Why Do Colours Look the Way They Do?

AbstractA major part of the mind–body problem is to explain why a given set of physical processes should give rise to perceptual qualities of one sort rather than another. Colour hues are the usual example considered here, and there is a lively debate as to whether the results of colour vision science can provide convincing explanations of why colours actually look the way they do. The internal phenomenological structure of colours is considered here in some detail, and a comparison is drawn with sounds and their synthesis. This paper examines the type of explanation that is needed, and it is concluded that it does not have to be reductive to be effective. What needs to be explained more than anything is why inverted hue scenarios are more intuitive than other sensory inversions: and the issue of physicalism versus dualism is argued to be of only marginal relevance.

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'Erro de Descartes' ou Erro de um Título?

Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/philosophica19964710 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 4 (7) ◽

pp. 163-170

Author(s):

Maria Luísa Ribeiro Ferreira ◽

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

Body Interaction ◽

Central Thesis ◽

Broad Concept ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The Mind ◽

Philosophical Questions ◽

The Way

In this article we summarize the central thesis of A. Damásio in his book Descartes' Error. We appreciate the scientifical interest of this work but we criticize the way some philosophical questions are stated, namely the concept of reason and Descartes’ contribution to the mind - body problem. When Damásio accuses Descartes of being guilty for sustaining a «disimbodied mind», he forgets the works where this philosopher explores the mind-body interaction and his broad concept of thinking as including feeling and will. Therefore, we question the title of this work and the false expectations it can produce on his readers.

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Bruteness and Supervenience

10.1093/oso/9780198758600.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Joseph Levine

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

The Other ◽

Robust Realism ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The One ◽

The Mind ◽

The Way

This chapter first presents a framework, one that the author has defended elsewhere (Levine 2001), for understanding the notion of bruteness, its relation to modality, and the way this framework applies to the mind–body problem. Second, the chapter then turns to a problem in meta-ethics and attempts to address this problem within the framework already established. The problem is how to reconcile two views that many philosophers, including the author, are inclined to hold: on the one hand, “robust realism” or “non-naturalism” about the ethical and, on the other, the supervenience of the ethical on the non-ethical. The chapter speculates about how one might reasonably reconcile these two views.

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The Mind–Body Problem and Explanatory Dualism

Philosophy ◽

10.1017/s003181910000005x ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 75 (1) ◽

pp. 49-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Nicholas Maxwell

Keyword(s):

Physical Theory ◽

Body Problem ◽

Scientific Explanation ◽

Physical Processes ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The Mind ◽

Solvable Problems

An important part of the mind–brain problem arises because consciousness seems inherently resistant to scientific explanation. The solution to this dilemma is to recognize, first, that scientific explanation can only render comprehensible a selected aspect of what there is, and second, that there is a mode of explanation, the personalistic, different from, irreducible to, but as viable as, scientific explanation, in terms of which consciousness can be understood. The problem of explaining why experiential or mental aspects of brain processes or things should be correlated with certain physical processes or things is a non-problem because there is no kind of explanation possible in terms of which an explanation could be couched. A physical theory, amplified to include the experiential, might be predictive but would, necessarily, cease to be explanatory; and an amplified personalistic explanation could not succeed either. There is, in short, an explanation as to why there cannot be an explanation of correlations between physical and mental aspects of processes going on inside our heads. Despite this, there are important, as yet unsolved but solvable problems of knowledge and understanding concerning such correlations. The central serious task for research is to discover how the two explanatory accounts of what goes on inside our heads, physical and personal, are inter-related.

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The Undivided Self

10.1093/oso/9780198869566.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David Charles

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

Systematic Investigation ◽

Material World ◽

Critical Scrutiny ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

Set Up ◽

The Mind ◽

Physical Phenomena ◽

Philosophical Understanding ◽

The Way

Aristotle initiated the systematic investigation of perception, the emotions, memory, desire, and action, developing his own account of these phenomena and their interconnection. My aim is to gain a philosophical understanding of his views and to examine how far they withstand critical scrutiny. Aristotle’s approach calls into question the way in which our, post-Cartesian, mind–body problem is set up. He was guided throughout by a conception of both the psychological and the material that was rejected by those who originally formulated and subsequently sought to address our problem. His views challenge basic aspects of today’s conventional thinking about psycho-physical phenomena and their place in a material world. They offer the resources to dissolve, rather than solve, the mind–body problem we have inherited.

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The Mind-Body Problem Revisited

Contemporary Psychology ◽

10.1037/0013579 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 20 (8) ◽

pp. 660-660

Author(s):

MADGE SCHEIBEL ◽

ARNOLD SCHEIBEL

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The Mind

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Zombies and Dolls

10.1093/oso/9780198728443.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Marcello Massimini ◽

Giulio Tononi

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

Thought Experiments ◽

Turing Test ◽

Hard Problem ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The Hard Problem ◽

The Mind ◽

The Brain

This chapter uses thought experiments and practical examples to introduce, in a very accessible way, the hard problem of consciousness. Soon, machines may behave like us to pass the Turing test and scientists may succeed in copying and simulating the inner workings of the brain. Will all this take us any closer to solving the mysteries of consciousness? The reader is taken to meet different kind of zombies, the philosophical, the digital, and the inner ones, to understand why many, scientists and philosophers alike, doubt that the mind–body problem will ever be solved.

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Brute Necessity and the Mind–Body Problem

10.1093/oso/9780198758600.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

James Van Cleve

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

Necessary Truths ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The Mind

In a growing number of papers one encounters arguments to the effect that certain philosophical views are objectionable because they would imply that there are necessary truths for whose necessity there is no explanation. For short, they imply that there are brute necessities. Therefore, the arguments conclude, the views in question should be rejected in favor of rival views under which the necessities would be explained. This style of argument raises a number of questions. Do necessary truths really require explanation? Are they not paradigms of truths that either need no explanation or automatically have one, being in some sense self-explanatory? If necessary truths do admit of explanation or even require it, what types of explanation are available? Are there any necessary truths that are truly brute? This chapter surveys various answers to these questions, noting their bearing on arguments from brute necessity and arguments concerning the mind–body problem.

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