Modal arguments against materialism
Noûs October 30, 2019 DOI: 10.1111/nous.12320 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | The authors propose a new modal strategy against materialism that, unlike existing strategies, does not assume imagination is a reliable guide to modal truth. The argument concludes only that we should not believe materialism is true, not that we should believe it is false. |
Abstract
We review existing strategies for bringing modal intuitions to bear against materialist theories of consciousness, and then propose a new strategy. Unlike existing strategies, which assume that imagination (suitably constrained) is a good guide to modal truth, the strategy proposed here makes no assumptions about the probative value of imag-ination. However, unlike traditional modal arguments, the argument developed here delivers only the conclusion that we should not believe that materialism is true, not that we should believe that it is false.