Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

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their relations both to the physical and to each other.” (Bennett unpublished, 15) Now, the fundamental protophenomenal properties can again be either phenomenal or nonphenomenal. If they are nonphenomenal, it is hard to see how they can generate the phenomenal properties we are familiar with. “[W]e now need a story about how the phenomenal arises from the protophenomenal. […] The explanatory gap has not been closed; it has just been shunted into the space between the protophenomenal and the phenomenal. The hard problem rearises there.” (Bennett unpublished, 16-17) If, on the contrary, protophenomenal properties are phenomenal themselves, then we need to explain how the physical can give rise to them. “More precisely, we have lost out on the attempt to systematize and unify the relationships between the physical and the phenomenal.” (Bennett unpublished, 17) Bennett sums up the problem as follows: “The more similar the protophenomenal properties are to phenomenal ones, the less headway can be made on the project of systematizing the macrocorrelations; we may as well take each and every phenomenal property, each and every macro-correlation, as fundamental. And the more removed the protophenomenal properties are from phenomenal ones, the less point there is to postulating them at all. We still cannot see how human experience – genuine, full blown consciousness – arises from complicated relations among such fragmentary shadows of phenomenality.” (Bennett unpublished, 17) By postulating a third category of properties the dualist “only answers the letter of the hard problem”. (Bennett unpublished, 18) The spirit of the hard problem – the question of how the phenomenal arises from the nonphenomenal – is as pressing as ever. (Bennett unpublished, 18) 3 The subjectivity of the mental I believe that Bennett is right with her criticism of Chalmers’s position. I believe that, just like the physicalist, the dualist cannot solve the hard problem. I disagree, however, with Bennett’s claim that this amounts to an impeachment of dualism. Therefore, I will first explain why a fully satisfying explanation of how the mental arises from the physical is not to be expected and second why the prospects for dualism are nevertheless intact. Mental properties 1 can be characterized as essentially subjective, in the sense that, while every physical property is in principle accessible to everyone, every mental property is principally accessible only from a certain subjective perspective. (Nagel 1974, 442) A tree’s height can be measured by everyone around. No one is privileged here. A person’s pain, however, can be experienced only by the person herself. Even though we can adopt the person’s point of view, we cannot actually feel her pain. Therefore, the instantiation of mental properties brings with it a change of perspective. It is this change of perspective that makes the occurrence of mental properties such a mystery. In contrast, there is no big mystery involved in explaining how one neural process generates the other and how one thought follows the 1 So far, I have restricted the discussion to phenomenal properties, following the terminology of the authors discussed. Phenomenal properties are mostly seen as one kind of mental properties, the other kind being psychological properties such as learning. Psychological properties, it is assumed, can be functionalized, whereas in the case of phenomenal properties this is questioned. (Chalmers 1996, 11-31) Since I have doubts about the phenomenal/psychological-distinction I will from now on be speaking of mental properties only. On the ontological level, of course, this doesn’t have any consequences. The position discussed remains dualist all the same. No Bridge within Sight — Daniel Wehinger other. Here the entities involved are on a par, so to say: They are both objective in the first case and both subjective in the second case. Therefore, all we need to do in order to achieve a fully satisfying explanation is to keep track of every turn they take. When trying to explain, on the contrary, how neural processes give rise to mental properties and how thoughts yield neural changes we have a much harder time. Here the entities involved are tied to different perspectives. A fully satisfying explanation, however, would have to lead us all the way from the physical to the mental, or conversely from the mental to the physical without changing the perspective. In view of the subjectivity of the mental and the objectivity of the physical such an explanation is not to be expected. Adding up objective facts doesn’t seem to get us any nearer to something essentially subjective. It is only by changing the perspective that we come to know there are mental, and therefore subjective, properties. Hence, a bridge between the physical and the mental is not within sight: Such a bridge would again have to be either subjective or objective and either way the hard problem, which can by now be reformulated as the question of how you get something essentially subjective out of something essentially objective, rearises. Many physicalists concede that mental properties indeed appear to be subjective in the sense described above. If, however, they really are subjective in that sense, then they cannot be physical, for the physical is certainly objective. Therefore, the physicalist is confronted with the difficult task of having to point out how the mental, contrary to appearance, can be objective without thereby turning it into something it is not. Admittedly, it is not quite clear by now how this could be done and, thus, how the physicalist claim that everything there is, including mental properties, is physical could be made true. But this, it is argued, does not ultimately rule out the possibility of its truth. The following quote from Thomas Nagel is revealing here: “If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done.” But, as Nagel goes on, “[n]othing is provided by the inadequacy of physicalist hypotheses that assume a faulty objective analysis of mind. It would be truer to say that physicalism is a position we cannot understand because we do not at present have any conception of how it might be true.” (Nagel 1974, 445- 446) Such a line of argument, however, puts physicalism at risk of becoming something close to an article of faith. Dualists, on the contrary, claim that mental properties are indeed the way they appear to be, i.e. subjective, and therefore nonphysical. This claim, of course, does not solve the hard problem. But this must not be seen as a lack of the dualist position. The dualist is not committed to solving the hard problem. All she is committed to is the thesis that, in addition to the lots and lots of physical properties, there are at least some mental properties that are not physical. In fact, I believe that, if the mental is essentially subjective, the insolubleness of the hard problem follows: A fully satisfying explanation of the arisal of mental properties from physical processes does not allow for a change of perspective. We are not satisfied, if the explanans does not lead us straightly to the explanadum. If, however, the mental is essentially tied to a certain subjective perspective, objective facts won’t guide us there. Therefore, the insurmountability of the gap between the physical and the mental is part of the dualist claim. 381
