<p>I present a defense of David Lewis's metaphysical theory of Humean Supervenience. I provide novel motivations for his theory, and look to current physical science research for support of the metaphysical theory. I draw heavily on analogies between Humean Supervenience and classical discussions of the nature of space-time. I also defend Humean Supervenience against four major philosophical objections using considerations from physics and metaphysics.</p> / Dissertation

The thesis explores the semantics of epistemic justification discourse, a very important part of overall epistemic discourse. It embarks from a critical examination of referentialist theories to arrive at a certain nonreferential, expressivist approach to the semantics of epistemic justification discourse. That is, it criticizes the main referentialist theories and then goes on to argue for an expressivist approach on the basis of its theoretical capacity to outflank the problems referentialist theories meet. In the end, I also identify some problems for a prominent expressivist theory and, as a response to these problems, propose a novel norm-expressivist approach that seems to evade these problems. In particular, in Ch.1 I introduce what I call ‘the epistemic justification puzzle’ and then in Chs.2-4 criticize naturalistic referential theories: analytic naturalistic reductionism, synthetic naturalistic reductionism and epistemic kinds realism. In Ch.5 I criticize nonnaturalist referential theories: what I call ‘naïve’ nonnaturalism and J.McDowell’s (1994) more sophisticated quietist version of nonnaturalism. Next, in Ch.6 I introduce the semantic programme of expressivism and go on to construct a simple version of epistemic norm-expressivism (inspired by A.Gibbard (1990)) in order to explain how expressivism can easily outflank the identified problems of referentialist theories. This simple norm-expressivist theory, however, is only used as a theoretical ‘toy’ for the mere sake of motivating the possibility of expressivism, as in Ch.7 I go on to argue for a more sophisticated version of norm-expressivism: habitsendorsement expressivism. In Ch.7 I introduce a prominent expressivist theory of moral and knowledge discourses, namely, plan-reliance expressivism (credited to A.Gibbard (2003, 2008)) and extend it cover the epistemic justification discourse. I then identify some problems for plan-reliance expressivism as extended to cover justification discourse and in response to these problems propose habits-endorsement expressivism. Habits-endorsement expressivism builds on the intuition that (justified) belief-fixation is habitual and exploits the theoretical flexibility of the notion of habits in order to overcome the identified problems of plan-reliance expressivism.

In my dissertation I argue that prominent descriptivist metaethical views face a serious semantic problem. According to standard descriptivism, moral thought and discourse purports to describe some ontology of moral properties and/or relations: e.g., the term `good' purports to refer to some property or cluster of properties. Central to any such theory, then, is the recognition of certain items of ontology which, should they actually exist, would count as the referents of moral terms and concepts. And since one commonly accepted feature of moral thought and discourse is a supervenience constraint, descriptivists hold that any ontology suitable for morality would have to supervene upon non-moral ontology. But this lands descriptivists with the task of providing a semantic account capable of relating this ontology to moral terms and concepts. That is, they must explain why it is that certain items of ontology and not others would count as the referents of moral terms and concepts, in a way that is consistent with the supervenience constraint. I argue that this important explanatory task cannot be carried out. And because the problem generalizes from metaethics to all normativity, we are left with good reason to pursue alternatives to descriptivist accounts of normative semantics.

