| Phi 109-01 Fall 2015 |
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The papers we will discuss in the last three classes focus on issues concerning consciousness. The term qualia in the titles of Jackson’s papers is the plural of the noun quale. This word can simply mean ‘quality’; but, in this context, it refers to felt qualities that make up “what it’s like” to have an experience.
In the first paper, Jackson considers three arguments for qualia and then argues that it is possible to regard qualia as epiphenomena (hence the title).
• The “knowledge argument” of §1 is associated with Jackson and is very well known. Pay attention to the second of Jackson’s examples (concerning the neurophysiologist Mary, an example on which Gennaro modeled his example of Maria in the latter part of the “Second Night” discussion). Although Jackson presents it here more briefly than his first example, it has become the standard way of approaching the knowledge argument.
• Jackson considers two further arguments in §§2-3, mainly, it seems, to argue that his is better—or, at least, that it is not subject to the same objections. However, both of these other arguments are well known and interesting in their own right.
• Jackson considers the “modal argument” in §2 only briefly, and it may seem lackluster; but people began to call the sort of creatures he describes in the first paragraph “zombies,” and the argument has acquired the snazzier label “zombie argument.” (On the other hand, if you are taken by that label, you should remember that the term ‘zombie’ is being used in a special way, and these philosophical zombies don’t necessarily have the same properties as the ones in pop culture.)
• The paper Jackson mentions in §3 is also well known and was an early source of revived philosophical interest in issues of consciousness. As Jackson remarks in a footnote, the paper isn’t easily reduced to an argument, but the argument he distills from it is worth considering. (You’ve already seen a version of it in Gennaro’s dialogue, on p. 39 just before the example of Maria.)
• You’ve run into the term “epiphenomalism” before, but no one we’ve discussed so far has had too much to say about the idea. Although Jackson is considering a fairly special example of epiphenomena in §4, he addresses issues that would arise in other cases, too.
Jackson’s short second paper is one of the relatively rare examples of a philosopher switching sides on an issue: in it he argues against things he said in the first paper. (The “at-at” theory of motion that he mentions at the beginning is the view that motion is nothing more than being at different places at different times. What he means by ‘best candidate situation’ is the sort of situation he describes using the phrase ‘best candidate’ in the next paragraph.)