Showing papers in "The Monist in 2004"

The Modern Philosophical Resurrection of Teleology

Abstract: Many objects in the world have functions. Typewriters are for typing. Can-openers are for opening cans. Lawnmowers are for cutting grass. That is what these things are for. Every day around the world people attribute functions to objects. Some of the objects with functions are organs or parts of living organisms. Hearts are for pumping blood. Eyes are for seeing. Countless works in biology explain the "Form, Function, and Evolution of ... " everything from bee dances to elephant tusks to pandas' 'thumbs'. Many scientific explanations, in areas as diverse as psy chology, sociology, economics, medical research, and neuroscience, rest on appeals to the function and/or malfunction of things or systems. They talk of how humans and other organisms or their parts work, what their functions are, why they are present, and how different situations will affect them and how they will react. Philosophers, going back to Aristotle, used to make generous use of functions in describing objects, organisms, their interactions, and even as the basis of ethics and metaphysics. And yet, since the Enlightenment, talk of the function of natural objects, tele ologica! function, began to be viewed with suspicion, as the mechanical model of the world replaced the old Aristotelian model. From a religious standpoint, it used to be easy to see how objects in the natural world could have natural functions, for God was said to instill functions by design throughout Creation. But philosophers became increasingly (and wisely) reluctant to invoke God to solve every difficult philosophical problem, and became unwilling to indulge in such religious explanations of tele

Extended Simples: A Third Way Between Atoms and Gunk

Abstract: I argue that the assumptions that physically basic things are either mereologically atomic, or that they are continuous and there are no atoms, both face difficult conceptual problems. Both views tend to presuppose a largely unquestioned assumption, that things have parts corresponding to the geometric parts of the regions they occupy. To avoid these problems I propose a third view, that physically simple things occupy a finite volume without themselves having parts. This view is examined enough to tease out some of its consequences and show that it withstands the obvious questions it faces. I conclude by mentioning some precedents for this view in Democritus, Kant, and Whitehead, with close variants in Boscovich, Harre and Markosian.

Consciousness and Self-Consciousness

Abstract: What is the relation between consciousness and self-consciousness? In recent philosophy of mind, we are accustomed to underlining their independence. It is often emphasized that a person can be conscious of a host of objects, features, and states of affairs unrelated to her. When a person is conscious of the sky, or consciously experiences the blueness of the sky, she is not attending to herself in the least. That is, she is not self-conscious. Yet she is very clearly conscious. Therefore, consciousness can occur in the absence of self-consciousness. I think there is something amiss in this picture. I will argue that consciousness essentially involves self-consciousness, in the sense that the former cannot occur in the absence of the latter. The argument will proceed as follows. In §1, I will discuss a familiar distinction between transitive consciousness and intransitive consciousness, and argue that the former depends upon the latter. In §2, I will introduce a parallel distinction between two modes of self-consciousness, which I will call transitive selfconsciousness and intransitive self-consciousness. In §3, I will argue that the common reasons for claiming that consciousness is independent of self-consciousness apply only to transitive self-consciousness. And in §4, I will argue that when it comes to intransitive self-consciousness, it appears that no consciousness can occur in its absence. In that sense, consciousness is dependent upon intransitive selfconsciousness.

Plurals and simples

Abstract: I would like to discuss the claim that the resources of plural reference and plural quantification are sufficient for the purpose of paraphrasing all ordinary statements apparently concerned with composite material objects into plural statements concerned exclusively with simples.1 One reason this claim is of interest is that, if true, it would enable proponents of radical answers to what Peter van Inwagen has called the special composition question to evade a certain predicament in which they often find themselves.2 The special composition question asks under what circumstances do several things compose something. What is perhaps the most extreme answer to this question, compositional nihilism, denies that composition ever occurs. On this view, there are no composite objects at all. There are, in particular, no tables or chairs or planets. At most, there are simples arranged tablewise and chairwise and planetwise.3 A somewhat more liberal answer to the special composition question seeks to accommodate the fact that none of us is a simple, if we exist at all. To make room for the existence of composites like ourselves, some metaphysicians, most notably Peter van Inwagen, have proposed a semi nihilist answer on which several simples compose something just in case their activities constitute a life (or there is just one of them). On his view, there are simples and living organisms, but there are no tables or chairs or planets. At most, there are simples arranged tablewise and chairwise and planetwise. Philosophers who advocate such highly restrictive answers to the special composition question might appear to invite us to curtail much of ordinary talk, which describes a world inhabited by a variety of composite objects such as tables, chairs, and planets. We ordinarily utter statements such as "there is a chair next to a table" or "some bricks compose a house" or "some trees make up a forest" that carry apparent commitment to composite objects. But that would not be a promising strategy on their