Wong, Wai Kin. / "November 2011." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-116). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1: --- The problem of mental causation for physicalism --- p.7 / Chapter 1.1 --- Mental causation´ؤintroduction to the problem --- p.7 / Chapter 1.2 --- The problem of mental causation for physicalism --- p.8 / Chapter 1.2.1 --- "A brief introduction to physicalism´ؤlayered model, supervenience, and physical closure" --- p.8 / Chapter 1.2.2 --- What is the mind from a physicalist perspective? --- p.12 / Chapter 1.3 --- Non-reductive physicalism stated --- p.14 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Commitments and generally accepted claim of physicalism --- p.14 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Reductive physicalism and non-reductive physicalism --- p.15 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- The non-reductive physicalist's view on mental causation --- p.19 / Chapter 1.4. --- What is next? --- p.20 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Kim's supervienience/exclusion argument against non-reductive physicalism --- p.21 / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.21 / Chapter 2.2 --- Supervenience argument --- p.22 / Chapter 2.3 --- Exclusion argument --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4 --- Implications of the supervenierice/exclusion argument --- p.28 / Chapter 2.5 --- Objections to the supervenience/exclusion argument --- p.29 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Kim on the principle of causal/explanatory exclusion --- p.33 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2 --- Kim's realist commitment --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3 --- Kim's argument for explanatory exclusion --- p.36 / Chapter 3.4 --- From the principle of explanatory exclusion to the principle of causal exclusion --- p.38 / Chapter 3.5 --- Kim's view on non-standard overdetermination and how the gap between EEP and CEP is bridged --- p.39 / Chapter 3.6 --- Kim's view on causation --- p.43 / Chapter 3.7 --- Further implications of production causation for the exclusion argument --- p.47 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Two concepts of causation and the supervenience/exclusion argument --- p.53 / Chapter 4.1 --- The counterfactual analyses of causation´ؤa general overview --- p.55 / Chapter 4.2 --- How the dependence conception of causation helps non-reductive physicalists to avoid the causal exclusion principle --- p.59 / Chapter 4.3 --- Production conception vs. dependence conception? The debate between Kim and Loewer (I) --- p.62 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Loewer's objections to the use of production conception in the formulation of the supervenience/exclusion argument --- p.63 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- The first reason put forward by Loewer --- p.63 / Chapter 4.3.3 --- Loewer's argument for (2) --- p.68 / Chapter 4.4 --- Production conception vs. dependence conception? The debate between Kim and Loewer (II) --- p.73 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- Can a non-reductive physicalist distinguish epiphenomena from a genuine causal process by the dependence conception of causation? --- p.74 / Chapter 4.4.2 --- Does agency require production? --- p.78 / Chapter 4.4.3 --- Kim's third objection on omissions --- p.79 / Chapter 4.4.4 --- Loewer's responses to Kim's second and third objections --- p.82 / Chapter 4.4.5. --- Further discussion on Kim's second and third objections --- p.84 / Chapter 4.5 --- Conclusion --- p.87 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- Does Yablo's determination proposal help to solve the exclusion problem for non-reductive physicalism? --- p.88 / Chapter 5.1. --- Yablo's idea elaborated --- p.89 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Yablo's argument for the determination proposal --- p.91 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- The primacy of the causal status of mental events --- p.94 / Chapter 5.2 --- Evaluating Yablo's idea --- p.96 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Are mental properties determinables of physical properties? --- p.97 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- The story is not ended. The crux of the issue is not whether the determination proposal is literally true --- p.100 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Why is proportionality constraint not the solution? --- p.102 / Chapter 5.3 --- What about the causal exclusion principle? --- p.107 / Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.108 / Chapter Chapter 6: --- The final conclusion´ؤthe exclusion problem remains unsolved --- p.110 / Responses to the external review --- p.Error! Bookmark not defined. / Bibliography --- p.113

One of the most interesting developments in recent psychological theorising has been a growing appreciation of the need for a viable theory of mental causation. Hitherto, the prospects for reconciling what seems to be the uniquely rational character of human thought and action with the non-rational mechanistic workings of the natural world have appeared to be limited or even illusory, and the pursuit of reconciliation of this sort has therefore formerly been dismissed as being either impossible of completion or inappropriate for contemplation. Much of the scepticism concerning the role of causal processes in human thought and action was dispelled, however, by the philosopher Donald Davidson, who argues that not only is human action capable of being caused by the actor�s thoughts and desires, but that only when such action is so caused, can it be rational. Davidson�s proposal for the reconciliation of human rationality with causal necessitation is articulated in his theory of Anomalous Monism. According to this theory, there exists what may be termed an ontological-conceptual distinction between events themselves and the characters or properties that are attributed to events by human observers, and it is through recognition of this distinction that one discovers how mental events, that is, events that are amenable to description in the