Physicalism, or Something Near Enough (Princeton Monographs in Philosophy Book 14) by Jaegwon Kim (PDF)

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Contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind have largely been shaped by physicalism, the doctrine that all phenomena are ultimately physical. Here, Jaegwon Kim presents the most comprehensive and systematic presentation yet of his influential ideas on the mind-body problem. He seeks to determine, after half a century of debate: What kind of (or “how much”) physicalism can we lay claim to? He begins by laying out mental causation and consciousness as the two principal challenges to contemporary physicalism. How can minds exercise their causal powers in a physical world? Is a physicalist account of consciousness possible? The book’s starting point is the “supervenience” argument (sometimes called the “exclusion” argument), which Kim reformulates in an extended defense. This argument shows that the contemporary physicalist faces a stark choice between reductionism (the idea that mental phenomena are physically reducible) and epiphenomenalism (the view that mental phenomena are causally impotent). Along the way, Kim presents a novel argument showing that Cartesian substance dualism offers no help with mental causation. Mind-body reduction, therefore, is required to save mental causation. But are minds physically reducible? Kim argues that all but one type of mental phenomena are reducible, including intentional mental phenomena, such as beliefs and desires. The apparent exceptions are the intrinsic, felt qualities of conscious experiences (“qualia”). Kim argues, however, that certain relational properties of qualia, in particular their similarities and differences, are behaviorally manifest and hence in principle reducible, and that it is these relational properties of qualia that are central to their cognitive roles. The causal efficacy of qualia, therefore, is not entirely lost. According to Kim, then, while physicalism is not the whole truth, it is the truth near enough.

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⭐Jaegwon Kim is a leading thinker in philosophy of mind, and this book is the culmination of his evolving thought in this field. Kim presents himself as a somewhat reluctant advocate for reductionist physicalism. Kim notes the dominant view of mind in analytic philosophy of the last half century has been a non-reductive physicalism, and this work is primarily a critique of that viewpoint.The writing and tone of this work are both noteworthy. Kim’s writing is the clearest I have read in any philosophy text. While he uses some technical terms, and refers to some arcane or abstract issues in debate in philosophy of mind, the vast majority of the paragraphs in this book can be easily understood by any educated reader (with the exception of chapter 5 of 6, which dissects and rebuts a series of ideas advocated by other philosophers – it was difficult to follow for someone who has not read those works). The tone is even more unusual. Kim approaches the questions of mind not as an advocate, but as a collaborator with his colleagues, and treats their collective disputes as the collaboration needed to sift out flawed ideas. He regularly admits to shortcomings in models and how well they match the problem, which is a refreshing change from advocates of an idea who strive to paper over or blow smoke around any weaknesses of their pet theory.The clarity of writing, honesty in recognizing weaknesses, and collaborative attitude made this book a joy to read.The core of the book is a section which points out that a “coupling” concept tying consciousness intimately with neural processes, called supervenience, basically boils down to either consciousness not being causal, or an identity theory between consciousness and some neural function. Kim spells out four assumptions shared by the majority position of philosophers of mind:• Causal closure of physics• Causal exclusion• Mind-body supervenience• Irreducibility of mental to physicalAnd derives either non-causality or material reductionism for mental phenomenal from them. As he is critiquing the majority view of philosophers here, this is a bold claim.He then points out that physics closure requires that only physical processes can be causal, and therefore if the mental is causal, it must be identical with some aspect of physical neurology.Kim’s version of identity/reduction is weaker than reductionism is generally stated. Rather than asserting that a mental function is identical with one and only one architecture of one substrate, he asserts that any architecture of any substrate that performs the function could be considered identical to the function.Kim clearly cares about the reality of the mind. He states an interest in “saving” conscious causation, which lead him to advocate reduction of consciousness to physical neural identity. He is also worried over “eliminativism”, the process of trivializing/ignoring the mental that most reductionist philosophers adopt, so he is a reluctant reductionist.The causal/non-causal question recurred in discussing the perception aspects of consciousness. Kim referenced the multiple debates over qualia, and cites a consensus of philosophers that qualia are not reducible to the physical. Which leads him to conclude qualia have no causal effect. This is the “near enough” of the books title. Kim admits that some aspects of mind are not physical – ie physicalism is wrong – but also asserts that they are causally irrelevant, hence physicalism is “near enough” of an approximation for us to use for the world.In an ancillary chapter, Kim rejects substance dualism, based on causation requiring some method of “pairing” between cause and effect, and a mental substance having no space dimension to provide the pairing, and Kim not being able to imagine anything but space providing such pairing. This last point was a crucial failing. The argument basically consisted of an argument from incredulity or failure of imagination. Kim’s initial point is correct, any physics of “mind” must include features that vary the degree of influence of a mental event on different physical substrates (I raise my hand, not yours), and something that limits how many minds can influence a body (why aren’t 5000 minds sending me in 5000 directions right now). But his inability to conceive of anything other than location that could do this is more an indication of HIS lack of familiarity with model construction than any real problem. The discussion was also peculiarly dated, as it often assumed pre-Newtonian Leibnitzian physics, where interaction required “contact” between solids, and also depended on “no superposition”. Macro solids do not superimpose, but elementary particles, liquids, gases, plasma, and energy fields superimpose, and elementary particles and energy fields do not need to “contact” to interact.Kim’s rejection of causation for items with non-locality means he rejects that ideas can cause ideas. This means he must reject functionalism – where logical state B follows logical state A due to the laws of the function. As we are familiar with many logic and mathematical laws, and their apparent functional causation within the function-space (example, what is 2 + 2 = ?), Kim’s claim for causal incoherence for anything lacking location is hardly credible.Kim declares partial victory for physicalism in his conclusion, but this claim is misplaced. He starts with an assumption of physical closedness, and tries to defend physicalism, but ends up having to admit that there are real non-physical aspects to our world. When one’s assumptions lead to contradictions, then one’s assumptions are wrong. Additionally, “near enough” is what engineering delivers — occasional exceptions can be pragmatically ignored. In philosophy and science, the goal is “truth”. And exceptions to the rule provide crucial clues – most science breakthroughs have come from focusing on exceptions and anomalies.The appropriate conclusion to Kim’s book should be that physicalism needs as a minimum to be reconsidered. The most obvious assumption to reconsider is causal closure of the physical. Kim’s support for causal closure is to reference articles by David Papineau – who basically cites a 100 year near-consensus of philosophers. As Kim considers the half-century of behaviorism in philosophy ignoring the mind to have been a mistaken consensus, and is challenging the subsequent half century consensus view of non-reductive physicalism, a consensus of philosophers is not something he can justify relying on. And as his argument against a causal mind is unconvincing, rethinking his rejection of an independently causal mind is the obvious path to pursue. That he advocates an engineering approximation, ignoring the contradictions to his worldview, rather than an aggressive re-evaluation of his assumptions due to self-contradiction, was a disappointment.

⭐by one of the leading contemporary philosophers of mind.By “classical physicalist theory” I simply mean a theory that bases its claims on classical, and not quantum, physics. Basing discussions of consciousness on classical physics, although standard in the philosophical literature, is controversial and quite possibly wrong (cf. e.g. Penrose’s

⭐, Stapp’s

⭐for the contrary view by two well-known physicists.)I found Kim’s book to be one of the very best recent books on the philosophy of mind and quite suitable for non-philosophers interested in philosophical theories of consciousness. But this does not mean this book would be intelligible to beginners. It assumes you are quite familiar with theories of consciousness such as physicalism / materialism and dualism, and understand philosophical concepts like supervenience, mental causation and qualia. (One can readily obtain this background by reading, e.g. Kim’s standard textbook

⭐or Lowe’s lucid and balanced

⭐.) Kim has an engaging and admirably clear writing style. You won’t get bogged down in endless side arguments or caveats on caveats: the logic of his arguments are quite straightforward, making it easy to decide whether you agree with him or not.Having said this, I was also quite disappointed with Kim’s final two chapters, “Living with the Mental Residue” and “Where are we at last with the Mind-Body Problem”. Specifically, I was let down by his apparent reluctance to accept the significance of his central conclusion: literally / logically speaking, physicalism is false. It’s true the scope of the failure is restricted to so-called qualia, i.e. the inner quality — the “what it is like” — of our subjective experience, and these have no causal power. But given that one’s entire world is grounded and immersed in subjective experience, that one’s personal world is constructed from these pesky qualia, it seems unjustifiably dismissive of him to refer to the failure of physicalism to provide an account of qualia as merely an inconsequential defect (to quote him: “a slightly defective physicalism”, p. 174).In the last two chapters, he seems to want to salvage physicalism by whatever means and the only means available are weak rhetorical devices. Examples of this include his use of the dismissive term “mental residue” (p. p.170), his claim that all that’s left to be done are “mopping up operations” (p. 174) and most egregiously, his discussion on pp 170-174 where he writes: “Can the antiphysicalist celebrate his victory? Hardly.”But of course she can! The reason for celebration is that, after all the arguments are over, Kim has actually wound up with, by his own lights, an antiphysicalist position. Y’know, one needs just one counterexample to disprove a general thesis. By Kim’s own logic, antiphysicalism wins and so physicalism loses. That’s a victory, is it not? The fact that the scope of the victory is restricted does not mean it is not a victory.This is sheer spectulation but perhaps Kim simply disliked his own logical conclusion: why else would such a sophisticated thinker dress up his concluding remarks with facile phrases and sentiments such as “slightly defective physicalism”, “we won’t miss them” (meaning the irreducible “mental residue” of qualia), concluding quite subjectively and, to me, unconvincingly that he’s reached “a plausible terminus for the mind-body debate” and that “physicalism is not the whole truth but it is the truth near enough, and truth near enough should be good enough”.In this admittedly non-expert, non-philosopher’s mind, the only real problem is the so-called hard problem of subjective experience (qualia). In this respect, a “near miss is as good as a mile”. Hence the last two chapters were, for me, a bit of a let down, especially coming from Prof. Kim, for whom I have a great deal of respect.Nevertheless, for anyone interested in this intriguing and difficult topic, it’s a highly informative, thought-provoking and enjoyable read.

⭐Kim briefly touches on the problems with nonreductive physicalism and makes the case that only a reductionist approach can save mental causation. Makes the case for a form of reductive explanation that is compatible with multiple realizability.His “close enough” is that there will be some piece of qualia that cannot be functionalized and explained.It’s quite a good book and I found his writing to be concise, clear, and, best part, enjoyable! I’d recommend it for anyone interested in Philosophy of Mind.Hopefully I did as much justice to the work as can be expected of a 2 sentence summary. You should read the book to find out if I did!

⭐Good!

⭐extremely satisfied with everything, especially Amazon.com’s new way of international shipping

⭐Jaegwon Kim ist einer der maßgeblichen Vordenker der Analytischen Philosophie des Geistes. In Bezug auf die ontologischen Verpflichtungen oder metaphysischen Voraussetzungen der Philosophie des Geistes ist Kim wahrscheinlich der international einflussreichste Denker. Zu Recht, was die außerordentliche sprachliche wie sachliche Klarheit und Deutlichkeit seiner Beiträge angeht. Dies gilt auch für sein “Physicalism, or Something Near Enough”. Der Titel meint, dass nach wie vor der Physikalismus grosso modo als metaphysische Standardtheorie gelten sollte, aber eben nur grosso modo oder wie Kim sagt: “something near enough”. Denn Kim öffnet sich in dieser jüngsten Veröffentlichung den Argumenten von mindestens epistemischen Mentalisten wie David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel und Franz v. Kutschera, und John Searle. Er übernimmt deren These, dass die bewusste phänomenale Ebene der Erlebniswelt qualitativer Sinnesempfindungen oder Erlebnisqualitäten (= Qualia wie Azurblau, Erdbeergeschmack, Sandelholzduft) weder auf die physikalische oder neurowissenschaftliche Ebene reduzierbar ist, noch auf die funktionalistische Ebene objektiven Geistes (Information), sondern eine eigene ursprüngliche Realität darstellt (vgl. Chalmers: The Conscious Mind. In Search of a Fundamental Theory, New York / Oxford 1996; Searle: Mind, Oxford 2004 [dt: Geist. Eine Einführung, Frankfurt am Main 2006]; Kutschera: Philosophie des Geistes, Paderborn 2009).Nach wie vor ist Kim jedoch der Meinung, dass die kausal-funktionalistische Ebene der mentalen Informationsrepräsentation und -verarbeitung auf die physikalische Ebene reduzierbar ist. Der transdisziplinär denkende Leser ist perplex, wenn er wieder einmal dem Phänomen gegenüber steht, dass der Hauptstrom der Analytischen Philosophie dem Flussbett der längst nicht mehr aktuellen Ontologie des klassischen Materialismus oder Physikalismus des 19. Jh. folgt, als einem selbstverständlichen Dogma und einer unhinterfragten, sedimentierten Basisannahme. Man fühlt sich an Searles berühmtes Diktum erinnert: “Most mainstream cognitive scientists simply repeated the worst mistake of the behaviorists: They insisted on studying only objectively observable phenomena, thus ignoring the essential features of the mind” – “The philosophy of mind of the past fifty years … is a [collective] compulsive neurotic … repeating the same pattern of behavior over and over”. Man verdrängt, so Searle, zwanghaft das alles entscheidende Grunddatum: “The ontology of the mental is an irreducibly first-person ontology [of conscious subjectivity” (John Searle: The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge / Mass., 1992, XII, 31, 95). Es scheint, dass die Analytische Philosophie des Geistes hier einfach zu wenig interdisziplinär reflektiert ist. Hierzu nur drei Argumente.(1) Zunächst zur Physik: Die heute von der Mehrzahl der Physikerkommunität geteilte Kopenhagener Interpretation der Quantenphysik nimmt eine Subjektabhängigkeit der aktuellen Erfahrungswirklichkeit an: Die sichtbare Außenwelt als Gegenstand der Naturwissenschaft ist nur und genau ein Ausschnitt unserer Erlebniswelt, wie der Vater der Quantenphysik, Werner Heisenberg, sagt. Von daher das geflügelte Wort der modernen Physik: mind over matter. Die Relativitätstheorie macht darüber hinaus deutlich, dass Raum und Zeit lediglich Projektions- oder Präsentationsmedien sind und kein absoluter, für sich seiender Raum und keine absolute Zeit existieren. Auch hier bestätigt sich das Prinzip “mind over matter”: Zeitdauer und Räumlichkeit sind relative Strukturformen physikalischer Gegenstände niedriger Energie und geringer Masse in bewussten Subjekten (vgl. Auyang, S. Y.: How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?, New York 1995; Rohs, P.: Feld – Zeit – Ich: Entwurf einer feldtheoretischen Transzendentalphilosophie, Frankfurt/M 1996). In den Worten H.-P. Dürrs, bis 1997 Direktor des Max-Planck-Institutes für Physik und Astrophysik in München und der z.Zt. bekannteste Vordenker einer interdisziplinären, philosophischen und ethischen Einordnung der Physik: “Hatte man ursprünglich vermutet, daß das ‘Transzendente’ im Laufe der Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaft immer weiter zurückgedrängt werden würde, … so stellte sich nun im Gegenteil heraus, daß die uns so handgreiflich zugängliche materielle Welt sich immer mehr als Schein entpuppt und sich in einer Wirklichkeit verflüchtigt, in der nicht mehr Dinge und Materie, sondern Form und Gestalt dominieren. Das Höhlengleichnis Platons, in dem die von uns wahrnehmbare Welt nur als Schatten einer eigentlichen Wirklichkeit, der Welt der Ideen, aufgefaßt wird, kommt einem in diesem Zusammenhang unwillkürlich in den Sinn.” (Das