Causal Essentialism versus the Zombie Worlds

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Jonathan Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Logical Possibility ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Causal Essentialism

David Chalmers claims that the logical possibility of ‘zombie worlds’ — worlds physically indiscernible from the actual world, but that lack consciousness — reveal that consciousness is a distinct fact, or property, in addition to the physical facts or properties.The ‘existence’ or possibility of Zombie worlds violates the physicalist demand that consciousness logically supervene upon the physical. On the assumption that the logical supervenience of consciousness upon the physical is, indeed, a necessary entailment of physicalism, the existence of zombie worlds implies the falsity of physicalism. How do we determine the logical possibility of zombie worlds? By conceptual analysis of the concepts involved, keeping empirical facts in mind.

Philosophical and Conceptual Analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. King
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Physical State ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Paradox Of Analysis ◽  
Relevant Notion

This article examines the main lines of contemporary thinking about analysis in philosophy. It first considers G. E. Moore’s statement of the paradox of analysis. It then reviews a number of accounts of analysis that address the paradox of analysis, including the account offered by Ernest Sosa 1983 and others by Felicia Ackerman (1981, 1986, 1991); the latter gives an account of analysis on which properties are the objects of analysis. It also discusses Jeffrey C. King’s (1998, 2007) accounts of philosophical analysis, before turning to views of analysis that are not aimed at addressing the paradox of analysis, including those associated with David Lewis, Frank Jackson, and David Chalmers. In particular, it comments on Lewis’s argument that conceptual analysis is simply a means for picking out the physical state that occupies a certain role, where formulating what that role is constitutes a conceptual analysis of the relevant notion.

A POSITIVIST ROUTE FOR EXPLAINING HOW FACTS MAKE LAW

Legal Theory ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Plunkett
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Legal Norm ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
Legal Institution ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Rational Relation ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Two Stages

In “How Facts Make Law” and other recent work, Mark Greenberg argues that legal positivists cannot develop a viable constitutive account of law that meets what he calls the “the rational-relation requirement.” He argues that this gives us reason to reject positivism in favor of antipositivism. In this paper, I argue that Greenberg is wrong: positivists can in fact develop a viable constitutive account of law that meets the rational-relation requirement. I make this argument in two stages. First, I offer an account of the rational-relation requirement. Second, I put forward a viable positivist account of law that I argue meets this requirement. The account that I propose is a version of Scott Shapiro's Planning Theory of Law. The version of Shapiro's account that I propose combines (1) the account of concepts and conceptual analysis put forward by David Chalmers and Frank Jackson with (2) the account of the conceptlegal institution(and its conceptual connections to the conceptlegal norm) that we get from a certain reading of Shapiro's Planning Theory. In addition to providing a compelling response to Greenberg's argument in “How Facts Make Law,” I argue that the explanation for why my response to Greenberg works underscores one of the central problems facing legal antipositivism: namely, its lack of a convincing account of the nature of legal institutions.

Ecological Limits and the Meaning of Freedom: A Defense of Liberty as Non-Domination

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Augustin Fragnière
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Global Environmental Problems ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Two Alternatives

It is now widely acknowledged that global environmental problems raise pressing social and political issues, but relatively little philosophical attention has been paid to their bearing on the concept of liberty. This must surprise us, because the question of whether environmental policies are at odds with individual liberty is bound to be controversial in the political arena. First, this article explains why a thorough philosophical debate about the relation between liberty and environmental constraints is needed. Second, based on Philip Pettit’s typology of liberty, it assesses how different conceptions of liberty fare in a context of stringent ecological limits. Indeed, a simple conceptual analysis shows that some conceptions of liberty are more compatible than others with such limits, and with the policies necessary to avoid overshooting them. The article concludes that Pettit’s conception of liberty as non-domination is more compatible with the existence of stringent ecological limits than the two alternatives considered.

A Conceptual Analysis of the Accident Phenomenon

1960 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward A. Suchman
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis

The Social Furniture of Virtual Worlds

Disputatio ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (55) ◽  
pp. 345-369
Author(s):  
Peter Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Large Class ◽  
Data Structures ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Virtual Objects ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
The Social

AbstractDavid Chalmers argues that virtual objects exist in the form of data structures that have causal powers. I argue that there is a large class of virtual objects that are social objects and that do not depend upon data structures for their existence. I also argue that data structures are themselves fundamentally social objects. Thus, virtual objects are fundamentally social objects.

LITERARY ROMANTICISM AS A THEORETICAL ISSUE

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-27
Author(s):  
Vera V. Serdechnaia ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Theoretical Issue ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Literary Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept of literary romanticism. The research aims at a refinement of the “romanticism” concept in relation to the history of the literary process. The main research methods include conceptual analysis, textual analysis, comparative historical research. The author analyzes the semantic genesis of the term “romanticism”, various interpretations of the concept, compares the definitions of different periods and cultures. The main results of the study are as follows. The history of the term “romanticism” shows a change in a number of definitions for the same concept in relation to the same literary phenomena. By the end of the 20th century, realizing the existence of significant contradictions in the content of the term “romanticism”, researchers often come to abandon it. At the same time, the steady use of the term “romanticism” testifies to the subject-conceptual component that exists in it, which does not lose its relevance, but just needs a theoretical refinement. Conclusion: one have to revise an approach to romanticism as a theoretical concept, based on the change in the concept of an individual in Europe at the end of the 18th century. It is the newly discovered freedom of an individual predetermines the rethinking for the image of the author as a creator and determines the artistic features of literary romanticism.

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