Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness (Jean Nicod Lectures)

Physicalism is the idea that if everything that goes on in the universe is physical, our consciousness and feelings must also be physical. Ever since Descartes formulated the mind-body problem, a long line of philosophers has found the physicalist view to be preposterous. According to John Perry, the history of the mind-body problem is, in part, the slow victory of physical monism over various forms of dualism. Each new version of dualism claims that surely something more is going on with us than the merely physical. In this book Perry defends a view that he calls antecedent physicalism. He takes on each of three major arguments against physicalism, showing that they pose no threat to antecedent physicalism. These arguments are the zombie argument (that there is a possible world inhabited by beings that are physically indiscernible from us but not conscious), the knowledge argument (that we can know facts about our own feelings that are not just physical facts, thereby proving physicalism false), and the modal argument (that the identity of sensation and brain state is contingent, but since there is no such thing as contingent identity, sensations are not brain states). Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness: Index - Index......Page 1 page 1......Page 2 page 2......Page 3 page 3......Page 4 Copyright notice......Page 5 page 5......Page 6 page 6......Page 7 Copyright notice......Page 8 page 8......Page 9 page 9......Page 10 page 10......Page 11 page 11......Page 12 page 12......Page 13 page 13......Page 14 page 14......Page 15 page 15......Page 16 page 16......Page 17 page 17......Page 18 page 18......Page 19 page 19......Page 20 page 20......Page 21 page 21......Page 22 page 22......Page 23 page 23......Page 24 page 24......Page 25 page 25......Page 26 page 26......Page 27 page 27......Page 28 page 28......Page 29 page 29......Page 30 page 30......Page 31 page 31......Page 32 page 32......Page 33 page 33......Page 34 page 34......Page 35 page 35......Page 36 page 36......Page 37 page 37......Page 38 page 38......Page 39 page 39......Page 40 page 40......Page 41 Copyright notice......Page 42

a Defense Of Antecedent Physicalism, Which Argues Against The Idea That If Everything That Goes On In The Universe Is Physical, Our Consciousness And Feelings Must Also Be Physical.

The episode in Fantastic Voyage assumes that it is conceivable that one might observe, using one's physical senses, a thought or experience of another.