Physicalism or anti-physicalism: a disjunctive account
Physicalism or anti-physicalism: a disjunctive account
In this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness: consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are false. Furthermore, making use of the resources of this view, we formulate distinct forms of both physicalism and anti-physicalism. On these formulations, it is easy to see how physicalists and anti-physicalists can accommodate the modal intuitions of their opponents regarding zombies and anti-zombies. We conclude that these formulations of physicalism and anti-physicalism are superior to their more traditional counterparts.
223-239
Baysan, Umut
69cc8c93-08a0-4b88-8192-eb5a22fa82e3
Wildman, Nathan
35d05c6f-b4b2-46c8-965d-a7650ee2b11c
20 May 2022
Baysan, Umut
69cc8c93-08a0-4b88-8192-eb5a22fa82e3
Wildman, Nathan
35d05c6f-b4b2-46c8-965d-a7650ee2b11c
Abstract
In this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness: consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are false. Furthermore, making use of the resources of this view, we formulate distinct forms of both physicalism and anti-physicalism. On these formulations, it is easy to see how physicalists and anti-physicalists can accommodate the modal intuitions of their opponents regarding zombies and anti-zombies. We conclude that these formulations of physicalism and anti-physicalism are superior to their more traditional counterparts.
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s10670-022-00530-0
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Accepted/In Press date: 19 February 2022
Published date: 20 May 2022
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 505315
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/505315
ISSN: 0165-0106
PURE UUID: 6a34823d-9ce0-4c32-9e88-7d28a30617ac
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Date deposited: 07 Oct 2025 16:32
Last modified: 08 Oct 2025 02:17
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Author:
Umut Baysan
Author:
Nathan Wildman
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