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Consciousness, Supervenience, and Identity: Marras and Kim on the Efficacy of Conscious Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2012

LIAM P. DEMPSEY
LIAM P. DEMPSEY*
Affiliation:
Trent University
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Abstract

In this paper, I argue that while supervenience accounts of mental causation in general have difficulty avoiding epiphenomenalism, the situation is particularly bad in the case of conscious experiences since the function-realizer relation, arguably present in the case of intentional properties, does not obtain, and thus, the metaphysical link between supervenient and subvenient properties is absent. I contend, however, that the identification of experiential types with their neural correlates dispels the spectre epiphenomenalism, squares nicely both with the phenomenology of embodiment and the subjectivity of experience, and does not conflict with the supposed multiple realizability of consciousness.

Les explications en termes de survenance de la causalité mentale en général évitent difficilement l’épiphénoménalisme. La situation s’aggrave dans le cas d’expériences conscientes, puisque la relation entre la fonction et sa réalisation, dont on peut soutenir qu’elle est présente dans le cas des propriétés intentionnelles, n’a pas cours. Ainsi, le lien métaphysique entre les propriétés survenantes et sous-jacentes est absent. Je soutiens cependant que l’identification de types expérienciels à leurs corrélatifs neuraux dissipe le spectre de l’épiphénoménalisme. Elle s’aligne harmonieusement tantôt sur la phénoménologie de l’incarnation (embodiment), tantôt sur la subjectivité de l’expérience, et n’entre pas en conflit avec la présumée réalisabilité multiple de la conscience.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 373 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2012

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