Being Conscious of Ourselves

Abstract: 1. Consciousness of the Self What is it that we are conscious of when we are conscious of ourselves? Hume famously despaired of finding self, as against simply finding various impressions and ideas, when, as he put it, "I enter most in timately into what I call myself"1 "When I turn my reflexion on myself I never can perceive this ^//without some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive any thing but the perceptions."2 It is arguable that the way Hume attempted to become conscious of the self seriously stacked the deck against success. Hume assumed that being conscious of a self would have to consist in perceiving that self. Per ceiving things does make one conscious of them, but perceiving some thing is not the only way we can be conscious of it. We are also conscious of something when we have a thought about that thing as being present. I may be conscious of an object in front of me by seeing it or hearing it; but, if my eyes are closed and the object makes no sound, I may be conscious of it instead by having a thought that it is there in front of me. Not all thoughts one can have about an object result in one's being conscious of that object. We resist the idea that having thoughts about objects we take to be distant in place or time, such as Saturn or Caesar, makes one conscious of those objects; so the thought must be about the object as being present to one. And the thought must presumably have an assertorie mental attitude; doubting and wondering something about an object do not make one conscious of the object. Nor does simply being disposed to have a thought about something make one conscious of it; the thought must be occurrent. But having an occurrent, assertorie thought about an object as being present does intuitively make one conscious of that object. Hume would presumably have argued that this alternative way of being conscious of things has no advantage here, since he maintained that thinking

How to Be a Conventional Person

Abstract: Recent work in personal identity has emphasized the importance of various conventions, or "person-directed practices" in the determination of personal identity An interesting question arises as to whether we should think that there are any entities that have, in some interesting sense, conventional identity conditions We think that the best way to understand such work about practices and conventions is the strongest and most radical If these considerations are correct, persons are, on our view, conventional constructs: they are in part constituted by certain conventions A person exists only if the relevant conventions exist A person will be a conscious being of a certain kind combined with a set of conventions Some of those conventions are encoded in the being itself, so requiring the conventions to exist is requiring the conscious being to be organized in a particular way In most cases the conventions in question are settled There is no dispute about what the conventions are, and thus no dispute about which events a person can survive These are cases where we take the conventions so much for granted, that it is easy to forget that they are there, and that they are necessary constituents of persons Sometimes though, conventions are not settled Sometimes there is a dispute about what the conventions should be, and thus a dispute about what events a person can survive These are the traditional puzzle cases of personal identity That it appears that conventions play a part in determining persons' persistence conditions only in these puzzle cases is explained by the fact that only in these cases are the conventions unsettled Settled or not though, conventions are necessary constituents of persons

An Alternative to Conceptual Analysis in the Function Debate

Abstract: Philosophical interest in the biological concept of function stems largely from concerns about its teleological associations. Assigning something a function seems akin to assigning it a purpose, and discussion of the purpose of items has long been off-limits to science. Analytic philosophers have attempted to defend 'function' by showing that claims about functions do not involve any reference to a problematic notion of purpose. To do this, philosophers offer short lists of necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of the concept-where the conditions involve only acceptable physical or biological notions-and claim that the set of conditions captures the import of function statements. One problem is that no such set of conditions fits biological use perfectly, and debate among the various approaches rages. Proposals can be separated into two main categories. Etiological accounts include a condition referring to the natural selection of the trait in question, while Non-etiological accounts abjure any such reference. Now, thirty years after the Etiological approach first attracted widespread support (after Wright [1973]), the two sides remain at odds. Perhaps most importantly, some real-life cases and thought experiments appear to show that Etiological accounts limit function ascriptions unacceptably, while other cases suggest that Non-etiological accounts assign functions too liberally. Sadly, the debate over how to handle such cases, and whether modified accounts can avoid them, often degenerates into the "dull thud of conflicting intuitions" (to borrow an apt phrase from Bigelow and Pargetter 1987, p. 196). In this paper, I claim that the standoff between the two sides stems largely from the assumption that the project is conceptual analysis, where accounts attempt to state the intension or extension of the current biological term or to describe biologists' criteria for its application. This sort of project relies on

