Physicalism and Phenomenal Experience

Within this paper a physicalist account of phenomenal experience is presented in a roughly four part process. First, Levine\u27s explanatory gap and Kripke\u27s argument against type-identity physicalism are presented as examples of anti-physicalist arguments to be countered. Kripke\u27s arguments request an explanation for the felt contingency of the statement \u27pain is C-fiber firing.\u27 Levine\u27s explanatory gap is the inability of statements like \u27pain is C-fiber firing\u27 to explain within physicalist theories why C-fiber firing feels like pain. In the second part a physicalist account ofphenomenal experience is presented. This account relies upon a formalization of the mereological structure of events. A relation between events called the \u27observation relation\u27 is introduced and used to formalize observations made in everyday life. In the third step this account of events is used to defeat Kripke\u27s argument and Levine\u27s explanatory gap. Kripke\u27s argument is overcome by providing an explanation for the felt contingency ofthe statement \u27pain is C-fiber firing.\u27 Levine\u27s explanatory gap is defeated by clarifying the question Why do C-fiber firings feel like pain? and showing that asking this question is essentially inappropriate. Thus, the physicalist\u27s inability to explain why C-fiber firings feel like pain is not a failing of physicalism. In the fourth part the physicalist theory of phenomenal experience is compared to some classic views of phenomenal experience from Rosenthal, Nagel, and Dennett

Indicative conditionals, restricted quantification, and naive truth

This paper extends Kripke’s theory of truth to a language with a variably strict conditional operator, of the kind that Stalnaker and others have used to represent ordinary indicative conditionals of English. It then shows how to combine this with a different and independently motivated conditional operator, to get a substantial logic of restricted quantification within naive truth theory

Vacuum of Fact or Vacuous Theory: A Reply to Professor Kripke

In 1979, Thomas Jackson and Anthony Kronman asked the related questions why debtors offered security in personal property and whether a security interest would increase the welfare of a debtor and all of its creditors, taken as a group. These questions inspired a vigorous debate. The participants have taken as their starting point the Modigliani & Miller irrelevance proposition that if capital markets are perfect, information is perfect, all actors have homogeneous expectations, bankruptcy costs are zero, and no taxes exist, a firm cannot increase its value by altering its capital structure. A change in the mix of a firm\u27s debt, from unsecured debt to secured, is an alteration in its capital structure. Since such a change cannot increase the firm\u27s value and since it is costly for firms to offer security, the irrelevance proposition predicts that no secured debt will be issued. Because secured debt is common, participants in the security interest debate therefore proceed in two ways: they relax the strong assumptions that Modigliani & Miller made to see whether the new models thereby obtained predict security, or they add additional factors-moral hazard, risk aversion, and the like-to see whether models so derived can explain the observed data. All but one of the debaters claim to have found at least a tentative explanation for the existence of secured debt. Although the details of these explanations differ, they have a common theme: security- the debaters claim, exists and is justified because it is efficient; that is, a debtor can compensate those of its creditors whose position is worsened by security while remaining better off than had it not granted a security interest. Alan Schwartz, on the other hand, argues that no good explanations for the presence of security exist. Thus, he believes, claims of its efficiency are premature

Direct and Indirect Belief

This paper discusses that one\u27s being in a particular belief state is nevertheless best characterized by a set of propositions, namely those one would believe in any situation in which one were in that belief state. The main purpose in this paper is to develop and defend the distinction between direct and indirect belief

'God exists': meaning, reference and Anselm’s proslogion

Over the last century, philosophy has comprehensively criticised the 'common- sense' view of the proposition 'God exists' as being meaningfixl. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to show that instances of 'God exists' can be considered meaningful, whether or not God does in fact exist. From the intuitive premise of compositionality - that the meaning of a proposition is determined by the meaning of its parts - I ask what options 'God exists' presents. Its appearance is that of a simple subject-predicate sentence, restricting possible difficulties in interpreting compositionality; it appears to take a subject and attribute a property to that subject. However, several problems are apparent. The first is the concept of existence. The first chapter, therefore, compares the views of Bertrand Russell with recent work by Colin McGinn, arguing in favour of existence as a predicate. McGinn presents a challenge to allowing the predication of existence of 'God’, centred around the concepts by which ontological arguments characterise 'God'. The second chapter, as an historical-theological angle on the meaningfulness of 'God exists’, takes up this challenge in an attempt to resolve it using Anselm's Proslogion, which is traditionally thought to demonstrate the existence of God by using the idea of God. Analysis of the Proslogion and the thought underlying it do not provide an entirely acceptable resolution, but lay the foundations for the remainder of the thesis.The third chapter argues for the rejection of McGinn's challenge. Having provided arguments for seeing 'God exists' as a subject-predicate sentence, and noted the difficulties in conceiving adequately of God, I address the problem of what account to give of 'God’. Against a background of debate in the philosophy of language, I advocate understanding 'God' as a name in God exists', and argue for a view of the meaning and reference of 'God’ based upon the work of Jerome Gellman. Finally, I combine relevant elements from existence, reference and meaning - incorporating theological suggestions arising from Anselm - to provide a model for the meaningfulness of 'God exists' which, I argue, demonstrates God exists' to be a meaningful proposition if God does in fact exist or if God does not in fact exist