psychological vocabulary, are causally efficacious yet free from the constraints typically associated with the necessity and sufficiency of causal laws. Anomalous Monism, if it were workable, would therefore resolve the paradox according to which human mentality is at once integrated in, and yet unconstrained by, the mechanistic natural world, by demonstrating the compatibility of the facts of causation with the intuitions of folk psychology. However, close examination of Anomalous Monism reveals it to rely on logically flawed anti-realist principles concerning the characters of events, properties and causation. It follows from this that the theory itself must be rejected, but the task that it was devised to undertake, the formulation of a viable theory of mental causation, need not be similarly discarded. Rather, what remains is the challenge of delineating an alternative theory, one that withstands logical scrutiny whilst addressing what is characteristic of human mental processes, and thereby what is characteristic of mental causation. The theory of Direct Realism that is derived from the broader philosophical realism of John Anderson provides the materials for meeting this challenge. According to Direct Realism, mental phenomena are relational situations obtaining between certain organisms (including humans) and their environments. As such, mental phenomena are included in the range of phenomena occurring in the natural world and they are therefore subject to all of its ways of working, including its deterministic mechanisms. The particular challenge that a Direct Realist theory of mental causation faces, that of demonstrating that relational situations can be causal, is revealed upon examination of the character of causation to be unproblematic. Furthermore, the seeming incompatibility between human rationality and natural necessitation is resolved when it is acknowledged that, rather than be an inherent feature of thought and action, logical structure is a characteristic of the natural environment that organisms are at times sensitive to, as revealed by its effects on the characters of their thoughts and actions. Far from being remote or illusory, the prospects for reconciling human mentality with the causal mechanisms of the natural world are discovered in the present thesis to be favourable when a realist approach to the characters of both mental events and causation is adopted.

One of the most interesting developments in recent psychological theorising has been a growing appreciation of the need for a viable theory of mental causation. Hitherto, the prospects for reconciling what seems to be the uniquely rational character of human thought and action with the non-rational mechanistic workings of the natural world have appeared to be limited or even illusory, and the pursuit of reconciliation of this sort has therefore formerly been dismissed as being either impossible of completion or inappropriate for contemplation. Much of the scepticism concerning the role of causal processes in human thought and action was dispelled, however, by the philosopher Donald Davidson, who argues that not only is human action capable of being caused by the actor�s thoughts and desires, but that only when such action is so caused, can it be rational. Davidson�s proposal for the reconciliation of human rationality with causal necessitation is articulated in his theory of Anomalous Monism. According to this theory, there exists what may be termed an ontological-conceptual distinction between events themselves and the characters or properties that are attributed to events by human observers, and it is through recognition of this distinction that one discovers how mental events, that is, events that are amenable to description in the psychological vocabulary, are causally efficacious yet free from the constraints typically associated with the necessity and sufficiency of causal laws. Anomalous Monism, if it were workable, would therefore resolve the paradox according to which human mentality is at once integrated in, and yet unconstrained by, the mechanistic natural world, by demonstrating the compatibility of the facts of causation with the intuitions of folk psychology. However, close examination of Anomalous Monism reveals it to rely on logically flawed anti-realist principles concerning the characters of events, properties and causation. It follows from this that the theory itself must be rejected, but the task that it was devised to undertake, the formulation of a viable theory of mental causation, need not be similarly discarded. Rather, what remains is the challenge of delineating an alternative theory, one that withstands logical scrutiny whilst addressing what is characteristic of human mental processes, and thereby what is characteristic of mental causation. The theory of Direct Realism that is derived from the broader philosophical realism of John Anderson provides the materials for meeting this challenge. According to Direct Realism, mental phenomena are relational situations obtaining between certain organisms (including humans) and their environments. As such, mental phenomena are included in the range of phenomena occurring in the natural world and they are therefore subject to all of its ways of working, including its deterministic mechanisms. The particular challenge that a Direct Realist theory of mental causation faces, that of demonstrating that relational situations can be causal, is revealed upon examination of the character of causation to be unproblematic. Furthermore, the seeming incompatibility between human rationality and natural necessitation is resolved when it is acknowledged that, rather than be an inherent feature of thought and action, logical structure is a characteristic of the natural environment that organisms are at times sensitive to, as revealed by its effects on the characters of their thoughts and actions. Far from being remote or illusory, the prospects for reconciling human mentality with the causal mechanisms of the natural world are discovered in the present thesis to be favourable when a realist approach to the characters of both mental events and causation is adopted.

