Pluralism and the Mind

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Sign In or Create an Account. Close mobile search navigation Article navigation. Physicalists make the opposite mistake of taking the rejection of non-physical entities to imply one single and absolute physical perspective.

Both miss the possibility of different descriptions of the same reality which are neither reducible to an absolute ontology nor refer to ontologically distinct realms of reality. One way of articulating doubts is to ask whether pragmatic pluralists accept the identity of mental and physical states. If he denies the identity of mental and physical states, then pragmatic pluralism is committed to the existence of non-physical entities and therefore some kind of dualism. As Putnam puts it: Identity is a symmetrical relation while physicalists assume the priority of the physical.

Identity without the priority of the physical might lead to some form of neutral monism but not to physicalism. Therefore, physicalists do not only have to establish the identity of mental and physical states but have to justify the priority of the physical. According to Putnam, we do not really understand the identity question and we can avoid the dilemma by avoiding confused and confusing questions. A different model for the identification of entities is suggested by the principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles: If we find out that everything that is true about Hilary Putnam is also true about the author of Renewing Philosophy, we can conclude that they are in fact the same person.

In the case of a room that can be described in terms of ordinary language and particle physics, one might wonder whether ordinary objects such as tables are identical with arrangements of elementary particles. Ordinary objects and arrangements of elementary particles fail to meet this criterion: The table in the room may be five years old while the arrangement of elementary particles that constitute the table is constantly changing and certainly not five years old. There is no arrangement of elementary particles with the same life-span as the table.

Therefore, not everything that is true about the table is also true about any arrangement of elementary particles and they are not identical. The spatial borders of a table are obviously sharp enough for our everyday usage but they are not sharp enough to satisfy an ontologist who wants to identify the table with one specific arrangement of elementary particles. It is also not the only limit of identity talk as the debates about material constitution Rudder-Baker , determinates and determinables Yablo , as well as sets and sub-sets Sanford illustrate. How is that possible? The result seems to be a bizarre pluralistic ontology of countless ontologically distinct objects see Sosa This point becomes especially clear in the case of conceptual relativity: Rather, it means that we need to accept that there are different ways to talk about the existence of objects.

The limits of identity talk are not restricted to the philosophy of mind but ubiquitous if we try to describe the relationship between different conceptual systems. These descriptions require concepts that are very different from the concepts of particle physics and it is by no means surprising that we cannot describe the relationship between mental and physical states in terms of identity statements. Contrary to dualists, Putnam denies that irreducible concepts imply the existence of ontologically distinct realms of reality. Given these arguments, it is not hard to see why Putnam thinks that the entire discussion of the mind-body problem needs a careful reconsideration.

Consider the case of phenomenal consciousness or qualia.

No matter how detailed our physical descriptions are, they do not imply the existence of phenomenal consciousness. Cognitive science and neuroscience advance rapidly, but there remains the explanatory gap of an unreduced phenomenal consciousness. In the past 40 years, philosophers of mind have developed a large variety of examples and thought experiments that illustrate the explanatory gap:. What is it like to be a bat? Confronted with this question, we might turn to zoologists, ethologists and cognitive neuroscientists who will be able to tell us a lot about the behaviour and cognitive structure of bats, about their perception, memory, and so on.

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None of this, however, will imply anything about the phenomenal experience of bats. Therefore, there seems to be an unbridgeable gap between our biological knowledge and the phenomenal aspect of reality. Image Mary, a superscientist, who grows up in a black and white room and has never seen colours in her whole life. However, she receives an extraordinary education and learns everything about colour perception. Finally, she leaves her prison and sees colours for the first time.

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Although Mary had already a complete physical account colour perception before she was freed, it still seems obvious that Mary learns something new about the visual experience of colours when she sees colours for the first time. Therefore, even complete physical information not sufficient to bridge the gap to phenomenal consciousness. Imagine a philosophical zombie, i.

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How do we know that philosophical zombies do not exist? It seems that empirical sciences cannot answer that question as one can imagine all the physical or biological or computational processes without the occurrence of phenomenal consciousness.



No matter how detailed a physical descry iption of humans is, nothing seems to make philosophical zombies inconceivable. Therefore, there is an unbridgeable explanatory gap between our physical and phenomenal descriptions. Given the assumption of a physicalistic ontology, the problem is obvious: And if phenomenal states are nothing but physical states, it must be possible to explain it in terms of a physical theory.

Pragmatic pluralism rejects the idea of one single and absolute ontology and instead insists on different but equally fundamental conceptual systems. As consequence, there is nothing surprising and certainly nothing mysterious about the fact that phenomenal concepts are not physically explicable.

If one gives up the idea that there must be a reductive explanation of the mind, neither the irreducibility of phenomenal consciousness nor the irreducibility of intentionality come as a surprise. For example, Jaegwon Kim Consider a simple example of mental causation such as a headache being the cause for taking a pain killer.

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While the headache seems to be causally relevant, there is also a purely biological explanation of the behaviour. Thus, there are at least two potential causes: C1 The headache is the cause for taking a pain killer. C2 The biological process b is the cause for taking a pain killer. Non-reductive theories cannot make this move and seem to be committed to overdetermination.



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However, a systematic overdetermination would be utterly mysterious as is would imply that every mental cause is accompanied by an ontologically distinct biological cause. Classical, Early, and Medieval Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval World History: Civil War American History: Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content. Print Save Cite Email Share. Beyond Reduction Author s: