Chalmers’ defense of the conceivability argument

The Conceivability Argument for Dualism

I finally turn to an all too cursory discussion of the application of the foregoing considerations to the identity thesis. Identity theorists have been concerned with several distinct types of identifications: of a person with his body, of a particular sensation (or event or state of having the sensation) with a particular brain state (Jones's pain at 06:00 was his C-fiber stimulation at that t...

A Defense of the Deprivation Argument

Some believe that abortion is wrong because it harms the fetus by depriving it of its future. Dean Stretton rejects his argument. He claims that the harm of death is not a sufficient source of the right to life and that, even if it were, a fetus cannot be seriously harmed by being deprived of its future. In this article I critically assess Stretton’s arguments for each of these claims and find ...

The Conceivability of Platonism†

It is widely believed that platonists face a formidable problem: that of providing an intelligible account of mathematical knowledge. The problem is that we seem unable, if the platonist is right, to have the causal relationships with the objects of mathematics without which knowledge of these objects seems unintelligible. The standard platonist response to this challenge is either to deny that...

Physicalism, Conceivability and Strong Necessities

David Chalmers’ conceivability argument against physicalism relies on the entailment from a priori conceivability to metaphysical possibility. The a posteriori physicalist rejects this premise, but is consequently committed to psychophysical strong necessities. These don’t fit into the Kripkean model of the necessary a posteriori, and they are therefore, according to Chalmers, problematic. But ...

On the Conceivability of Mechanism