ALMEIDA JÚNIOR, José Gladstone. Análise da teoria da superveniência da consciência. 2014. 93f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, Fortaleza (CE), 2014. / Submitted by Gustavo Daher (gdaherufc@hotmail.com) on 2017-04-17T13:51:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_dis_jgalmeidajunior.pdf: 899840 bytes, checksum: f0a8006c5240ce9c03215b521157f24a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-04-18T11:01:02Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_dis_jgalmeidajunior.pdf: 899840 bytes, checksum: f0a8006c5240ce9c03215b521157f24a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-18T11:01:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2014_dis_jgalmeidajunior.pdf: 899840 bytes, checksum: f0a8006c5240ce9c03215b521157f24a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Certainly consciousness is something extremely familiar and, at the same time, enigmatic for us. Its phenomenal aspect, called phenomenal consciousness, imposes a number of barriers to reductionist approaches proposed by physicist/functionalist framework. Such are the difficulties raised by phenomenal consciousness to that reductionist approaches that the problem concerning that aspect of consciousness is the “hard problem of consciousness”. Considering its apparent irreducibility, it is necessary to analyze a framework which have as core an attempt to conciliate the phenomenal consciousness with a minimum commitment with physicalism, insofar as the necessity of a physical substrate that instantiates our conscious experiences is presupposed. Given that impasse the supervenience of consciousness theory arises with the aim of demonstrating a relation of dependence/determination established between the set of consciousness proprieties and the set of physical proprieties of the brain without, however, necessarily entailing a reduction of the former to the last set. Thus, the aim established in this work consist in analyzing in details the supervenience of consciousness theory and the framework which it inserts and, posteriorly, arguing about the reasons that make that theory unable to provide a substantial relation between consciousness and its physical substrate. / Certamente a consciência é algo extremamente familiar e, ao mesmo tempo, enigmático para nós. Seu aspecto fenomenal, denominado de consciência fenomenal, impõe inúmeras barreiras às abordagens reducionistas propostas pelo quadro teórico fisicista/funcionalista. Tamanhas são as dificuldades suscitadas pela consciência fenomenal a estas abordagens reducionistas que o problema referente a este aspecto da consciência constitui o “problema difícil da consciência”. Considerando sua aparente irredutibilidade, se faz necessário analisar um quadro teórico que tenha como cerne a tentativa de conciliar a consciência fenomenal com um compromisso mínimo com o fisicismo, na medida em que se pressupõe a necessidade de um substrato físico que instancie nossas experiências conscientes. Diante deste impasse a teoria da superveniência da consciência surge com o objetivo de demonstrar uma relação de dependência/determinação estabelecida entre o conjunto de propriedades da consciência e o conjunto de propriedades físicas do cérebro sem, no entanto, implicar necessariamente em uma redução do primeiro ao segundo conjunto. Desta forma, o objetivo estabelecido neste trabalho consiste em analisar pormenorizadamente a teoria da superveniência da consciência e o quadro teórico no qual esta se insere e, posteriormente, argumentar sobre os motivos que fazem desta uma teoria incapaz de fornecer uma relação substancial entre a consciência e seu substrato físico.

