On the Conditional Analysis of Phenomenal Concepts

1
On the Conditional Analysis of Phenomenal
Concepts

• Torin Alter
• The University of Alabama

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Abstract

• David Braddon-Mitchell and John Hawthorne have
  independently developed a conditional analysis of
  phenomenal concepts.
• They use the analysis to explain why the zombie
  argument fails yet seems compelling.
• Ill criticize this strategy.

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Zombies and Physicalism

• Zombies are defined as creatures that lack
  consciousness but are physically identical to
  conscious human beings.
• The problem for physicalism
• Intuitively, zombies are conceivable (epistemic
  gap).
• Widely accepted if zombies are metaphysically
  possible, then consciousness is non-physical
  (metaphysical gap).

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The Proposed Strategy

• JH and DBM accept
• The zombie intuition is strong.
• Modal intuitions can be used as a (fallible)
  guide to metaphysical possibility.
• Their strategy
• Explain the zombie intuition in a way thats
  compatible with physicalism, using a conditional
  analysis of phenomenal concepts.

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Phenomenal Concepts

• Phenomenal concepts are concepts that express
  phenomenal qualities from the experiencing
  subjects perspective.
• For example, if I ever taste Vegemite, I might
  acquire a phenomenal concept of a distinctive
  sort of gustatory experience.
• One can refer to conscious experiences under
  phenomenal concepts.
• For example, the phenomenal concept pain can be
  used to refer to pains as experiences with a
  certain felt quality.

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The Conditional Analysis

• The following conditionals are a priori for a
  given phenomenal concept PC
• If the world contains non-physical states of the
  right sort, then PC refers rigidly to those
  states.
• If the world is merely physical, then PC refers
  rigidly to physical states that play the right
  sort of functional role.

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Example Pain

• If were acquainted with non-physical states
  caused in the way that the folk think pain is
  typically caused, then pain refers rigidly to
  those states.
• If the world is merely physical, then pain
  refers rigidly to physical states that play the
  pain role.
• The pain role the functional role commonly
  associated with pain.

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Apriority

• Many, including non-dogmatic dualists, would
  accept the truth of these conditionals (though
  eliminativists wouldnt).
• On the conditional analysis, the conditionals
  articulate the conceptual structure of pain
  they can be known a priori. Also, DBM says and JH
  implies that theyre analytic.

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Implication for Zombies

• JH DBM claim that a priori the world might or
  might not contain non-physical phenomenal
  properties.
• If so, then given the conditional analysis
• its a priori conceivable that zombies are
  metaphysically possible.
• its also a priori conceivable that zombies are
  metaphysically impossible.

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Answering the Zombie Argument

• Armed with the conditional analysis, physicalists
  can argue that, were we fully informed about the
  actual world, we could rule out the zombie world
  as incoherent.
• E.g., wed be able to deduce that pain refers
  rigidly to a certain physical state. So, a world
  that is physically identical to ours must contain
  pain states if ours does.

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The Shadow Argument

• This reasoning suggests a diagnosis of the zombie
  intuition
• we recognize that its a priori conceivable that
  zombies are metaphysically possible
• We confuse that truth with the claim that zombies
  are a priori conceivable.
• Thats why we accept the latter.
• DBM The epistemic gap between physical states
  and qualia is a shadow of the conceivability of
  the possibility.

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Questions

• Why believe the relevant conditionals are a
  priori?
• Is the diagnosis plausible?

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The Oracle Argument
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Braddon-Mitchell

• The conditional analysis I have proposed is not
  supposed to be a posteriori. We do not look at
  the nature of actual qualia to find that the
  conditional analysis is true. It is, after all,
  an analysis. But if it is right, neither is it
  based (solely) on self-evident introspection. So
  how can it be analytic? The answer is that it
  describes how agents seem actually to behave in
  certain hypothetical situations.

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The Oracle Argument

• We should conclude that phenomenal concepts have
  a conditional structure because of how we would
  (or rationally should) react to certain
  revelations about the world

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The Oracle Argument (cont.)

• If an oracle reveals to us that the world is
  merely physical, well maintain that we have
  conscious experiences and construe them
  accordingly as certain sorts of physical states.
• If an oracle reveals to us that relevant
  nonphysical states/properties exist, we will
  construe conscious experiences as non-physical.

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The Basis of Our Reactions

• Why do we react to the oracle as JH DBM say we
  do?
• Partly because of our knowledge that pains exist.
• But our knowledge that pains exist is a
  posteriori.

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The Basis of Our Reactions (cont.)

• Without our a posteriori knowledge of pain, the
  oracles statement that the world is merely
  physical should not lead us to conclude that
  pains are physical states (that play the pain
  role).
• Our conclusion would should instead be
  disjunctive
• either pains are physical or there are no pains.
• This reaction does not support the conditional
  analysis.

