Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
V doi: 10.1111/rati.12103
Ratio (new series) XXIX 3 September 2016 0034-0006
Raamy Majeed
Abstract
Two decades in, whether we are making any progress towards
solving, or even explaining away, what David Chalmers calls (1995)
the hard problem of consciousness is as controversial as ever. This
paper aims to argue that there are, in actual fact, two explanatory
targets associated with the hard problem. Moreover, this in turn
has repercussions for how we assess the explanatory merits of any
proposed solution to the problem. The paper ends with a brief
exposition of how the present distinction goes beyond similar ones
already made by respondents to Joseph Levines (1983) explana-
tory gap.
1. Explananda
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Note, the orthodox view is that this confers type-identities
between the phenomenal and the relevant functional roles, and
token-identities between the phenomenal and the physical occu-
pants of these roles. However, based on additional considerations,
Lewis and Jackson take this to confer type-identities between the
phenomenal and the physical occupants themselves. Either way,
this gives reductive physicalists an explanation of [Q]: the nature
of the phenomenal is physical, for they are one and the same
where same picks out your preferred kind of identity. Further-
more, it also gives them one for [PQ]: physical processing gives
rise to phenomenal experiences because all there is to such
experiences is certain types of physical processing. This ought to
be evident given that the functional roles relevant for phenom-
enal consciousness, in our world, are taken to be all realized by
physical properties.
While most explanations in the literature that explain [Q] also
explain [PQ], it is not hard to see how an explanation of [Q]
could fail to address [PQ]. Panprotophenomenalism, as formu-
lated by Chalmers (1996), is the view that phenomenal qualities
supervene on protophenomenal properties: properties that are
not phenomenal themselves, but when jointly instantiated, instan-
tiate phenomenally conscious experiences. This view, as it stands,
provides an explanation of [Q] without an explanation of [PQ],
for it explains why phenomenal properties are instantiated
without any recourse to the physical.
Panprotophenomenalists, of course, can go further. Like the
panphenomenalists, they can explain [PQ] by claiming that the
phenomenal qualities occupy the causal roles we identify as physi-
cal. Nevertheless, by omitting this additional step, we see how one
can provide an explanation of [Q] sans an explanation of [PQ].
2. Explanation
The facts [Q] and [PQ] are distinct, and subsequently, it should
be possible to explain the one without the other. This I take to be
true regardless of whether the aforementioned examples hold
true. Whether they in fact hold true, however, is contentious, and
partly dependent on what we mean by explanation. An interlocu-
tor could, for instance, object that non-reductive explanations of
consciousness can explain [Q] in addition to [PQ], as whatever
explanans invoked to explain [PQ] entail [Q] as well. If we
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may, but we need not be committed to explanation as a form of a
priori conceptual analysis to view entailment as not being sufficient
for explanation. This has to do with the nature of entailment
itself.
Entailment relations are reflexive. Any given truth will entail
itself, e.g. P entails P; Q entails Q, and so on. Entailment relations
are also monotonic. Any given truth in conjunction with other
truths will still entail itself, e.g. P&Q entails Q. When we seek
explanations, however, those that propose the explanandum itself
as the explanans, or even as part of it, are not typically regarded as
counting as explanations. For instance, while Q entails Q, Q itself
does not count as an explanation for Q. Similarly, while P&Q
entails Q, the conjunction is not typically regarded as an adequate
explanation of Q, as it includes Q itself as part of the explanans. So
when seek explanations, we tend to seek something else: some
non-trivial form of entailment, which does not rely solely on the
reflexive and monotonic qualities of entailment. Consequently,
for the purposes of this paper, let it be a minimum requirement
for an entailment relation to count as an explanation that it be
non-trivial: that the explanandum itself is not invoked as the
explanans itself or as part of the explanans.
