The Cartesian Argument against Physicalism
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks 2014 DOI: 10.1057/9781137286734_1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that analytic metaphysicians do not think enough about consciousness, which the author defines as the property of being a thing such that there is something it is like to be that thing, illustrated by the contrast between a rabbit, for which there is something it is like to be cold or kicked, and a table, for which there is nothing it is like from the inside. |
Abstract
I’m an analytic metaphysician who thinks analytic metaphysicians don’t think enough about consciousness. By ‘consciousness’ I mean the property of being a thing such that there’s something that it’s like to be that thing. There’s something that it’s like for a rabbit to be cold or to be kicked or to have a knife stuck in it. There’s nothing that it’s like (or so we ordinarily suppose) for a table to be cold or to be kicked or to have a knife stuck in it. There’s nothing that it’s like from the inside, as it were, to be a table. We mark this difference by saying that the rabbit, not the table, is conscious. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.