Netz des Physikers, München 2000, 108-109)(2) Zweitens hat die Wissenschaftstheorie und auch die interdisziplinäre Kognitionswissenschaft seit den 60er Jahren des 20. Jh. zwei zentrale Einsichten herausgearbeitet, die dem bereits Gesagten entsprechen. Einmal die Einsicht in die Theoriehaltigkeit jeder Erfahrung (theoryladenness) und dann die Einsicht in die Subjektabhängigkeit der Erfahrung. Erstere Einsicht hat Popper unübertrefflich auf den Punkt gebracht: “Fast jede unserer Aussagen transzendiert die Erfahrung […] Wir bewegen uns in Theorien, sogar dann, wenn wir die trivialsten Sätze aussprechen […] Denn selbst gewöhnliche singuläre Sätze sind stets Interpretation der ‘Tatsachen’ im Lichte von Theorien.” (Popper: Logik der Forschung, 9. Aufl. Tübingen 1989, 377-378) Im Blick auf die zweite Einsicht in die vorrangige Bedeutung des kognitiven Subjektes – auch für die ‘objektivistische’ Naturwissenschaft – zeigen schon die Neurowissenschaften, dass die Welt der Wahrnehmung und begrifflich strukturierten Erfahrung eine virtuelle Wirklichkeit ist, eine “mentale Simulation […] möglicher Realitäten, … innerer kognitiver Erwartungen und Hypothesen in einem begriffsgeleiteten top-down-Vorgehen” (Metzinger: Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity, Cambridge, Mass. 2003, 49, 51 [Übersetzung von mir, PN]). Das Gehirn “lässt seine inneren selbständigen Simulationsprozesse unaufhörlich mit dem laufenden Strom des sensorischen Dateneingangs kollidieren, lebhaft über die Welt träumend und so den Inhalt der bewussten sinnlichen Erfahrungswelt erzeugend” (ebd. 52). Physikalisch irreduzible Voraussetzung hierfür ist die bewusste Subjektivität des phänomenalen Ich. Bewusstsein (unmittelbare Selbstgegebenheit) – phänomenale Erlebnisqualitäten (Qualia) – reflexive Identität (Selbst) – intentionale Perspektivität (zentriertes Bewusstsein des Erlebnisraums) sind irreduzibel subjektiv und daher ist die “Subjektivität als Kernstück einer modernen Theorie des Geistes” anzusehen (Metzinger: Subjekt und Selbstmodell, 2. Aufl. Paderborn 1999, 21).(3) Auch die physikalistische Philosophie des Geistes geht heute meistens von dem Ansatz aus, dass Lebewesen intentionale Systeme sind. Das heißt: Lebensformen verkörpern objektive Intelligenz und sind intelligente Systeme “die von Informationen gelenkt werden und nach Zielen streben” (Dennett: Spielarten des Geistes. Wie erkennen wir die Welt? Ein neues Verständnis des Bewußtseins, München 2001, 40). Biologische Systeme sind Akteure, denen nach Dennett geistige Zustände zugeordnet werden müssen. Sie haben – fachtechnisch gesprochen – propositionale Einstellungen mit der logischen Struktur: x weiß, dass Pt … / y glaubt, dass Qt, … etc. (ebd. 2001, 62). Auch hier ist also die naheliegendste Frage: Entschuldigung, aber um alles in der Welt: Was hat das mit Materialismus oder Physikalismus im üblichen Sinn des Wortes zu tun?Persönlich halte ich es nicht für ausgeschlossen, dass gerade Kims letztes Wort in der Sache eines Tages lauten wird: “Mentalism, or Something Near Enough”. Diese Möglichkeit ist einerseits durch Kims Expertise in klassischen Fragen der Metaphysik gegeben, welche ihm der Kontakt zu Roderick Chisholm vermittelt hat. Andererseits durch Kims außergewöhnliche denkerische Präzision, welche auf Dauer eine solche Inkohärenz wie jene zwischen den mentalistischen Ergebnissen der gegenwärtigen Grundlagenforschung und dem materialistischen Überbau des physikalistischen Paradigmas kaum ignorieren kann.Dies um so weniger als die o.g. Einsichten gerade in der Analytischen Philosophie der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jh. zu den zwei bekannten Paradigmenwechseln geführt haben: zur kognitiven Wende (cognitive turn) und zur transzendentalen Wende (transcendental turn). Beide vollziehen aber nur und genau die in Rede stehenden Einsichten bereits Platons, Leibniz’ und Kants von der Theoriehaltigkeit und Subjektabhängigkeit des Zugangs zur Realität nach. Das bedeutet aber noch einmal ganz kompakt: Aller Zugang zur Realität in Wahrnehmung, Kognition und Praxis ist die eines Subjekts und seiner Erfahrungs- und Denkformen: Ich – erfahre – die Natur. (a) Ich = Basisrealität der subjektiven Erfahrung mit inneren mentalen Empfindungen, Zuständen und Vorgängen: kognitives Subjekt; (b) erfahre = Realität der objektiven Natur im Medium der sinnlichen und begrifflichen Erfassung, kognitiven Konstruktion und mentalen Repräsentation (Erscheinung), d.h. als Gegenstand der objektiven Erfahrung: kognitive Repräsentation und Verarbeitung; (c) die Natur = die Realität der objektiven Natur als Sein in sich (Ding an sich), d.h. als offen transzendenter Erfahrungshorizont: kognitives Objekt.

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