The Misuse and Failure of the Evolutionary Argument

Abstract The evolutionary argument is an argument against epiphenomenalism, designed to show that some mind-body theory that allows for the efficacy of qualia is true. First developed by Herbert Spencer and William James, the argument has gone through numerous incarnations and it has been criticized in a number of different ways. Yet many have found the criticisms of the argument in the literature unconvincing. Bearing this in mind, I examine two primary issues: first, whether the alleged insights employed in traditional versions of the argument have been correctly and consistently applied, and second, whether the alleged insights can withstand critical scrutiny. With respect to the first issue, I conclude that the proponents of the argument have tended to grossly oversimplify the considerations involved, incorrectly supposing that the evolutionary argument is properly conceived as a non-specific argument for the disjunction of physicalism and interactionist dualism and against epiphenomenalism. With respect to the second issue, I offer a new criticism that decisively refutes all arguments along the lines of the one I present. Finally, I draw positive lessons about the use of empirical considerations in debates over the mind-body problem.

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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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Where Lies The Physics of Mind?

The Emperor's New Mind ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198519737.003.0018 ◽

1989 ◽

Author(s):

Roger Penrose ◽

Martin Gardner

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

Body Problem ◽

Selective Advantage ◽

The Other ◽

Material Object ◽

Scientific Question ◽

Object A ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The One ◽

The Mind

In discussions of the mind-body problem, there are two separate issues on which attention is commonly focused: ‘How is it that a material object (a brain) can actually evoke consciousness?’; and, conversely; ‘How is it that a consciousness, by the action of its will, can actually influence the (apparently physically determined) motion of material objects?’ These are the passive and active aspects of the mind-body problem. It appears that we have, in ‘mind’ (or, rather, in ‘consciousness’), a non-material ‘thing’ that is, on the one hand, evoked by the material world and, on the other, can influence it. However, I shall prefer, in my preliminary discussions in this last chapter, to consider a somewhat different and perhaps more scientific question - which has relevance to both the active and passive problems - in the hope that our attempts at an answer may move us a little way towards an improved understanding of these age-old fundamental conundrums of philosophy. My question is: ‘What selective advantage does a consciousness confer on those who actually possess it?’ There are several implicit assumptions involved in phrasing the question in this way. First, there is the belief that consciousness is actually a scientifically describable ‘thing’. There is the assumption that this ‘thing’ actually ‘does something’ - and, moreover, that what it does is helpful to the creature possessing it, so that an otherwise equivalent creature, but without consciousness, would behave in some less effective way. On the other hand, one might believe that consciousness is merely a passive concomitant of the possession of a sufficiently elaborate control system and does not, in itself, actually ‘do’ anything. (This last would presumably be the view of the strong-AI supporters, for example.) Alternatively, perhaps there is some divine or mysterious purpose for the phenomenon of consciousness - possibly a teleological one not yet revealed to us - and any discussion of this phenomenon in terms merely of the ideas of natural selection would miss this ‘purpose’ completely.

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“The Answer a Philosopher Gives Determines the Entire Shape of his Metaphysics”: The Influence of Plato and Descartes on Rebecca Goldstein’s The Mind-Body Problem

Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses ◽

10.14198/raei.2012.25.27 ◽

2012 ◽

pp. 401

Author(s):

Gustavo Sánchez Canales

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

The Other ◽

Orthodox Jewish ◽

Philosophical Perspective ◽

The Holocaust ◽

Meditations On First Philosophy ◽

Points Of View ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The One ◽

The Mind

To date, Rebecca Goldstein’s The Mind-Body Problem (1983) has been mostly analysed from two points of view. On the one hand, the significance of Renee Feuer’s Orthodox Jewish background in addressing the/her mind-body problem; on the other, the implications of the Holocaust for Noam’s life and, therefore, for the Noam-Renee relationship. Surprisingly, this novel has not been studied from a purely philosophical perspective. For this reason, the present article attempts to shed some light on the protagonist’s mind-body problem by focusing on the references to René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Plato’s Republic, Book VII.

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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 Two Main Problems of Philosophy

Dialogue ◽

10.1017/s0012217300036428 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 199-216 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

N. L. Wilson

Keyword(s):

Body Problem ◽

The Other ◽

Ordinary Water ◽

Water Closet ◽

Mind Body Problem ◽

The One ◽

The Mind

One of the main problems is of course the mind-body problem. It'snot really a question as to how there can be such disparate things as protons and electrons on the one hand, and such things as desires on the other, cohabiting the same universe and apparently having quite a lot to do with each other. For, provided that we are not squeamish about committing the pathetic fallacy, we can attribute desires to any kind of servomechanism, we can claim that the ordinary water closet, for example, wants to remain full at all times and when necessary acts so as to fulfil that desire. The question, as I see it, is rather, how there can be such a thing as consciousness of desire existing in universelargely unconscious.

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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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