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Upshot

• JH DBM are right about our reactions to the
  oracle, but only given a posteriori assumptions.
• Therefore, these reactions dont support the
  apriority of the relevant conditionals.

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What the Oracle Case Shows

• Our reactions to the oracle scenario show that
  our confidence that pain exists is greater than
  our confidence in
• any given philosophical theory of pain
• our intuitions about zombies.
• But we often have greater confidence in an a
  posteriori belief than in a true a priori belief.

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Example

• Im more confident in my a posteriori (Moorean)
  belief that Ive existed for at least 360
  nanoseconds than I am in my a priori belief that
  the sum of a trapezoids angles is 360 degrees.
• If an oracle tells me that one of them is false,
  Ill stick with my a posteriori belief.

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Moral

• Reactions to oracle-type cases dont test for
  apriority (or analyticity).
• Thus, they can neither confirm nor disconfirm the
  apriority (or analyticity) of DBM and JHs
  conditionals.

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Another Oracle Case

• Suppose an oracle tells us that the world is
  merely physical and that nothing plays the pain
  role.
• We might imagine an oracle alluding to
  Malebranche or Hume and revealing that our
  beliefs about causality involve some deep
  illusion.

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How Would We React?

• Wed conclude that there are pains that, although
  merely physical, dont play the pain role.
• By parity of reasoning, we should conclude that
  it isnt a priori that if the world is merely
  physical, then pains are physical states that
  play the pain role.
• This contradicts the conditional analysis.

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The Moral Reinforced

• Therefore, if the oracle argument were sound,
  similar reasoning would refute the conditional
  analysis.
• This reinforces our moral reactions to oracle
  cases dont test for apriority (or analyticity).
• Conclusion the oracle argument fails to support
  the conditional analysis.

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The Shadow Argument
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The Shadow Argument

• DBM The epistemic gap between physical states
  and qualia is a shadow of the conceivability of
  the possibility.

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P, T, Q

• P the complete physical truth about the world.
• T a second-order thats all claim.
• T says that the world contains all and only what
  is implied by the complete physical truth.
• Q an arbitrary truth about qualia.
• E.g., that there are qualia, or that the
  president has qualia, or that most people have
  qualia.

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The Alleged Confusion

• We confuse
• Its a priori conceivable that PTQ.
• with
• Its a priori conceivable that its
  metaphysically possible that PTQ

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Is This Explanation Plausible?

• We sometimes crudely misdescribe our modal
  intuitions with disastrous resultswitness
  pre-Kripkean claims purporting to establish
  contingent identities.
• Lets compare.

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A Plausible Diagnosis

• We say that we can imagine Hesperus without
  Phosphorus.
• But since Hesperus Phosphorus, this is to
  imagine a thing existing without itself.
• Kripke what we really imagine is Hesperus not
  being the mornings last visible heavenly body.
• Once Kripke draws the distinction, the temptation
  to use the first description fades.

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The Zombie Intuition Is More Stubborn

• The claim that the zombie world is a priori
  conceivable seems plausible even after we
  distinguish it from the doubly modal claim.
• Here theres no temptation to believe that what
  we were conceiving all along was the proposed
  alternative.

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Reinforcement from Mary Intuition

• The epistemic gap also finds support in the Mary
  intuition.

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Jacksons Mary Case Act 1
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Jacksons Mary Case Act 2
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Reinforcement (continued)

• Intuitively, Mary gains information when she
  leaves the room.
• The conditional analysis is incompatible with
  this intuition.
• Suppose the conditional analysis were correct.
  Then before Mary leaves the room she could deduce
  all phenomenal information by a priori reasoning
  from PT.

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Reinforcement (continued)

• The analysis doesnt even seem to leave room for
  arguingas many havethat she gains phenomenal
  color concepts (but no information) when she
  leaves the room.
• On the analysis, she has those before she leaves.

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Intuitions Denied

• JH and DBH claim that the conditional analysis
  can accommodate our intuitions about zombies in a
  way thats both plausible and compatible with
  physicalism.
• But on closer examination, the conditional
  analysis doesnt accommodate the crucial
  intuitions it simply denies them.

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Conclusions

• Braddon-Mitchell and Hawthorne fail to make a
  convincing case for the conditional analysis.
• Their oracle argument assumes that their a priori
  conditional claims are supported by our reactions
  to the (hypothetical) discovery that the world is
  merely physical.
• Our reactions cant show this, because theyre
  based partly on a posteriori assumptions.

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Conclusions (continued)

• JH and DBMs attempt to explain away the zombie
  intuition is inadequate
• The claim that zombies are conceivable doesnt
  appear to derive from confusing that claim with a
  metaphysically innocuous oneat least not in the
  way that JH and DBM suggest.

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Conclusions (concluded)

• The zombie challenge to physicalism is thus
  reinstated.