Grit or Gunk: Implications of the Banach-Tarski Paradox

Abstract: This paper concerns the structure of any spatially extended things, including regions of space or spacetime. I shall use intuitions about the quantity (measure) of extended things to argue for a dichotomy: either a given finite extended thing is point-free gunk, that is, it has no points as parts, or it is made of grit, that is there are only finitely many points. This Grit or Gunk dichotomy excludes what I call the orthodoxy, namely that: (1) there are points; and (2) not merely are points represent ed by coordinate triples; but (3) every set of triples of reals represents a region of space.1 It does not, however, exclude the trivial grit thesis, "Nihilism," that there are no extended things because the only located things are point-like (points or point particles or point instances of fields) and, it is said, these points do not have mereological sums.2 So we have not a dichotomy but a trichotomy: Nihilism, Grit or Gunk. The Grit or Gunk dichotomy applies to other extended things as well as regions, but with slight complications. Fields will be discussed at the end of the paper, but something needs to be said about extended material objects, which I shall assume are constituted out of finitely or countably many particles. (If not, then presumably they are constituted by fields or by portions of spacetime itself, in which case Grit or Gunk applies to these constituents.) Grit or Gunk applies trivially to point particles, but in a more controversial way to particles which are themselves extended. The orthodoxy for extended particles is that they are extended in three dimen sions, that is, they have parts which are solid balls of matter and that, using suitable coordinate axes, a solid ball of matter has point parts in one to one correspondence with a set of all coordinate triples of reals the form { : 2 + y2 + 2 < a2} for some positive real a. Grit or Gunk excludes this orthodoxy. It does not, however, exclude the quasi-Aris totelian position that particles are extended but atomic, having only potential not actual parts. For that is a grit theory.

Self-Consciousness and the Unity of Consciousness

Abstract: Consciousness has a number of puzzling features. One such feature is its unity: the experiences (conscious states) that one has at a particular time seem to occur together in a certain way. I am currently enjoying visual experiences of my computer screen, auditory experiences of bird song, olfactory experiences of coffee, and tactile experiences of feeling the ground beneath my feet. Conjoined with these perceptual experiences are proprioceptive experiences, experiences of agency, affective and emotional experiences, and conscious thoughts of various kinds. A striking fact about these experiences is that they appear to be phenomenally unified. Take just two of them: the sound of bird-song and the smell of coffee. There is something it is like to have the auditory experience, there is something it is like to have the olfactory experience, and there is something it is like to have both the auditory and olfactory experience together. These two experiences occur as parts or components or aspects of a larger, more complex experience. And what holds of these two experiences seems to hold?at least in normal contexts?of all of one's simultaneous experiences: they seem to be subsumed by a single, maximal experience.2 We could think of this maximal experience as an experiential perspective on the world. What it is like to be me right now is (or involves) an extremely complex conscious state that subsumes various simpler experiences (seeing a computer screen, hearing bird-song, smelling coffee, and so on). I will follow recent literature in using the term 'co-consciousness' for the relation that the members of a set of conscious states bear to each other when they have a complex phenomenology (see Bayne and Chalmers 2003; Dainton 2000; Hurley 19^8; Lockwood 1989). We can illuminate co-consciousness by contrasting it with other unity relations that experiences can enter into. One such relation is co-ownership:

Borderline Simple or Extremely Simple

Abstract: In his Material Beings, Peter van Inwagen distinguishes two questions about parthood. What are the conditions necessary and sufficient for some things jointly to compose a whole? What are the conditions necessary and sufficient for a thing to have proper parts? The first of these, the Special Composition Question (SCQ), has been widely discussed, and David Lewis has argued that an important constraint on any answer to the SCQ is that it should not permit borderline cases of composition. This is a far-reaching claim, since many plausible-seeming accounts of composition do permit borderline cases. Ned Markosian has recently directed our attention to the second, the neglected Inverse Special Composition Question (ISCQ). I will argue that those who accept Lewis’s constraint on answers to the SCQ should accept an analogous constraint on answers to the ISCQ, and I will discuss the effects of such a constraint.

