[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

is itself deeply puzzling. A way to put the problem of duality is just this: how could
anything like a point of view exist?
It's important to emphasize, in considering possible solutions to this puzzle, something
else Nagel has pointed out. Though we are fond of presenting the puzzle of conscious
experience as a matter of the conflict between materialism and our subjective, intuitive
conception of our experience, it isn't really physicality that presents the problem. The
point is that merely positing a new kind of property call it a basic mental property
doesn't really shed any light on how to understand conscious awareness. This is why even
non-materialist theories or neutral monist theories like Russell's (1927) have a
problem. The point is that if nature just has a richer stock of basic properties than we
thought so that reddishness is somehow included in the base, or maybe proto-
reddishness it's not clear how subjectivity, the cognitive relation constitutive of a point
of view, can be explained in terms of these properties. Yes, we can say that reddishness is
instantiated in a basic way; the question how this fact becomes a fact  for me is still
pressing.
As I said above in section 1.4, I've not really attempted to address various non-standard
alternatives to materialism in this book. I don't expect my brief remarks above to
convince anyone who is interested in pursuing such alternatives that there is no prospect
of success. Perhaps there is a way to make them work; if so, there clearly is a need for
further research in that direction. For the purposes of this book, I hope to have established
that, at least with respect to traditional attempts to understand the place of conscious
experience in the natural world, we really do continue to face a genuine puzzle. The
mind-body problem is still a problem.
Notes
Introduction
1. This is in fact a title by Dretske (1995), but the phrase is used by many others.
2. My convention is to use quotes to indicate terms in natural language, angle brackets to
indicate mental representations, and upper-case letters for contents (or concepts).
3. See Dretske (1981), Fodor (1990), and Millikan (1984).
4. See Fodor and Lepore (1992) and (1993). This is a topic to which we will return.
5. Note I am using  reddish to refer to a feature of my experience, not the surface of the
diskette case. Throughout the book I will use terms like  red and  green to refer to
features of physical surfaces, and  reddish and  greenish to refer to features of
experiences. I don't intend thereby to beg any questions about the existence of either sort
of feature. I will deal with the eliminativist argument that properties like reddishness
don't exist, and the reductionist argument that reddishness is really just red, in due course.
6. I include under  physical here functional properties as well.
7. It may seem odd to refer to the nomic relation between a symbol and its referent as a
 mode of presentation, since by that term one might intend precisely that which is
cognitively present to the subject. However, a mode of presentation is also that feature of
a representation by which it brings the subject into contact with the object of her thought,
and it is this feature that nomic relations share with traditional modes of presentation. At
any rate I will continue to speak of modes of presentation in this extended sense. I am
indebted to William Taschek for pointing out this oddity in my use of the term.
8. The contrast I'm after between the modes of presentation of qualitative properties and
other properties (or objects) is perhaps captured in Russell's (1959) distinction between
 knowledge by acquaintance and  knowledge by description. We are acquainted with
the contents of experience, but not with anything else. Since I don't want anything in my
discussion to depend either on interpretations of Russell or on the epistemological
purposes for which he employed this distinction, I will forbear from using this
terminology.
9. By  phenomenal concepts I mean our concepts of phenomenal properties, or qualia.
Of course what I have described as distinctive is their modes of presentation, but for most
purposes these can be identified with the concepts themselves.
10. Whether subjectivity infects the problem of intentionality itself depends on whether
conscious contents must be different in kind from non-conscious ones. If so, then there
are two problems of intentionality, and only with respect to non-conscious intentionality
is the naturalistic approach described above promising. On the other hand, it might be
that for both conscious and non-conscious representational states the theory of their
content might be the same, but there is something added in the nature of the relation
between the subject and the relevant content when it comes to conscious experience. This
seems to be McGinn's (1997) view. I discuss this view briefly in chapter 4 (note 39).
Searle (1992) argues that there is no proper notion of non-conscious intentionality, so he
is not at all impressed by the alleged progress in the naturalization project described
above. I do not share his view, since I think the sort of non-conscious information
processing posited by most of cognitive science involves genuine representation. But as
this is beside the point here, I will not argue for this claim.
Chapter 1
1. See Shoemaker (1984) for an argument that property individuation depends on causal
role. Kim (1993) argues that for a property to be real it must play a causal role.
2. We would have to be careful to exclude negative properties which are described using
physical terminology, such as the property of not having extension. I am not going to
worry about exactly how this would go.
3. I will generally use  [] to indicate properties.
4. See Carroll (1994) for a defense of the view that laws cannot be analyzed in non-
nomological terms.
5. Thus realization at least amounts to supervenience of the realized properties on the
realizing properties.
6. I assume the relation of realization is transitive. Thus if mental properties are realized
by neurophysiological properties, and they in turn by biochemical properties, and they in
turn by basic physical properties, the mental properties count as realized by the basic
physical properties.
7. See Putnam (1991) and Fodor (1974) for classic statements of this objection to the
Identity Theory. Not everyone finds the objection compelling. See Hill (1991) for a
dissenting opinion.
8. I hope it's obvious that I am not pretending to provide here a realistic
neurophysiological account of sleep.
9. I will adopt the shorter expression  basic property for  property realized in a basic
way, except where confusion will result.
10. This principle is often called the  Causal Closure of the Physical. See Kim (1993).
11. Let me emphasize here that I'm not talking about a theory that takes us all the way to
fundamental physics. Rather, I'm talking about one that takes us to neuroscience. I
assume that neural properties in turn are realized in more basic biochemical properties,
and then eventually it all bottoms out in fundamental physics. Realization, as mentioned
in note 6, is transitive.
12. I don't mean to be ruling out connectionist theories here. They are formal theories,
too, in the sense relevant to this discussion.
13. I take this to be a version of what Yablo (1990) has in mind by his version (4) of
dualism, the claim,  I could have existed with my thought properties alone (152).
14. For arguments along these lines see Crane and Mellor (1990) and Chomsky (1988). [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]