Token Physicalism Research Articles

Trope Mental Causation: Still Not Qua Mental

A popular solution to the causal exclusion problem in the non-reductive physicalist camp is the trope identity solution. But this solution is haunted by the “quausation problem” which charges that the trope only confers causal powers qua physical, not qua mental. Although proponents of the trope solution have responded to the problem by denying the existence of properties of tropes, I do not find their reply satisfactory. Rather, I believe they have missed the core presupposition behind the quausation problem. I will argue that the presupposition is the generalist notion of causation. Then, for the trope theorists to solve the quausation problem, they need to abandon the generalist notion and adopt the singularist notion of causation. However, making that move will lead them to a new quausation problem, rendering irreducible mental types causally irrelevant and mental causal explanations reducible. Either adopting a generalist notion or a singularist notion of causation, a quausation problem awaits the trope solution. Given this dilemma, my conclusion is that the trope identity solution cannot solve the exclusion problem in a non-reductive way. Moreover, the dilemma can be generalized, showing that token physicalism is a shaky position.

The essence of the mental

AbstractYour belief that Obama is a Democrat would not be the belief that it is if it did not represent Obama, nor would the pain in your ankle be the state that it is if, say, it felt like an itch. Accordingly, it is tempting to hold that phenomenal and representational properties are essential to the mental states that have them. But, as several theorists have forcefully argued (including Kripke (1980) and Burge (1979, 1982)) this attractive idea is seemingly in tension with another equally attractive thesis, namely, the token‐identity thesis; the thesis according to which every mental state token is identical with some or other token physical state. In this paper, we show that these seemingly incontrovertible essentialist intuitions are in fact compatible with “token physicalism” regarding the mental. Given a suitably plentitudinous ontology of objects, we argue that there are physical things with which our token mental states can be identified. This is preferable to existing views that give up the essentiality claims or simply reject the token‐identity thesis.

Can Neuroscientists Test a New Physicalist Mind/Body View: DiCoToP (Diachronic Conjunctive Token Physicalism)?

Given that disparate mind/body views have interfered with interdisciplinary research in psychoanalysis and neuroscience, the mind/body problem itself is explored here. Adding a philosophy of mind framework, problems for both dualists and physicalists are presented, along with essential concepts including: independent mental causation, emergence, and multiple realization. To address some of these issues in a new light, this article advances an original mind/body account—Diachronic Conjunctive Token Physicalism (DiCoToP). Next, puzzles DiCoTop reveals, psychoanalytic problems it solves, and some empirical evidence accrued for views consistent with DiCoToP are presented. In closing, this piece challenges/appeals for neuroscience research to gain evidence for (or against) the DiCoToP view.

Token physicalism and functional individuation

Token physicalism is often viewed as a modest and unproblematic physicalist commitment, as contrasted with type physicalism. This paper argues that the prevalence of functional individuation in biology creates serious problems for token physicalism, because the latter requires that biological entities can be individuated physically and without reference to biological functioning. After characterizing the main philosophical roles for token physicalism, I describe the distinctive uses of functional individuation in models of biological processes. I then introduce some requirements on token identity claims that arise from a position on individuation and identity known as sortalism. An examination of biological examples shows that these sortalist requirements cannot be plausibly met due to differences between individuation by functional biological criteria and by physical criteria. Even without assuming sortalism, token physicalism faces the more basic problem of excluding functionally irrelevant detail from the individuation of biological tokens. I close by suggesting that the philosophical roles for token identity are better fulfilled by a notion of token composition, which promotes a hierarchical picture of individuality.

Mind/body “hard problem” is not a category error

Reber’s Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC) has much to recommend it. However, while the CBC effectively renders null any ontological gap between mind and body, it leaves two important remaining gaps unaddressed: the epistemologic and the causal gap. Brakel’s (2013) Diachronic Conjunctive Token Physicalism (DiCoToP) is briefly introduced as a beginning remedy for the epistemologic, but unfortunately not the causal, gap. Thus the “hard problem” remains both hard and problematic.

On the Virtues of Cursory Scientific Reductions

Many philosophers accept a nonreductive physicalist view of at least some special sciences, which is to say that while they assert that each particular referent of any special science term is identical to some referent of a physical term, or token physicalism, they deny that special science types are identical to physical types. The most commonly cited reason for this position is Jerry Fodor's antireductionist argument based on the multiple realizability of many special science terms. I argue that if token physicalism is true, as nonreductive physicalists believe, then this multiple-realization argument fails to preclude reductive physicalism.

Token physicalism isnot immune to Kripke's essentialist anti-physicalist argument

Token physicalism isnot immune to Kripke's essentialist anti-physicalist argument

WHAT IS TOKEN PHYSICALISM?