My goal in this dissertation is to analyze the question, why is co-location a problem for the metaphysics of material objects? I believe that the existing literature on the topic identifies three possible answers to this question: Either, (i) co-location is a problem because it violates the no-coincidence principle, or because (ii) co-location violates the claim that the best available explanation for the relationship between objects that share the same empirically discriminable properties is the relationship of numerical identity, or finally because (iii) co-location violates the thesis of microphysical determination. I argue that (i), (ii), and (iii) are not sufficient reasons to think that co-location is metaphysically problematic, and that a denial of these assumptions does not warrant a rejection of co-location. I maintain that, instead, if co-location is a problem, it is so in virtue of violating a more basic assumption. Co-location is a problem for the view that the individuation and persistence conditions of any given material object is completely and solely determined by the physical or material properties of such an object. I advance reasons to believe that the latter view is fundamental in the sense that (i), (ii), and (iii), are consequences of it, and that co-location is in conflict with (i), (ii) and (iii), because it questions the basic physicalist view that provides the conditions for (i), (ii), and (iii). The fact that (i), (ii) and (iii) depend on the belief that physical properties exhaust the individuation and persistence of material objects, explains why they are not good reasons against co-location: They cannot establish that co-location is a problem for an account of material objects because they depend on the belief that co-location denies. Therefore, (i), (ii), and (iii) provide no more than three different ways of begging the question against co-location. I argue that, in order to show that co-location is a problem, we must show that physicalism with respect to material objects is the correct, or at least the most plausible, metaphysics of material objects, and this is something that neither (i), (ii), or (iii) can show. This statement of the relationship between co-location and anti-colocation reasons is also a contribution to the discussion of co-location. / Philosophy

[pt] O fisicalismo contemporâneo força a filosofia a lidar com o problema da causação mental: Como a mente é causalmente relevante em um mundo físico? Uma das saídas propostas, o epifenomenalismo, é visto por filósofos importantes como uma posição que preserva características essenciais à subjetividade sem contrariar os fatos científicos. No entanto, pode-se argumentar que a epistemologia dos mesmos e o caráter das leis naturais se chocam com as supostas vantagens do epifenomenalismo. / [en] Contemporary physicalism compels philosophy to deal with the problem of mental causation: How is the mind causally relevant in a physical world? A proposed solution, epiphenomenalism, is seen by major philosophers as a position that preserves features that are crucial to subjectivity without clashing with scientific facts. Still, the epistemology of the latter and the character of natural laws arguably contradict the alleged advantages of epiphenomenalism.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Certamente a consciÃncia à algo extremamente familiar e, ao mesmo tempo, enigmÃtico para nÃs. Seu aspecto fenomenal, denominado de consciÃncia fenomenal, impÃe inÃmeras barreiras Ãs abordagens reducionistas propostas pelo quadro teÃrico fisicista/funcionalista. Tamanhas sÃo as dificuldades suscitadas pela consciÃncia fenomenal a estas abordagens reducionistas que o problema referente a este aspecto da consciÃncia constitui o âproblema difÃcil da consciÃnciaâ. Considerando sua aparente irredutibilidade, se faz necessÃrio analisar um quadro teÃrico que tenha como cerne a tentativa de conciliar a consciÃncia fenomenal com um compromisso mÃnimo com o fisicismo, na medida em que se pressupÃe a necessidade de um substrato fÃsico que instancie nossas experiÃncias conscientes. Diante deste impasse a teoria da superveniÃncia da consciÃncia surge com o objetivo de demonstrar uma relaÃÃo de dependÃncia/determinaÃÃo estabelecida entre o conjunto de propriedades da consciÃncia e o conjunto de propriedades fÃsicas do cÃrebro sem, no entanto, implicar necessariamente em uma reduÃÃo do primeiro ao segundo conjunto. Desta forma, o objetivo estabelecido neste trabalho consiste em analisar pormenorizadamente a teoria da superveniÃncia da consciÃncia e o quadro teÃrico no qual esta se insere e, posteriormente, argumentar sobre os motivos que fazem desta uma teoria incapaz de fornecer uma relaÃÃo substancial entre a consciÃncia e seu substrato fÃsico. / Certainly consciousness is something extremely familiar and, at the same time, enigmatic for us. Its phenomenal aspect, called phenomenal consciousness, imposes a number of barriers to reductionist approaches proposed by physicist/functionalist framework. Such are the difficulties raised by phenomenal consciousness to that reductionist approaches that the problem concerning that aspect of consciousness is the âhard problem of consciousnessâ. Considering its apparent irreducibility, it is necessary to analyze a framework which have as core an attempt to conciliate the phenomenal consciousness with a minimum commitment with physicalism, insofar as the necessity of a physical substrate that instantiates our conscious experiences is presupposed. Given that impasse the supervenience of consciousness theory arises with the aim of demonstrating a relation of dependence/determination established between the set of consciousness proprieties and the set of physical proprieties of the brain without, however, necessarily entailing a reduction of the former to the last set. Thus, the aim established in this work consist in analyzing in details the supervenience of consciousness theory and the framework which it inserts and, posteriorly, arguing about the reasons that make that theory unable to provide a substantial relation between consciousness and its physical substrate.