Introspection and Materialism
Journal Title: Philosophy and Cosmology - Year 2017, Vol 18, Issue
Abstract
The paper explores the argument from introspection as a counterargument for the validity of reductive materialism and, in other cases, of any type of materialism. The author uses methods and conceptual apparatus of analytic philosophy, as well as the instruments of logical analysis to demonstrate falsity of this argument and impossibility of its usage for the defense of dualism and criticism of materialism. Theory of mind, proposed by David Chalmers, is revisited to demonstrate the epistemic asymmetry arises in case of usage of introspection-argument against materialism. The phenomenon of epistemic asymmetry is explained through the discordance between causal and conceptual relations. The author uses thought experiments as well, to demonstrate uselessness of additional sense, which arises in case of ontological postulation of such concepts as “conscious experience” as something to what introspection propositions refer. The argument from “cultural diversity”, holding the support of introspection-argument, is revisited as well. The results of research resulted into conclusion, to which the ontologization of subjective experience as a proof of causal openness of physical world for the dualism of features and properties (that is, conversion of theoretical ‘inner-scientific’ object into the object of physical reality) is illegitimate and beats completely off the mark. Therefore, the argument from introspection, which is considered the ‘protective belt’ of modern dualistic and non-reductive materialistic approaches (from naturalistic dualism to ‘folk-psychology’, cannot suit as an argument in the discussions in philosophy of mind.
Authors and Affiliations
Mstislav Kazakov
Cosmology in the Philosophical Education of Ukraine: History and Modern Condition
The article is devoted to the philosophy of cosmology, its history and contemporary conditions, the tradition of studying and modern trends in teaching this discipline in higher education in Ukraine. There is problem of...
Hybridity in the Higher Education of Ukraine: Global Logic or Local Idiosyncrasy?
Hybridity as a heuristic concept of the globalization and post-colonialism discourses is used for 1) understanding the logic of the modernization of the higher education of Ukraine (HEU), and 2) for making a meaningful d...
“Homo Economicus” Through the Lens of Metaphysics of Economics
The problem of the expansion of the economics into other areas of public life has been the subject of intense discussion for more than a century, and modern attempts to conceptualize the complex and multicomponent field...
Will Mathematics Ultimately Describe Nature?
It has been almost eighty years since Paul Dirac delivered a lecture on the relationship between mathematics and physics and since 1960 that Eugene Wigner wrote about the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the...
Cephalization of the Noosphere: Socio-Philosophical Aspects
The article investigates a phenomenon of cephalization of noosphere. Cephalization is presented as a process of the brain development unfolding on numerous forms of living matter; as an adaptation way of the cosmic organ...