The Skeptical Challenge
Ignorance and Imagination July 1, 2006 DOI: 10.1093/0195306589.003.0003 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the philosophical problem of experience is genuine and that skepticism about it is unfounded. The author contends that conceivability-to-possibility reasoning is ubiquitous in philosophy, and that physicalism is not essential to the logical problem, so the challenge to the problem's legitimacy fails. |
Abstract
Abstract This chapter discusses the idea that it is mistaken to suppose that there is a genuinely philosophical problem of experience at all. According to one version of the challenge, the problem should be rejected on methodological grounds: it is mistaken to reason from conceivability to possibility at all. It is argued that this reasoning is ubiquitous in philosophy, and thus to the extent that there is a problem here it is everyone’s rather than the author’s. According to another version of the challenge, the problem should be rejected on conceptual grounds: the thesis of physicalism certainly made sense at a particular moment in the history of science, but that moment is long gone and contemporary interpretations of it do not permit the questions typical of philosophy of mind to be legitimately raised. Physicalism and related concepts play an illustrative or inessential role, rather than an essential role, in the logical problem, and once this is appreciated, the basis for skepticism evaporates.