Date of Award

1-1-2014

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Philosophy

Content Description

1 online resource (ix, 134 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Ron McClamrock

Committee Members

PD Magnus, Brad Armor-Garb

Keywords

Chalmers, David, Explanation, Explanatory Gap, Kim, Jaegwon, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Science, Consciousness, Materialism, Ontology, Mind and body

Subject Categories

Metaphysics | Philosophy | Philosophy of Science

Abstract

In my dissertation, I consider a common argument for the existence of an unbridgeable explanatory gap between materialism and conscious experience which purports to show that we can determine a priori that conscious experience cannot possibly be explained by a materialist theory. The claim is: no matter what we might yet learn about the brain (or the world), we know enough right now about materialism and explanation to know that an explanation of conscious experience is beyond our reach. I argue that three well-known examples of this position (Jaegwon Kim, David Chalmers, and Joseph Levine) rely on a very narrow picture of both explanation and materialism.

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