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Single Idea 6986

[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind ]

Full Idea

Should the necessary passage from the physical account of the world to the psychological one that physicalists are committed to, be placed in the a posteriori or the a priori basket?

Gist of Idea

Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori?

Source

Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3)

Book Ref

Jackson,Frank: 'From Metaphysics to Ethics' [OUP 2000], p.68

A Reaction

That is, is 'the physical entails the mental' empirical or a priori? See Idea 3989. If we can at least dream of substance dualism, it is hard to see how it could be fully a priori. I think I prefer to see it as an inductive explanation.

Related Idea

Idea 3989 I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis]

The 22 ideas with the same theme [all mental events can be explained physically]:

5713 You needn't be made of laughing particles to laugh, so why not sensation from senseless seeds? [Lucretius]
7550 We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell]
9317 Searle argues that biology explains consciousness, but physics won't explain biology [Searle, by Kriegel/Williford]
3474 If mind is caused by brain, does this mean mind IS brain? [Searle]
3500 Can the homunculus fallacy be beaten by recursive decomposition? [Searle]
6986 Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson]
3433 The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain [Kim]
4900 Prior to Kripke, the mind-brain identity theory usually claimed that the identity was contingent [Perry]
3989 I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis]
7657 Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett]
7879 Mind-brain reduction is less explanatory, because phenomenal concepts lack causal roles [Papineau]
20971 Weak reduction of mind is to physical causes; strong reduction is also to physical laws [Papineau]
21834 Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be [Flanagan]
10826 'Valence' and 'gene' had to be reduced to show their compatibility with physicalism [Field,H]
6530 We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan]
6536 Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan]
7704 Reduction of intentionality involving nonexistent objects is impossible, as reduction must be to what is actual [Jacquette]
4597 Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil]
4903 Scans of brains doing similar tasks produce very similar patterns of activation [Carter,R]
4920 Thinking takes place on the upper side of the prefrontal cortex [Carter,R]
4688 We imagine small and large objects scaled to the same size, suggesting a fixed capacity for imagination [Lavers]
8685 Studying biology presumes the laws of chemistry, and it could never contradict them [Friend]