From last time Abductive argument for materialism The Abductive Argument Heres an argument against Berkeley Look the existence of a mindindependent reality is the best explanation for our experiences If tables and chairs etc were just ideas that wouldnt explain why every ID: 407280
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Slide1
PhysicalismSlide2
From last time: Abductive argument for materialismSlide3
The Abductive Argument
Here’s an argument against Berkeley:
“Look, the existence of a mind-independent reality is the
best explanation
for our experiences. If tables and chairs etc. were ‘just ideas’ that wouldn’t explain why everyone looking in the same place sees the same thing.”Slide4
Reply
: This requires that the physical objects cause our ideas. But no-one has
any clue
how physical-to-mental causation is supposed to work. So this can’t be the
best
explanation.Slide5
Furthermore, according to
corpuscularianism
, our ideas are caused (mysteriously) by the shape size and motion of the corpuscles acting on our sensory organs. But:
(a) Shape, size, and motion
are
ideas
(b) Ideas are passive: they cannot cause a
change in other ideas
.__________________
(c) Therefore, shape, size, and motion can’t cause a change in our ideas.Slide6
Outstanding Issues
OK, but how can Berkeley explain:
The fact that our experiences are regular and lawful.
The fact that our experiences are inter-subjectively verified.
The fact that there’s a difference between hallucination, imagination, and sensing.
The fact that tables and chairs exist even when no one is perceiving them.Slide7
Berkeley’s MetaphysicsSlide8
RegularitySlide9
Inter-SubjectivitySlide10
HallucinationSlide11
PersistenceSlide12
Why Believe It?
(a) Ideas can’t cause ideas; they are passive
(b) Physical substances can’t either; they don’t
exist_________________________________
(c) Presumably, then, a mental substance must be the cause.Slide13
The Mind is Not Me
It
is clear that I produce some of my ideas, as in imagination.
But most of my ideas are not produced by my own will; so they must be produced by the will of another.Slide14
The Mind is Wise and Benevolent
Sense ideas (a) are more strong, lively, and distinct than the ideas of imagination and (b) have a steadiness, order, and coherence lacking in the
latter.
Berkeley says these facts testify to the “wisdom and benevolence of [their] author”Slide15
receptionSlide16
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Samuel Johnson was a poet and essayist in Britain, one of the most important British literary figures, and a contemporary of Berkeley.
James Boswell, his biographer, conveys the following story in
Life of Samuel Johnson
.Slide17
Samuel Johnson vs. Berkeley
“After
we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it
– “I
refute it
thus
.””Slide18
reductionismSlide19
Life Force
Most cultures throughout history have believed in some sort of “life force.”
Qi in China,
prana
in India, or élan vital in the West.Slide20
Vitalism
“
Vitalists
hold that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things
.”
--“
Vitalism
,”
Routeledge
Encylopedia
of PhilosophySlide21
Vitalism
After the advent of chemistry in the West, “
vitalism
” was associated with testable scientific claims. For example:
No organic material can be made from only inorganic components.
Certain processes (e.g. respiration, fermentation) require living organisms to take place.Slide22
Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid
1
st
DOCTOR:
Most
learned bachelor
Whom I esteem and honor,
I would like to ask you the cause and reason why
Opium makes one sleep
.
ARGAN:
...The reason is that in opium resides
A
dormitive
virtue
,
Of which it is the nature
To stupefy the senses.Slide23
The Wöhler
Synthesis
In 1828, German
chemist Friedrich
Wöhler
synthesized the organic chemical urea from inorganic materials.
(Now we know how to synthesize them all.)Slide24
The Periodic Table
41 years later, Dmitri Mendeleev published a periodic table of the elements. It wasn’t the first such table, but it was the first to rearrange elements out of strict atomic-weight order and to leave gaps where the known elements didn’t fit.Slide25
Quantum Mechanics
Subsequently, the development of quantum mechanics in physics allowed us to explain the periodic chemical features that appear in the table in terms of the physical properties of each element.Slide26
Reductions
Biological
↓
Chemical
↓
PhysicalSlide27
Reductions
Mental? Moral? Modal?
↓?
Biological
↓
Chemical
↓
PhysicalSlide28
Dependence Slide29
Physicalism
Physicalism
says that only physical objects and only physical properties exist.
Does that mean that the three spooky M’s don’t exist? What is it for
everything
to be physical?Slide30
Modality
There are ways that the world
is
. For example, donkeys are not, in fact, capable of speech.
But there are also ways that the world
could have been
. Donkeys could have been able to talk, even though in fact they can’t.Slide31
Could Have ExistedSlide32
Possible Worlds
Philosophers like to talk about “possible worlds.”
In this way of talking, every way that our world could have been is a way that some world is.
So, for example, there’s a possible world where donkeys talkSlide33
It could have been true that P
=
In some world it is true that PSlide34
Seurat, La Seine á L
a Grande-
JatteSlide35
Seurat, La Seine á L
a Grande-
JatteSlide36
Supervenience
The A-properties supervene on the B-properties =
def
any two possible worlds with the same B-properties have the same A-properties.Slide37
Problem
Ectoplasmic
gooSlide38
Physicalism
So we might say that
physicalism
is the following claim:
All properties supervene on physical properties. Any two worlds with all the same physical properties have all the same properties.Slide39
What is “physical”?Slide40
Physicalism
says that only physical objects and only physical properties exist.
But what does it mean for something to be
physical
?Slide41
First Pass
A property or object is physical =
def
that property or object appears in the laws of physics (as they now stand).Slide42
The Standard ModelSlide43
Things That Might Be Missing
A theory of gravity. Some physicists believe there are particles called gravitons.
A theory of dark matter. Our best guess is that this will involve WIMPs: weakly interacting massive particles.
Supersymmetry
: although there’s no evidence, a lot of our physical theory would be simplified if some of the standard particles had “
superpartners
.”Slide44
Main Issue
Main issue: standard physics is either wrong or only partly right. There are things (though we don’t know what) that it does not talk about.
If the physical things are the things physics talks about, then
physicalism
is false: not everything is a thing physics talks about.Slide45
Second Pass
Suppose that we have an extremely long time to investigate the universe, and that we’re all really committed (and good) scientists, and that we have unlimited funding and manpower for our investigations. Eventually we come to a satisfying physical theory that every one of us agrees to. Call this the Ideal Final Theory.Slide46
Second Pass
A property or object is physical =
def
that property or object appears in the Ideal Final Theory.Slide47
Main Issue
Isn’t it possible that the Ideal Final Theory = Subjective Idealism? If Subjective Idealism counts as
physicalism
, then everything counts as
physicalism
.Slide48
Hempel’s Dilemma
Either (a) we define
physicalism
as the thesis that everything is something that current physics talks about OR (b) we define it as the thesis that everything is something that physics should or would (in an ideal situation) talk about.Slide49
Hempel’s Dilemma
If (a), then
physicalism
is probably false.
If (b), then
physicalism
is true, but trivially so: it’s true no matter what the facts are.Slide50
False Dilemma
But it’s not true that those are the only ways to define
physicalism
. In fact, those are bad definitions.
Surely there are possible worlds that have nothing but physical things in them, but don’t have any of the things our world has in it.Slide51
Or Are There?
Or maybe there’s no sense to be made of a physical/ non-physical distinction.