Once we grant this requirement for explanation, we see that
neither non-reductive physicalism nor property dualism can be
seen as providing explanations for [Q]. This is bound to be con-
troversial in the case non-reductive physicalism. But this really
depends on what we mean by non-reductive physicalism. Some
take non-reductive physicalism to be the view that the phenom-
enal is token-identical, although not type-identical, with the physi-
cal.3 Based on this conception, a physicalist-cum-functionalist
account of consciousness, of the sort mentioned in 1, will count
as non-reductive and can be seen to provide an explanation of
[Q]. Nevertheless, non-reductive physicalism is presently under-
stood as a view that ends up being committed to explanatory
primitivism with regards to the phenomenal. Subsequently, such a
view cannot give an explanation of [Q]. Note, as stressed earlier,
this is not to deny that such versions of physicalism, or property
dualism for that matter, can provide explanations for [PQ]. In
3
This goes against certain contemporary ways of classifying reductive physcialism. On
such accounts, reductive physicalists need not be committed to the reduction of the phe-
nomenal to the physical under certain conceptions of reduction, e.g. type-identities.
Rather, all they need to claim is that the phenomenal is reductively explained by the physical.
See Chalmers (1996: 43) and Kim (2005: 95) for more detail.
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explanation of [Q] as well. Proponents of reductive explanation
might also expect such a result on methodological grounds. For
example, since reductive physicalists tend to explain [PQ] by
identifying phenomenal states with the physical occupiers of
certain functional roles, any explanation on offer for [PQ] would,
consequently, be an explanation for [Q] as well.
Nonetheless, there are also reasons, which are directly related
to the hard problem, for viewing [Q] as part of its explananda. This
has to do with the constraints any given solution to the problem
ought to meet, were it to prove adequate. Chalmers (1996: xii-iii)
outlines three, the first of which is to take consciousness seri-
ously. This constraint can be interpreted in two ways: (1a) grant-
ing that our experiences have a phenomenal character, and (1b)
explaining the phenomenal character of our experiences. The
former reading construes it as a constraint on the explanans,
whereas the latter construes it as one on the explananda. Depend-
ing on how you understand this constraint, then, you may very
well suppose that an adequate explanation of how and why physi-
cal processing gives rise to experience ought to also explain the
nature of phenomenal experiences themselves.
In all likelihood, there are other reasons as well. What is appar-
ent, regardless, is that different responses to the hard problem
take different facts as their explananda.4 The lesson from this is
that in treating these responses as part of a unified project, viz.
solving the hard problem, we have been equivocating explanatory
targets. There are two explanatory targets associated with the hard
problem, i.e. [PQ] and [Q]. Subsequently, responses to the
problem may explain one whilst forgoing the other, which is what
we saw with non-reductive accounts of consciousness. Nonethe-
less, they may also explain both, which is what find with reductive
views.
Note, my claim here is not that philosophers of mind are
generally mistaken about their target explananda. The aforemen-
tioned distinction should come across as obvious to those well-
versed in the literature, and respondents to the hard problem, I
take it, are fully aware of which fact(s) can be explicated by their
proposed theory. Still, I think the distinction is worth making for
the following reasons. First, as far as I can tell, there is no explicit
mention of the distinction, which proves confusing to those
4
One might even associate the hard problem with projects aimed at explaining [Q] in
the absence of [PQ]. These projects are explored in 4.
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This will depend partly on how you understand Chalmerss constraints, and partly on
your methodological assumptions and prior commitments.
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which correspond to two distinct ways of responding to the
explanatory gap. Namely, explaining how physicalism is compat-
ible with an explanatory gap vs. explaining how a certain type of
physicalism bridges the gap. It is responses that do the former,
which help bring out the present distinction. This needs some
spelling out.
All physicalists are committed to the physicalist entailment
thesis, while they differ over the epistemology. A priori physicalists
(type-A materialists) claim that the entailment relations are know-
able a priori, whereas a posteriori physicalists (type-B materialists)
claim that they are only knowable a posteriori. The former deny the
explanatory gap on grounds that ideal rational agents can a priori
deduce the phenomenal truths from the physical ones. The latter,
by contrast, deny this a priori deducibility, and are thereby viewed
as accepting the explanatory gap, even though they deny the
ontological one.