Personal Identity, Concerns, And Indeterminacy

Abstract: My discussion here will be focused partly on what I will call the moral question of personal identity: what is the nature of the entities we should focus our prudential concerns and ascriptions of responsibility around? (?If indeed we should structure these concerns and ascriptions around any entities at all)1 This formulation of the question slides over certain distinctions It is not obvious that the entities we should structure our prudential concerns around are the same entities that we should structure our ascriptions of responsibility around But I will here be concerned with the relation between moral and metaphysical questions rather than with moral questions per se, and then sliding over this distinc tion is permissible I will investigate the relationship between the moral question and the question of what persons are?or, to put this question in the formal mode, what is the nature of the entities that 'person' is true of This latter question I will call the semantic question A na?ve (in the sense of simple and intuitive) view would have it that the two questions are intimately connected?so intimately connected that the entities we should focus our concerns and ascriptions around are, pretty trivially, the persons What I will do here is in part to evaluate this na?ve view However, I will not actually attempt to give a definite verdict on it Rather, I will identify the assumptions under which the na?ve view is true, and discuss how to go about evaluating those assumptions A related theme will be that of indeterminacy A number of authors have in different ways suggested that it is indeterminate of what types of entities 'person' is true2 However, the idea that this is an indeterminate matter comes to seem less plausible under some not unreasonable as

Classes, Worlds and Hypergunk

Abstract: The question of what truths are necessary in the broadest possible sense is a difficult one to answer, as is the question of what the limits are to what is possible. (Most people would see these two questions as different sides of the same coin, of course, since many think the question of what is possible is just the question of what is not necessarily ruled out). We have three general sorts of strategies for determining whether something is necessary (or possible). We can identify it in a class that we were previously sure was a class of things that are necessary?we might show it is a theorem of a logical system that we have confidence in, or that the sentence appears to be true simply in virtue of the meanings of the words, or that it is a true statement involving names or about natural kinds of the "necessary a posteriori" sort discussed by Kripke and Putnam, and there are perhaps other classes of claims which we are prepared to accept are necessary if true.1 Likewise, we might establish the possibility of something occurring by reference to a class of well-established or uncontroversial possibilities: e.g., we are inclined to think that it is possible (in the broadest sense) for an event to occur in the future if one of the same kind has occurred in the past.2 A second sort of strategy is to appeal to a general theory of modality (a theory of possibility, necessity, counterfactuals, possible worlds, etc.). This can be useful both for questions about what is necessary and what is possible?such theories often have answers one way or the other about some difficult cases that we had little to say about pre-theoretically, or that we had mixed inclinations about. The advantages of having a systematic set of answers that have been justified in a non-haphazard way is one important reason for developing explicit theories, after all: though in many respects our theories of modality are much less well developed and supported than our theories of, for example, chemical composition or ancient history.