Literature Bennett, Karen unpublished “Why I am Not a Dualist”, URL = . Chalmers, David 1995 “Facing up to the problem of consciousness”, reprinted in Jonathan Shear (ed.) 1997 Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 9-32. 382 No Bridge within Sight — Daniel Wehinger Chalmers, David 1996 The Conscious Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levine, Joseph 1983 “Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64, 354-361. Nagel, Thomas 1974 “What is it like to be a bat?”, Philosophical Review 83: 435-450.
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31 Alexander Hieke Hannes Leitgeb H
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Reduktion und Elimination in Philos
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Distributors Die Österreichische L
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6 Inhalt / Contents Wittgenstein me
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8 Inhalt / Contents The Evolution o
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Formal Mechanisms for Reduction in
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4. Property language and theoretica
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imperatives, or commands in the for
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Referential Practice and the Lure o
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The Augustinian account confuses mo
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hurried to fix it on the page. The
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The Essence (?) of Color, According
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Literature Austin, James 1980 “Wi
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Wittgenstein’s Externalism - Gett
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Informal Reduction E.P. Brandon, Ca
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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Did I Do It? -Yeah, You Did! Wittge
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Literature Did I Do It? -Yeah, You
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tween the two approaches. The task
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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Queen Victoria’s Dying Thoughts T
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Diagonalization. The Liar Paradox,
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Proof: Given a function ƒ from con
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that I am sure that it is true that
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experiencing something as a red pen
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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objects. But they also leave unansw
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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lent. It also implies that an inven
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The Scapegoat Theory of Causality M
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We may have evolved a specialized c
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easoning have their source in the l
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Wittgenstein on Frazer and Explanat
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genstein 1993, p. 143). In order to
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an adequate syntactic analysis of o
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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3. Der Elementarsatz wird als Relat
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Literatur Glock, Hans Johann 2006
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Explaining the Brain: Ruthless Redu
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Occam’s Razor in the Theory of Th
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Literature Campbell, Donald T. 1987
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Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit der klassi
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Literatur Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit
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Let T I be the minimal theory of tr
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Does Bradley’s Regress Support No
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(3) Mutatis mutandis, realism has t
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Zeitliche Ontologie und zeitliche R
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Betrachtung ontologischer Fragen, M
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The decisive consequences of this a
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Benacerraf and Bad Company (An Atta
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offer a solution to the bad company
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Literature Benacerraf, Paul 1965
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"PA" by using "PA* ", at least at t
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Hard Naturalism and its Puzzles Ren
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The Mind-Body-Problem and Score-Kee
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mental properties, for instance, or
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kommt es zu einem gravierenden Miss
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Reduction Revisited: The Ontologica
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4. Conclusion Reduction Revisited:
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All in all, we have seen that reduc
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Physicalism Without the A Priori Pa
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Literature Cartwright, Nancy 1999:
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Wittgensteins Projektionsmethode al
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Schlussbemerkungen Wittgensteins Pr
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intentional states requires functio
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Relating Theories. Models and Struc
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Literature Relating Theories. Model
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e invoked in response to the questi
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Do Brains Think? Christopher Humphr
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4. Conclusion So do brains think or
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How Metaphors Alter the World-Pictu
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The Modal Supervenience of the Conc
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Literature van der Auwera, Johan an
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3. The Determination of Form by Syn
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Zwischen Humes Gesetz und „Sollen
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Assessing Humean Supervenience Amir
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determination thesis; it fails as a
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Aus der obigen Definition folgt, da
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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How do Moral Principles Figure in M
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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A with distinguished subset Z of te
