It has often been argued that John Searle’s theory of mind, biological naturalism, due to its commitment to mental irreducibility amounts to no more than disguised property dualism. I suggest that a thorough analysis of Searle’s somewhat unusual views on the nature of reduction reveals this irreducibility to be not a metaphysical relation between mental properties and physical but one concerned only with the semantics of the respective terms used to refer to these. As a result, I argue, irreducibility in his sense is insufficient to support a metaphysical conclusion like property dualism. Finally, to reinforce this point I give a concrete example of a potential physicalist view which is compatible with the analysis of irreducibility as semantic but not as metaphysical and hence on my reasoning remains open to Searle.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-375774 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Schröder, Felix |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Filosofiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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