| Phi 109-01 Fall 2015 |
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Fri. 9/25: pp. 53-59 (through the reply to objection 2)
Mon. 9/28: pp. 59-66 (objection 3 to the end)
J. J. C. Smart (1920-2012) was a British philosopher who went to Australia early in his career and was one of a group of like-minded philosophers, especially active in the 1950s and 1960s, who were sometimes labeled “Australian materialists” or “Australian realists.” (Later, we’ll encounter an Australian dualist.)
After presenting an argument against dualism, Smart considers two alternatives to that view, first something like the position he ascribes to Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and then his own view (he states the latter on pp. 56f). After a one-paragraph discussion of identity on p. 57, Smart turns to replies to various objections to his view. As you read the objections, decide which you think is the most difficult for him to respond to (he has something to say about this but you may see things differently). Also think which are the most important objections (that’s a related question but your answer might be different). Our first class will take us through the first two objections, and we’ll consider the rest on Mon.
I’ll also add a few comments on terms in Smart:
• The label “Occam’s razor’ (p. 54) is applied to injunctions along the lines of “Do not assume the existence of more entities than is absolutely necessary.” Ask yourself why Smart takes this to provide an argument against dualism.
• The idea of “nomological danglers” (p. 55) is related to the concept of “epiphenomenalism” that I mentioned in class. The term ‘nomological’ refers to laws, in this case the causal laws that are supposed to tie mental events (as effects) to physical events (as their causes). Smart himself mentions epiphenomenalism explicitly in his concluding comments (pp. 65f).
• A “time-slice” of a “four-dimensional object” is just an object at a particular time. The fourth dimension Smart has in mind is time, so a four-dimensional object is just an object lasting through time; and, just as a slice of a three-dimensional object will have two dimensions, a slice of the four-dimensional object will have three. The three dimensions of a time slice are the spatial ones.
• “Sense data” (see the presentation of objection 3, p. 59) are appearances, or the contents of sensation. When I look at an object, I see the object; but the content of my visual sensation of it might be said to consist of various patches of color. If this is right, those patches are my sense data of the object.