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Non-Reductive Materialism and the Spectrum of Mind-Body Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Andrew Kernohan
Andrew Kernohan
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
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Extract

In what follows I will sketch a very simple possible-world semantics which will allow us to sharpen the notion of a non-reductive, but materialist, mind-body identity theory. This simple semantics will enable us to characterize the various possible positions on mind-body identity and display the range of positions with respect to psycho-physical reduction. Though I am sympathetic to a non-reductive position which I label “autonomous monism”, I will be concerned here less with presenting positive arguments for that position than with describing a framework in which such arguments can be made and pointing out the issues that the position raises. The discussion achieves its abstract viewpoint at the cost of slightly idealizing the process of theory reduction, but the overview attained is worth the price.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1988 , pp. 475 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1988

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References

1 Hempel, C. G., Philosophy of Naturai Science (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 105Google Scholar. A similar view can be found in Nagel, E., The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), 353–354.Google Scholar

2 See Fodor, J. A., The Language of Thought (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1975), 20–21Google Scholar for a discussion of this, together with an illuminating diagram.

3 Hempel, , Philosophy, 55.Google Scholar

4 See Davidson, D., “Actions, Reasons and Causes”, Journal of Philosophy 60 (1963), 685–700CrossRefGoogle Scholar from whom the following example is drawn.

5 This argument is adapted from Davidson, D., “Causal Relations”, Journal of Philoso phy 64 (1967), 694–695.Google Scholar

6 Davidson, D., “Mental Events”, in Block, N., ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology (Cambridge: Harvard, 1980), 111.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. Also see the papers collected in his Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).Google Scholar

8 The differences between these two forms of non-reductive materialism are discussed in my “Psychology: Anomalous or Autonomous?”, Dialogue 24 (1985), 427–442.Google Scholar

9 In “What Psychological States Are Not”, Philosophical Review 81 (1972)Google Scholar, N. Block and J. Fodor give a good summary of multiple realization arguments.

10 These intuitions are shared, though as regards ants, not termites, by Hofstadter, Douglas in Godei, Escher, Bach (New York: Basic Books, 1979).Google Scholar

11 Plurality of function is discussed at length by Richardson, R. in “Functionalism and Reductionism”, Philosophy of Science 46 (1979), 533–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See Armstrong, D. M., A Materialist Theory of the Mind (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 130–131.Google Scholar

13 See Kim, J., “On the Psychophysical Identity Theory”, American Philosophical Quarterly 3 (1966), 227–235Google Scholar for its initial statement.

14 See his “Causal Relations” cited above, and other papers collected in his Essays.

15 This is to be contrasted with David Lewis' programme of functional specification which does identify psychological and physical properties. See his “Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972), 249–258Google Scholar. Lewis' position likely amounts to reductive materialism. See Owens, J., “The Failure of Lewis' Functionalism”, The Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1986), 159–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Fodor, , The Language, 24–25.Google Scholar

17 This is roughly the programme suggested by Dennett, D. C. in “Intentional Systems”, Journal of Philosophy 78 (1971), 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 I owe thanks to Ronnie de Sousa and Mark Thornton for many useful discussions on these topics, and also to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support during the period in which this essay was written.