Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, 1931. / Bibliography: p. [68]-69.

Thesis--Universität des Saarlandes. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-135).

No description available.

<p> The early twentieth century witnessed the emergence of "objective relativism," a distinctly American school of metaphysical realism inspired by the works of John Dewey and A.N. Whitehead. Largely forgotten, objective relativism provided a metaphysical framework, based upon an ontology of events and relations rather than substances and discrete properties, that has continued relevance for contemporary metaphysical discussions. In this thesis, I attempt to chart the boundaries and pathways of this ontology, outlining what Dewey calls the "ground-map of the province of criticism." In particular, the ground-map of objective relativism is invoked to situate and analyze the model of psycho-physical emergence outlined in Dewey's <i>Experience and Nature.</i> Because it is a relational ontology, objective relativism avoids problems with emergence common to substantival models. Additional analyses of its ontological premises, both in Dewey's writings and elsewhere, demonstrate how compelling accounts of causation, consciousness, and meaning may be formulated within this model.</p>

<p> The current debate over the metaphysical nature of the mind is dominated by two major philosophical views: property dualism and physicalism. According to property dualism, mental properties are of metaphysically distinct types. There are "phenomenal properties", or "qualia", the properties that constitute conscious experience, and there are the cognitive or functional properties of the mind. According to physicalism, there is one metaphysical type of mental property, though there may be a deep conceptual divide between experience and cognition. </p><p> I challenge both these assumptions. Focusing on two of the most popular anti-physicalist arguments&mdash;the Conceivability Argument and the Knowledge Argument&mdash;I argue that the property dualist's account of the relationship between consciousness and behavior&mdash;the "explanatory irrelevance" of consciousness to sufficient explanations our behavior and how we make judgment about our conscious experience&mdash;make the first argument untenable and the second irrelevant to the metaphysical debate. </p><p> I also present a case against a physicalist conceptual separation between cognition and consciousness by challenging the "Phenomenal Concept Strategy", the most popular argument supporting such a separation. This conceptual separation supposedly allows us to conceive of "philosophical zombies", creature physically identical to human beings but who lack conscious experience. The phenomenal concept strategy aims to explain how we can conceive of zombies while maintaining a physicalist account of the metaphysics of mind. </p><p> For this strategy to succeed, the physicalist must show that we share our epistemic situation regarding consciousness with our "zombie-twins". Zombies make claims about their own phenomenal experience, just as we do, but by definition they have none. I examine the most common physicalist interpretation of the zombies' beliefs about their own conscious experiences and show that this leads to the creation of "inconceivable minds"&mdash;creatures whose mental features would be incompatible with the very interpretation of zombie "phenomenal" belief on which this strategy is based. </p><p> My dissertation has two overarching goals. First, to undermine the plausibility of the two most popular arguments for property dualism, and second, to force physicalists to reconsider both the phenomenal concept strategy and their commitment to the genuine conceivability of zombies.</p>

<p> My topic is the continuity of thought from Descartes' earliest writings to his mature thought as expressed in the <i>Meditations.</i> In the early work, the <i>Rules,</i> Descartes replaces the scholastic form-matter model of the physical world with a quantitative description of the physical as matter in a Euclidian space. </p><p> In the first two chapters I examine the early work showing its break with scholasticism and the structure of his new vision. The <i>Rules </i> was Descartes first major work; it was to consist of thirty six rules. It was neither completed nor published. He stopped working on it in 1628, completing only twenty one rules with commentary on the first eighteen. The first twelve are the philosophically interesting ones. In those he develops a method based on mathematical proofs and introduces a set of basic principles he calls `simple natures' which are intuitively known. This model has the simple principles (natures) analogous to the postulates and axioms of Euclidian geometry. From the principles complex problems are solved by reducing the terms to those of the simple natures and re-constructing the problem in those terms. While the <i>Rules</i> emphasizes material natures as the basis for physical science, he also introduces a definition of mind as thought. </p><p> In the next two chapters I argue that this basic structure of method and simple natures carries over into the <i>Meditations.</i> The goal is different but the tools are the same. The definitions of matter and mind that Descartes sets in Meditation II are the same as in the <i> Rules:</i> mind as thought and matter as extension. Doubt, which is often taken as the new method is shown to be just a part of the early stage of the original method. It is used to reduce a complex to simples by eliminating any uncertainties until an indubitable simple nature is reached: the <i> cogito.</i> </p><p> In the final chapter I examine the problem of apparent contrasting explanations of true and immutable natures in Meditation V and the First Reply. I argue that they are compatible if we understand natures in terms of the principles of the <i>Rules.</i></p>

No description available.

Separate from "Programm"--Bamberg. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University. / Columbia university contributions to philosophy and psychology, vol. XVIII, no. 2.