see how the strategy could be applied selectively in a non-ad hoc fashion. Second, the phenomenal concept strategy is motivated by the thought that there is something distinctive about phenomenal concepts that generates the explanatory gap between the phenomenal and the physical. This motivation is undermined by the observation that there are in fact many such gaps in the vicinity (see Sect. 2) and that these are generated by (at least conceptually) diverse phenomena (namely, the physical, qualitative, awareness, unity, and possession truths).
It is also open to the physicalist to supplement the parsimony objection to radical pluralism with a causal argument that replaces premises in the standard causal argument for physicalism [e.g. see Papineau (2002)] with weaker premises. Rather than arguing that the causal closure of the physical leaves no work for the non-physical to do (non-redundantly), the physicalist could argue that the causal closure of (say) the domain encompassing the physical, qualities, and awareness leaves no work for distinct phenomenal unity and possession relations to do. Whether such arguments would exert significantly more dialectical force against the radical pluralist than the standard causal argument depends on whether their premises are significantly more plausible—of course, this is not settled by the mere fact that such arguments contain weaker premises than the standard argument. I will not attempt to adjudicate this issue here.
There is a temptation to downplay the size of radical pluralism’s ontology by claiming that all or some of the types—quality, awareness, unity, and possession—to which radical pluralism is committed are species of a general type—e.g. the mental—to which all reasonable ontologies are committed, and that ontology expansion by way of mere species augmentation is a moderate and unobjectionable form of inflation. This temptation should be resisted: on pain of classifying all forms of ontological expansion as unobjectionable, a distinction needs to be drawn between species of unitary, natural (in the Lewisian sense) general types and species of general types that are not. Plausibly, admitting additional species of a unitary type to which we are already committed is a moderate form of ontology expansion. However, there does not seem to be such a unitary type of which qualities, awareness, unity, and possession are species. Of course, we can use or invent a general label (e.g. ‘mental’) that applies to all of them, but that alone neither reveals a unitary type to which the noted species belong nor absolves radical pluralism of severe parsimony violation.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Jaegwon Kim for helpful comments on two predecessors of this paper, to Josh Dever, Nina Emery, Chris Hill, and Josh Schechter for helpful comments on one predecessor of this paper, and to Robert Joynt, Han Li, Adam Pautz, and Nick Smyth for helpful discussion.
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Saad, B. How to befriend zombies: a guide for physicalists. Philos Stud 173, 2353–2375 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0618-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0618-7