The Waning of Materialism

by Robert C. Koons (Editor), George Bealer (Editor)

Overview

Twenty-three philosophers examine the doctrine of materialism find it wanting. The case against materialism comprises arguments from conscious experience, from the unity and identity of the person, from intentionality, mental causation, and knowledge. The contributors include leaders in the fields of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, who respond ably to the most recent versions and defences of materialism. The modal arguments of Kripke and Chalmers, Jackson’s knowledge argument, Kim’s exclusion problem, and Burge’s anti-individualism all play a part in the building of a powerful cumulative case against the materialist research program. Several papers address the implications of contemporary brain and cognitive research (the psychophysics of color perception, blindsight, and the effects of commissurotomies), adding a posteriori arguments to the classical a priori critique of reductionism. All of the current versions of materialism — reductive and non-reductive, functionalist, eliminativist, and new wave materialism — come under sustained and trenchant attack. In addition, a wide variety of alternatives to the materialist conception of the person receive new and illuminating attention, including anti-materialist versions of naturalism, property dualism, Aristotelian and Thomistic hylomorphism, and non-Cartesian accounts of substance dualism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191614019
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	03/25/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	19 MB
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About the Author

Robert C. Koons is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas — Austin. Koons studied at Michigan State, Oxford, and UCLA. He is the author of Paradoxes of Belief and Strategic Rationality (Cambridge, 1993), and Realism Regained (OUP, 2000). George Bealer is Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of Quality and Concept (OUP, 1982)

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Part I Arguments from Consciousness

1 Against Materialism Laurence Bonjour 3

2 A Simple View of Consciousness Adam Pautz 25

3 Saving Appearances: A Dilemma for Physicalists Charles Siewert 67

4 The Property Dualism Argument Stephen L. White 89

5 Kripke's Argument Against Materialism Eli Hirsch 115

6 The Self-Consciousness Argument: Functionalism and the Corruption of Content George Bealer 137

Part II Arguments from Unity and Identity

7 You are Simple David Burnett 161

8 Persons and the Unity of Consciousness William Hasker 175

9 An Argument from Transtemporal Identity for Subject-Body Dualism Martine Nida-Rümelin 191

Part III Intentionality, Mental Causation, and Knowledge

10 Burge's Dualism Bernard W. Kobes 215

11 Modest Dualism Tyler Burge 233

12 Descartes' Revenge Part II: The Supervenience Argument Strikes Back Neal Judisch 251

13 Nonreductive Physicalism or Emergent Dualism? The Argument from Mental Causation Timothy O'Connor John Ross Churchill 261

14 Epistemological Objections to Materialism Robert C. Koons 281

Part IV Alternatives to materialism

15 Materialism, Minimal Emergentism, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness Terry Horgan 309

16 Dualizing Materialism Michael Jubien 331

17 Dualistic Materialism Joseph Almog 349

18 Varieties of Naturalism Maria.De.Caro 365

19 Against Methodological Materialism Angus J. L. Menuge 375

20 Soul, Mind, and Brain Brian Leftow 395

21 Materialism Does Not Save the Phenomena-and the Alternative Which Does Uwe Meixner 417

22 Substance Dualism: A Non-Cartesian Approach E. J. Lowe 439

Bibliography 463

Index 483