Some philosophers argue that mental properties are ontologically distinct from physical properties and that, therefore, physicalism ought to be rejected. There are philosophers who feel the force of this challenge but who wish to maintain their physicalism. They suggest that mentality is grounded in inscrutable properties or ‘incrutables’: properties that are not revealed through physical...
The problem of other minds takes an especially acute form in thorny comparative cases, when we ask whether an infant is more, less, or differently conscious than an adult, or whether an octopus is more, less, or differently conscious than a dog. These judgments must be made in the absence of a settled theory of consciousness while navigating significant empirical uncertainties. For all these...