首頁最新消息系辦公告 [學術演講] Might There be No ‘Metaphysics of Consciousness’? (4/20)

[學術演講] Might There be No ‘Metaphysics of Consciousness’? (4/20)

Might There be No ‘Metaphysics of Consciousness’?

Benj Hellie (University of Toronto)

Abstract:

As far back as Descartes and Leibniz, philosophers of the West have shuddered to think that reality contains components so manifestly unlike as the mental and the physical -- with the evidently perverse consequence that, as I type this, some immaterial soul pellet exerts supernatural force over my fingers -- the Mind--Body Problem. Fortunately, Quine has introduced us to 'semantic ascent': having reasoned our way through to perverse consequences, we should re-examine the language of our premisses, in hope of finding that we have in some way misused it. A prominent form of conclusion of semantic ascent, prompted most famously by anxiety that the physical should share reality with the *evaluative*, is 'expressivism': announcing, for instance, 'it is wrong to steal' merely expresses a distaste for theft, and does not depict reality at all.

So -- might the Mind--Body Problem likewise fall to expressivism?