Abstract: This paper investigates the thesis of token physicalism by examining what kinds of particulars there are and what it is for such particulars to be physical. It concludes that there is no coherent thesis of token physicalism that is strictly stronger than substance physicalism and strictly weaker than property physicalism on one or another of its interpretations, and spells out the implications of this for the project of defining minimal physicalism. In the course of the discussion the paper offers interpretations of the views of Davidson and Fodor and argues for an asymmetry between the concepts of the mental and the physical.

Nonreductive Materialism and Mental Causation

I take nonreductive materialism to be the conjunction of two theses, the first ontological, the second epistemological. The ontological thesis - token physicalism- is that mental events (processes, states, etc.) are tokenidentical to physical events; the epistemological thesis is that psychology is not reducible to physical theory in the classic sense of 'reduction,' according to which we reduce a theory to a another theory by deriving the laws of the former from the laws of the latter via 'bridge principles' linking the predicates of the reducing theory with the predicates of the reduced theory.

Confirmation and the computational paradigm (or: Why do you think they call itartificial intelligence?)

The idea that human cognitive capacities are explainable by computational models is often conjoined with the idea that, while the states postulated by such models are in fact realized by brain states, there are no type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states (a corollary of token physicalism). I argue that these ideas are not jointly tenable. I discuss the kinds of empirical evidence available to cognitive scientists for (dis)confirming computational models of cognition and argue that none of these kinds of evidence can be relevant to a choice among competing computational models unless there are in fact type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states. Thus, I conclude, research into the computational procedures employed in human cognition must be conducted hand-in-hand with research into the brain processes which realize those procedures.

Pollock on token physicalism, agent materialism and strong artificial intelligence

Abstract An examination of John Pollock's theory of artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind raises difficulties for his mechanist concept of person. Token physicalism, agent materialism, and strong artificial intelligence are so related that if the first two propositions are not well‐established, then there is no justification for believing that an artificial consciousness can be designed and built. Pollock's arguments are shown to be inconclusive in upholding a functionalist theory of persons as supervenient but purely physical entities. In part this is the result of Pollock's thin definition of the concept of supervenience, according to which any complex supervenes on its proper parts. The limitations of this account are apparent when contrasted with richer conceptions of supervenience, such as Joseph Margolis’. But on Margolis’ theory, the mind and its expressions supervene on or rise above their material embodiments in the sense that they cannot be fully explained in physical terms, which contr...

Physicalism: From Supervenience to Elimination

The varieties of physicalism and of anti-physicalism are customarily regarded as doctrines pertaining narrowly to the philosophy of mind. But they are, I believe, best seen as different and competing responses to a quite general problem, which can be posed in the following terms. In describing and explaining the world, we make use of many, apparently distinct, vocabularies; and these vocabularies derive from the sciences, both physical and special. (Let common sense count as an honorary special science.) Moreover, we usually take it that the entities and properties spoken of in these vocabularies are real; these entities and properties may be called the domains of the vocabularies. The problem, then, is to give some plausible general account of the relations between these vocabularies and also, less linguistically and more metaphysically, between their respective domains. An account of these relations will qualify as a version of physicalism to the extent that it assigns some descriptive and ontological priority or primacy to the physical vocabulary and its domain. Token physicalism is a physicalist account which unifies the different domains by insisting/that an ontology of events is constant throughout the sciences, so that all the sciences describe and explain the very same events, albeit at different levels; but it nonetheless accords physics a certain primacy, since physics alone is said to be completely general, that is, competent to describe and explain every event. But token physicalism is in my view unsatisfactory. In recent years, however, several philosophers have advanced a new version of physicalism which is claimed to enjoy the advantages of token physicalism without at the same time suffering its drawbacks. This version we may call supervenience physicalism (see Lewis 1983; Horgan 1981 and 1982; Haugeland 1982); and in what follows I shall criticise it. Like token physicalism, it constitutes an account of the relations between the different vocabularies and their domains; but unlike token physicalism, it does not affirm the token identity

Language adaptation Edited by Florian Coulmas (review)

