Abstract
This paper challenges Daniel Dennett’s attempt to reconcile the performance of mind and brain within a physicalist framework with Jaegwon Kim’s argument that a coherent physicalist framework entails the epiphenomenalism of mental events. Dennett offers a materialist explanation of consciousness and argues that his model of mind does not imply reductive physicalism. I argue that Dennett’s explanation of mind clashes with Jaegwon Kim’s mind-body supervenience argument. Kim contends that non-reductive physicalism either voids the causal powers of mental properties, or it violates physicalist framework. I conclude that Dennett’s account of mind does not escape or overcome Kim’s mind/body supervenience problem. If Kim’s argument does not prove Dennett’s explanation of mind to be either a form of reductive materialism, or a logically inconsistent view, it is due to the ambiguity of concepts involved in Dennett’s theory.
Highlights
This paper challenges Daniel Dennett’s attempt to reconcile the performance of mind and brain within a physicalist framework with Jaegwon Kim’s argument that a coherent physicalist framework entails the epiphenomenalism of mental events. In several publications, such as Elbow Room (1984), Consciousness Explained (1991a), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996a), and Freedom Evolves (2003), Dennett offers a materialist explanation of consciousness and argues that his model of mind does not imply reductive physicalism
His argument rests on two principles: a) Within a physicalist framework all mental events are instantiated in an organism by an underlying set of exclusively physical base conditions; b) Physical causal conditions are both necessary and sufficient for all physical properties to occur in a system
If Kim’s argument does not prove Dennett’s explanation of mind to be either a form of reductive materialism, or a logically inconsistent view, it is due to the ambiguity of concepts involved in Dennett’s theory
Summary
Reductive physicalism is a materialistic theory committed to the statement that in this world all existing entities are physical, and that all properties are reducible to the properties of fundamental physics. The theory of consciousness Dennett offers entails causal relations between: a) various mental events, for example, between deliberating about reasons for acting and making a certain decision, and b) mental and physical events, for example, between willing to obtain some goal and acting for this particular aim His account of mind is committed to the general non-reductive physicalist claims that: a) all existing entities and their mereological aggregates are physical, b) all properties of mind evolved from their underlying physical bases, c) properties of mind are distinct from their underlying physical properties (chemical, biological, neural), d) properties of mind are not epiphenomenal, that is, these properties possess causal powers that are irreducible to the powers of their supporting neurophysiological bases. Dennett’s claims about the causal powers of mental events and the commitment to non-reductivist physicalism make his theory of mind a target of Jaegwon Kim’s supervenience argument
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