Property dualism

What does property dualism claim (spec point)

There are at least some mental properties that are neither reducible to nor supervenient upon physical properties

Main principles of property dualism

There is only one substance: physical. Brains have 2 types of properties: physical and mental.

What are mental properties (for property dualism)

non physical properties that arise from physical substances

What is supervenience

Supervenience is a relationship between two kinds of thing. If something supervenes on something else, then it is dependent on that thing.

What is a philosophical zombie?

is a person who is physically and functionally identical to an ordinary human – except they don’t have any qualia.

The philosophical zombies argument (David Chalmers)

- Philosophical zombies are conceivable

-If philosophical zombies are conceivable then philosophical zombies are (metaphysically) possible

-If philosophical zombies are (metaphysically) possible then qualia are non-physical

- If qualia are non-physical then physicalism is false, property dualism is true

Therefore, property dualism is true

Response to Chalmers: A philosophical zombie is not conceivable

If it behaves as a human, it must have some sort of conscious experience. to claim otherwise is a contradiction. Consciousness arises from physical/functional processes in the brain, so the zombie would have to have this

Response to Chalmers: what is conceivable might not be metaphysically possible

Kripke: we can conceive of water being something other than H2O, this doesn't make it metaphysically possible. H2O is its essential property, this cannot change. Water is H2O is a necessary truth.

Response to chalmers: what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the actual world

Putnam: even if we could imagine a world where p-zombies exist, this tells us nothing about whether that world could reflect the actual nature of consciousness in our own world. metaphysical possibility does not inform us about the structure of reality

Mary Argument for property dualism

Mary is confined to a black-and-white room, is educated through black-and-white books and lectures relayed on a black-and-white television. In this way she learns everything there is to know about the physical nature of the world. She knows all the physical facts about us and our environment. If physicalism is true, she knows all there is to know. It seems, however, that Mary does not know all there is to know. For when she is let out of the black-and-white room or given a color television, she will learn what it is like to see something red, say. she learns her qualia. Hence, physicalism is false.

Ability Knowledge Response- Mary's Room

Applied to the original Mary case, some argue when Mary sees red for the first time all she does is gain new abilities. She gains the ability to imagine red, for example. She also gains the ability to distinguish red sensory experiences from green sensory experiences.

acquaintance knowledge response to Mary's room

She can know all the physical facts about red - what it is, when people see it, how they react to it, etc. - without being acquainted with redness itself.

Mary is not acquainted with redness because her own brain has never had this property itself. But when she sees red for the first time the property occurs in her brain and she becomes acquainted with redness. Mary gains new knowledge from being acquainted with redness in this way.

New knowledge/old fact response

Before she left the black and white room, Mary only knew about redness in theoretical terms. But when she leaves and sees red she gains a new concept: the phenomenal concept. And it’s impossible to know what it’s like to see red without this concept.

We can argue that this phenomenal concept just provides a different way of understanding the same underlying fact.

So, Mary doesn’t learn any new, non-physical fact. She just learns a different way of understanding the same fact.