The use of neuroscientific data to help resolve phenomenological questions is proving a common theme in much contemporary thinking about the mind.… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
Of course, there remains the question of why we should find mind-brain identities so persistently counter-intuitive, if they are true. But this… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
I say that there is nothing deficient about our current theoretical grasp of mind-brain identities. The problem is only that they are… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
Nearly everybody nowadays accepts the 'causal completeness of physics' - every physical event (or at least its probability) has a full physical cause. This… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
My first degree was in mathematics. That was great, but it didn't help with many of the things that puzzled me. I became a philosopher because I wanted to understand everything, especially those things that didn't make sense. And that has continued to be my philosophical motivation. That's one reason I have such a roving philosophical eye - once I… — David Papineau Copy Share
If there is such a simple argument for physicalism, how come everybody hasn't always been a physicalist? That's a good question, and there is… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
Kripke says that physicalists like me can't explain the 'apparent contingency' of mind-brain identities. He maintains that, if I really believed that pains are C-fibres, then I ought no longer to have any room for the thought that 'they' might come apart. His argument is that, since pains aren't identified via some contingent description, but in terms of how they… — David Papineau Copy Share
A certain kind of methodologically-minded philosopher of science is quick to read off metaphysical conclusions from features of scientific practice. Chemists don't derive their laws from fundamental physics, so reductive physicalism must be false. Biologists refer to natural numbers in some of their explanations, so numbers must exist. I think that this kind of thing makes for bad philosophy. — David Papineau Copy Share
I think my view is rather more radical than Pete Mandik's. Both of us want to show that colour perception doesn't transcend what can… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
On the methodological issue, I think that would be hopeless to try to adjudicate between my view and orthodoxy by appeal to phenomenological introspection.… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
Again, when we view a scene fleetingly, do we consciously see all the details even though we don't retain them, or do we not… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
Everybody agrees that a future in which you are dead is a very bad thing, and that it isn't made any better by your… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
I don't think that we can figure out what is going on in conscious colour perception just by phenomenological introspection. We need to know… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
In truth a clear-headed physicalist shouldn't be thinking any of these dualist thoughts. If pains are one and the same as C-fibres firing, then… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
The use of neuroscientific data to help resolve phenomenological questions is proving a common theme in much contemporary thinking about the mind. How rich… — David Papineau Copy Share Image
