Laying ghosts to rest
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21370593 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Donnchadh O’Conaill (0000-0003-0317-6020, University of Fribourg, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 179 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 429-445 |
| Publication date | 2022-02-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophical Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8116 • E-ISSN: 1573-0883 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11098-021-01665-6 |
| PMID | 35250096 |
| OpenAlex | W3168672607 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 29 |
One of the most widely-discussed arguments against physcialism appeals to the conceivability of zombies, being which are physically or functionally identical to humans but which have no conscious experiences. Philip Goff (Philos Phenomenol Res 81(1): 119–139, 2010; Consci Cognit 21(2): 742–746, 2012a; in Sprevak M, Kallestrup J (eds) New waves in philosophy of mind. Palgrave, 2014) has recently presented a number of different anti-physicalist arguments appealing to the conceivability of ghosts, entities whose nature is exhausted by their being conscious. If ghosts are conceivable, this would rule out a priori physicalism. If the conceivability of ghosts entails that they are metaphysically possible, then this forms the basis for arguments against a posteriori physicalism. Drawing on work on conceivability by Peter Kung (Philos Phenomenol Res 81(3):620–663, 2010, Noûs 50(1): 90–120, 2016) and my own discussion of arguments which appeal to the conceivability of zombies (O’Conaill in Mihretu P Guta (ed) Consciousness and the ontology of properties. Routledge, New York, 2019), I shall argue that ghosts are conceivable, but that what allows us to conceive of them (our ability to make certain stipulations about the scenarios we conceive) undermines the belief that conceivability is a reliable guide to possibility. While this does not undermine Goff’s argument against a priori phyiscalism, it suggests that a posteriori physicalists need not be haunted by ghosts
A priori and a posteriori · Appeal · Argument (complex analysis) · Consciousness · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Ontology · Philosophy of mind · Physicalism · Chemistry · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
What Am I?
The Contents of Visual Experience
Does Conceivability Entail Possibility?
Cartesian Substance Dualism
The New Aristotelian Essentialists
A Brief History of the Soul
The Reality of Consciousness
Rational Imagination and Modal Knowledge
Ghosts are still scarier than zombies – Reply to Diaz-Leon’s reply to ‘A priori physicalism, lonely ghosts and Cartesian doubt’
Are ghosts scarier than zombies
A priori physicalism, lonely ghosts and cartesian doubt
Essence and Modality
Possibility and Imagination
Conceivability and possibility
Against the reduction of modality to essence
Essentialist modal rationalism
What Is It Like to Be a Bat
There Are Brute Necessities
Is Conceivability a Guide to Possibility
Ghosts and Sparse Properties
Imagining as a Guide to Possibility
| Highly cited | No |
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