BOOK NOTICES 393 Part 2, 'The ontological question', considers in more detail the ontological implications of the view discussed in Part 1 . One chapter contrasts Cs proposal with certain varieties of materialism , reductionism, and dualism, as well as token physicalism. Another chapter treats views that regard linguistic objects as social realities of some kind. The final chapter discusses, among other things, the Platonism of Jerrold Katz. Cs proposals are not convincing. As he notes (125-6), the sentence/utterance distinction is central to his view, reflecting a fundamental ontological divide. Yet, utterances must take their form from the 'intersubjective' entities he takes sentences to be. Thus, when fully elaborated, his framework must provide some realization of the sentence and other linguistic objects in individual psychology; it becomes unclear what is achieved by adopting Cs ontology. Linguistic research might adopt as its proper focus the psychological manifestations of his intersubjective realities. A further problem is that C nowhere explains why. if sentences are intersubjective realities, the prospect of intersubjective comparison or integration never comes up; his view is that rules exist only insofar as they express generalizations that are true of some group of individuals . How is it then that, even adopting Cs ontology, we would never be moved to ask whether some group of individuals actually agrees on the properties of a given sentence? Of course, if C were to agree that systematic (perhaps experimental) comparisons across individuals had some role to play in establishing the nature of the intersubjective realities he posits , then the methodological divide he sees between linguistics and more typical scientific enterprises would collapse, at least in principle. But it is exactly that divide that he sets out to explain. Cs book has a place among the readings in a graduate course in the philosophy of linguistics . The methodological contrast from which he begins has been a continuing source of confusion , and this work can help to focus discussion aimed at uncovering its sources and implications. [Wayne Cowart. University of Southern Maine.) Readings in translation theory. Ed. by Andrew Chesterman. Helsinki: Oy Finn Lectura Ab, 1989. Pp. 200. This book might have made a good textbook for a course in translation theory; unfortunately, it is not one. Only one point comes across clearly in this anthology, namely, that good translation is hard work. The unsatisfactoriness of this collection of papers cannot be attributed to the various authors, among whom are John Dryden on 'Metaphrase , paraphrase, and imitation' (7-12), Roman Jakobson with 'On linguistic aspects of translation' (53-60), J. C. Catford on 'Translation shifts' (70-9), and Eugene A. Nida on 'Science of translation' (81-98). The book's shortcomings are primarily due to the editing. Chesterman's selections are too brief to convey any well-reasoned point: the average length of the sixteen articles here is under twelve pages. (Actually, it is little more than ten, if one discounts the editor's introduction for each paper.) No depth of thought on the involved subject of translation can be developed in so little space. Worse still, a number of the selections were not written to stand independently as they do here; the editor lifted them out of the middle of longer works. Chesterman does provide just enough background to make these articles almost comprehensible on their own, but the reader still aches to understand the authors' full contexts. The psychological effect of reading through this book is that of walking into a university building and standing by the door of each classroom for only five minutes. Mechanical lapses in the editing mar the book as well: one finds throughout the use of the hyphen for the em-dash, noncompound words inexplicably hyphenated in the middle of lines, assorted typos, and a line dittography (9-10). The editor has translated a number of the articles from French and German for this allEnglish anthology. I cannot vouch for the translations , but they generally read smoothly and coherently. The editor intended this book to serve as an overall introduction to the field of translation theory (5); at best the reader will make an acquaintance with the names ofa handful of translation theorists. [Brian M. Sietsema, Meniam-Webster. Inc...

One Epistemological Interfield Relation

In recent decades, much work has been directed toward clarifying the logical relations among various sciences. Because of an emphasis on the logical aspects of interfield relations, the issue of scientific unity often wore a distinctly logical mantle.1 For example, Robert Causey, a prominent philosopher of this tradition, has linked scientific unity and progress to a project of successive microreductions. He states, “Other things being equal, we tend to feel that our understanding of a class of phenomena increases as we develop increasingly general and intuitively unified theories of that class of phenomena. It is therefore natural to consider the possibility of one very general, unified theory which, at least in principle, governs all known phenomena.” (1977, p. 1)Kinds of unity separable from reductive logical unity have, of course, been proposed; these include reductive and nonreductive unities of method, translation, and ontology. For example, J.A. Fodor (1974) has argued for a broad kind of ontological unity of token physicalism, and against type reduction.

How To Build a Person: The Physical Basis for Mentality

1. Physicalism Human beings are endowed with a rich mental life. We observe the physical world around us with our ordinary senses, but we also observe the occurrence in us of pains, visual, tactual, and auditory sensations, thoughts, fears, desires, etc. We label the latter 'mental occurrences', and they become the subject of wonder. Specifically, we would like to know how mental occurrences are related to physical occurrences. It is my conviction that mental occurrences are physical occurrences of a certain sort (token physicalism) and people are physical objects (agent materialism). I have argued elsewhere (Pollock [1987]) that there are good reasons, having to do with the efficient use of limited computing power and limited memory, why a cognitive machine should have internal sensors for sensing some of its own internal (physical) states. On that basis I argued that the best explanation for our observations about our own mental occurrences is that they are the product of such internal sensing of some of our own internal physical states, and hence these mental occurrences are also physical occurrences. What we have here are two different sensory modes that are able to respond to some of the same occurrences, just as vision and touch both sense normal macroscopic occurrences in our immediate surroundings, and vision and proprioception both sense the movements of our limbs. In fact, introspection of mental occurrences is strongly parallel to the proprioceptive sensing of bodily movements. In each case we

Functionalism and token physicalism

Functionalism and token physicalism

McGinn, Token Physicalism, and a Rejoinder of Woodfield

McGinn, Token Physicalism, and a Rejoinder of Woodfield

McGinn, token physicalism, and a rejoinder of Woodfield

McGinn, token physicalism, and a rejoinder of Woodfield

Token physicalism, supervenience, and the generality of physics

Token physicalism, supervenience, and the generality of physics