This way of carving up versions of physicalism, however,
obscures the distinction between the two explanatory targets asso-
ciated with the hard problem. To bring this out, we need to
distinguish between reductive and non-reductive versions of a
posteriori physicalism. Prominent a posteriori physicalists, e.g. Block
and Stalnaker (1999), as well as Hill and McLaughlin (1999),
argue that the phenomenal is type-identical with the physical.
More precisely, they argue that these identities are grounded in
Kripkean a posteriori necessities; and that since these identities are
only knowable a posteriori, they allow for the failure of a priori
deducibility of the phenomenal truths from the physical. Kim
(2005) complains that these identities do not close the gap, but
rather show that no such gap ever existed. What is relevant for us,
regardless, is that on account of the identity relations, these ver-
sions of a posteriori physicalism turn out to be reductive: there is
nothing more to phenomenal experiences, on these versions,
than certain types of physical processing. As we have seen, such
reductionism has the consequence of blurring the distinction
between explaining [PQ] and explaining it in conjunction with
[Q].
Not so with non-reductive versions of a posteriori physicalism.
Proponents of this view, e.g. Loar (1990), Levine (1993) and Kim
(2005), deny that the phenomenal is identical with the physical,
or that phenomenal truths can be explained purely in terms of
physical truths. This results in a commitment to the explanatory
primitiveness of the phenomenal, which is characteristic of
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As Chalmers (1996: 371) notes, a commitment to strong metaphysical necessities is
only implicit in these theories. No one appears to endorse them explicitly.
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(ii) ensures that this account would not bridge the explanatory
gap. In fact, if consciousness were genuinely taken to be funda-
mental, the account would be committed to an explanatory gap
grounded in an ontological one.7
Respondents to the explanatory gap appear to assume, albeit
tacitly, that any explanation of [PQ], which would bridge the gap,
would also offer an explanation of [Q], and leave the issue at that.
Our distinction, however, lets us see that while the information
integration theory may not have any bearing on [PQ], it provides
a perfectly reasonable explanation of [Q]. Furthermore, it does so
regardless of whether we bridge the gap. This in turn shows that,
provided we identify the hard problem as the project of explain-
ing [Q], or even both [PQ] and [Q], we can make some headway
in our attempts to solve it, despite our accounts coming short
when it comes to bridging the gap, or in explaining its existence
in a way that is compatible with physicalism.
The general point is not that the distinctions made by respond-
ents to the explanatory gap rival that which I have made concern-
ing the different explanatory targets associated with the hard
problem. Proponents of the latter can help themselves to the
wealth of material on the former.8 What I have been stressing is
that the present discussion is still worth making, as it helps us
focus on features of responding to the hard problem not available
when we simply focus on this problem in the framework set out
with regards to the explanatory gap.
5. Conclusion
Views about the nature of the mental are legion. Most of these
views have preceded the hard problem. Nevertheless, they or
rather their contemporary counterparts, which specifically focus
on mental states that are phenomenal, have all been used as ways
7
While Tononi states that the phenomenal is fundamental, it is unclear whether this is
entailed by his theory. As far as I can tell, the theory can be understood as a non-reductive
account of consciousness, which takes information integration itself as explanatorily primi-
tive though not fundamental, or as a reductive account that allows for a non-chronic
explanatory gap between information integration and various types of physical processing
in the brain. In both cases, we get an explanatory gap, but not an ontological one.
8
As an anonymous referee points out, respondents to the explanatory gap are much
more precise about what they mean by explanation than I have been here. For example,
they make distinctions in explanation in terms of nomic, logical and metaphysical neces-
sities. Anyone who accepts my distinction can help themselves to these accounts to explain
the connection between the phenomenal and their reductive bases.
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Faculty of Philosophy
University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge, CB3 9DA, UK
Raamy@yahoo.com
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I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal, as well as Ricki Bliss and
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