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Conceptual Link from Physical to Mental

By Robert Kirk

Conceptual Link from Physical to Mental

By Robert Kirk

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Description
How are truths about physical and mental states related? Physicalism entails that non-physical truths are redescriptions of a world specifiable in narrowly physical terms. In The Conceptual Link from Physical to Mental Robert Kirk argues that physicalists must therefore hold that the physical truth "logico-conceptually" entails the mental truth: it is impossible for broadly logical and conceptual reasons that the former should have held without the latter. "Redescriptive physicalism" is a fresh approach to the physical-to-mental connection that he bases on these ideas. Contrary to what might have been expected, this connection does not depend on analytic truths: there are holistic but non-analytic conceptual links, explicable by means of functionalism--which, he argues, physicalism entails. Redescriptive physicalism should not be confused with "a priori physicalism": although physicalists must maintain that phenomenal truths are logico-conceptually entailed by physical truths, they must deny that they are also entailed a priori. Kripke-inspired "a posteriori physicalism," on the other hand, is too weak for physicalism, and the psycho-physical identity thesis is not sufficient for it. Though non-reductive, redescriptive physicalism is an excellent basis for dealing with the problems that mental causation raises for other non-reductive views. "Cartesian intuitions" of zombies and transposed qualia may seem to raise irresistible objections; Kirk shows that the intuitions are false. As to the "explanatory gap," there is certainly an epistemic gap, but it has a physicalistically acceptable explanation which deals effectively with the problem of how the physical and functional facts fix particular phenomenal facts.
Product details
Number of Pages:
242
Release Date:
2013-04-05
Publication Date:
2013-01-31
Publisher:
Oxford University Press(UK)
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0199669414
ISBN13:
9780199669417
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
531 g
Height:
161 cm
Width:
240 cm
Thickness:
18 cm
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