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A Metaphysically Moderate Version o
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Literature Balashov, Yuri 2002 ''Wh
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“In der Frage liegt ein Fehler”
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Problems with Psychophysical Identi
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identity theory, or as a predecesso
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of the world. It only matters that
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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notion of time and requires that so
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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concrete particulars can be subject
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phenomenal concept of experiencing
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Metaphorische Bedeutung als virtus
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speaker is then attaching a special
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„Vom Weißdorn und vom Propheten
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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S4) the necessity of arithmetic is
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Getting out from Inside: Why the Cl
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Dispensing with Particulars: Unders
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Literature Dispensing with Particul
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Reichenbach’s Concept of Logical
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Defining Ontological Naturalism Mar
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Literature Jackson, Frank 1986. “
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properties are located. This proces
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‘our conceptual scheme’ “is c
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Properties and Reduction between Me
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Does this mean that metaphysics sho
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do not pick out pain in a system by
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The Writing of Nietzsche and Wittge
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his teachings. He coincides with hi
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sense of a proposition without firs
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Naturalistic Ethics: A Logical Posi
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Literature Kant, Immanuel 2006 Crit
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What we now require is a bridge the
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Species, Variability, and Integrati
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could mention the many sorts of iso
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to work this way. Classic examples
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The Key Problems of KC Matteo Pleba
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have embraced the myth of prose: it
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5. Prior’s Problem As Patrick Bla
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Reductionism in Axiology: the Case
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developing of cancer tissue in huma
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(2) One-way Nagelian bridge princip
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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that we are to find the features we
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Atypical Rational Agency Paul Raymo
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Literature Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957
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situation bieten sich keine Kriteri
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Two Reductions of ‘rule’ Dana R
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one that could take place, but does
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physics is not able to make, since
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Wittgenstein’s Attitudes Fabien S
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view of logic, in accordance with h
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Warum man auf transzendentalphiloso
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Making the Mind Higher-Level Elizab
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Literature Churchland, P. M. (1995)
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Mental Causation: A Lesson from Act
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Again, this is mistaken. Non-reduct
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auf alle Arten von kontingenten Pro
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Reduction, Sets, and Properties Ben
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Literature Egan, Andy (2004): ‘Se
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there is a tension between evaluati
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The Elimination of Meaning in Compu
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sufficient to explain all of the em
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that 'A' and 'A' could never be tok
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the necktie sense) can differ in wh
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Supervenience and ‘Should’ Arto
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word 'norm' can be thought to expre
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Rule-following as Coordination: A G
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vast majority are bent: gruesome, g
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human life, the violent condition o
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Page 336 and 337: could then deduce (1c) and conclude
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Page 342 and 343: A somewhat Eliminativist Proposal a
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Page 358 and 359: Let us take the example of the hypo
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Page 378 and 379: The Supervenience Argument, Levels,
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Page 384 and 385: On the Characterization of Objects
Page 386 and 387: On the Characterization of Objects
Page 388 and 389: The Functional Unity of Special Sci
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Page 394 and 395: From Topology to Logic. The Neural
Page 396 and 397: From Topology to Logic. The Neural
Page 398 and 399: The Calculus of Inductive Construct
Page 400 and 401: The Four-Color Theorem, Testimony a
Page 402 and 403: experience. Of course, a detailed a
Page 404 and 405: Clearly x = y → x = ext y holds,
Page 406 and 407: Intentional Fundamentalism Petri Yl
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Page 410 and 411: The very existence of the special s
Page 412 and 413: Heil, J. (1999), “Multiple Realiz
Page 414 and 415: independent of what is the fact, fa
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Page 418: Publications of the Austrian Ludwig
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