Functions From Regulation

Abstract: and non-causal fact about the burn that it is a sunburn. But none of this takes away from the naturalism of sunburns. The same is true of natural functions, and of other historical biological properties. For biology is full of historical properties: being a mammal, or being a Homo sapiens, for example. These properties do no causal work, and cannot be detected directly (one must draw inferences based on likelihood of coincidental co evolution), but they, like functions, are popular among biologists. Are these properties also antagonistic to naturalism, on Davies's view? If so, then his sort of naturalism is sufficiently idiosyncratic that it need not concern the natural-design theorist, or the biologist, for that matter. If not, then there would seem to be no harm in having functions from natural design as well. Of course, it would be a mistake to argue that a heart beats simply because that is its function, but then, no biologist or philosopher argues like this in any case. 4. Natural Regut?ion and Teleosemantics If the preceding arguments have been correct, and natural regulation creates normative functions independently of natural design, there is a sig nificant payoff in an unexpected domain: the philosophy of mind. At pres ent, a number of well-known theories of mental representation appeal to natural function. Dretske (1988; 1995), Lycan (1987; 1988), Millikan (1984; 1993), Papineau (1987), Sterelny (1990), and others have all built theories of mental representation according to which nothing is a mental represen tation unless it has a normative function. And according to all these so-called 'teleosemantic' theories, natural functions are bestowed by processes of natural design. As a result, these theories are all committed to the view that, in order for a creature to have a mind, it must be a product of natural design. To many, this has seemed implausible. Why would it be true that Swampman, a being atom-for-atom similar to a normal human being but brought into existence as the result of a freak accident when a bolt of lightning struck a swamp, lacks a mind, while the normal human being of whom Swampman is a physical twin possesses a mind? Of course, teleosemanti cists have made efforts to answer such challenges, but none, I think, have been particularly convincing.9 Yet there is nothing in the nature of teleosemantics that necessitates appeals to natural design. Teleosemantic theories, by definition, make some appeal to normative functions in explaining mental representation, but they This content downloaded from 157.55.39.238 on Sat, 02 Jul 2016 05:15:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 132 TIMOTHY SCHROEDER do not by definition make appeal to natural design. It has simply been the case that there has been no credible alternative theory of normative functions to which teleosemanticists could appeal. So to the teleosemanticist who would like to have something new to say in response to the problem of Swampman and related problems, a theory of functions from natural reg ulation should be particularly interesting. Unlike design processes, which necessarily take time to produce the finished product, processes of regu lation are essentially a-temporal. If Swampman comes into being at time t, and Swampman's brain contains regulatory systems, then these systems are regulating Swampman's neurons from time / on, and so Swampman can have a mind, even according to the teleosemanticist. It is particularly interesting in this context to learn that there is good reason to think the brain actually contains regulatory systems: the possi bility is not merely an idle hope, but a likely empirical reality. The brain is the site of ongoing processes that guide synaptic connectivities through out the life of the organism, at least in mammalian species. The plasticity of young brains is well-known, but even adult brains show substantial adap tation to environmental stimuli (for reviews, see Kaas 1991 and Weinberger 1995). Not being fixed, it is clear that neural connectivity is controlled by something. But is this something a natural regulatory process? The evidence is still coming in, but preliminary results are intriguing. For instance, Bao, Chan, and Merzenich (2001) recently demonstrated that the brain's reward signal is capable of shaping neural connections in the auditory cortex. On going processes of rewardand punishment-driven neural shaping are not unreasonable candidates for regulatory processes. Perhaps these are the very regulatory processes teleosemanticists need in order to ehminate history from mentality. 5. Directions for the Future I have argued that regulatory processes, both intentional and natural, create functions, just as design processes, both intentional and natural, create functions. If these arguments have been successful, then there are appli cations in the philosophy of mind, and perhaps in the philosophy of biology as well.10 But these arguments have also raised very large questions about the nature of the normative in general. What, exactly, is the property that processes of design and regulation have in common such that both have normative impact, and how is it related (if it is) to the property possessed This content downloaded from 157.55.39.238 on Sat, 02 Jul 2016 05:15:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms functions from regulation 133 by reason-giving, or consistency, or social pressure, in virtue of which they too have normative impact (to whatever extent they do)? For if nor mativity is a single genus, embracing all its diverse species, then there must be something which unifies the species under the genus. What could this master essence be? Questions like these might seem far removed from debates about the nature of biological functions, but perhaps they are more relevant than has been suspected. It seems to me that, insofar as philoso phers are committed to the existence of natural normative functions and malfunctions in the biological world, they are also committed to linking the philosophy of biology to larger debates about the nature of normativ ity in the philosophy of mind and ultimately in ethics as well. It will certainly be interesting to see how these links are ultimately developed. Timothy Schroeder University of Manitoba

The First Person, Embodiment, And the Certainty That One Exists

Abstract: Descartes made vivid that my certainty as to which psychological states are mine seems to outrun by far my certainty about which body is mine, or even that I have a body. This can make it seem compelling that in our ordinary use of the first person, we are referring to purely psycho logical subjects, which just so happen to be specially related to particular bodies. This would explain why your certainty about your ownership of a particular psychological life can outrun your certainty about your ownership of a body. The problem is that it is difficult to make sense of this notion of the self as a purely psychological subject. You might argue that Descartes was wrong to think that I can hold on to my knowledge that various psychological states are mine while ques tioning whether I have a body. For, you might argue, I undermine my own understanding of the first person when I question whether I have a body. So I cannot hold on to my knowledge that these psychological states are mine while questioning whether I have a body. In this paper I want to explore the possibility of taking a different tack. I want to explore the possibility of acknowledging Descartes's point as correct, while resisting the need to make sense of the notion of the self as a purely psychological subject. I want to argue that our knowledge of our own psychological lives leaves it open what kinds of things we are. For our ordinary use and understanding of the first person leaves it open what kinds of things we are. The puzzle is to understand how it can be that you could hold on to your understanding of the first person while being radically uncertain as to which particular thing you are. For the first person is a singular term, and we would ordinarily think of understanding a singular term as a matter of knowing which thing it stands for.

Chopping up gunk

Abstract: Atomism, the view that indivisible atoms are the basic building blocks of physical reality, has a distinguished history. But it might not be true. The history of physical science certainly gives many of us pause. Every time some class of objects appeared to be the entities that Newton had described as “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable Particles” out of which “God in the Beginning formed Matter” (Newton, 1952, 400), further research revealed that these objects were divisible after all. One might be tempted to see that history as confirming Leibniz’ dismissal of atomism as a “youthful prejudice” .1 Perhaps material objects and their parts are always divisible. There are no extended atoms; nor are there point particles which compose material beings.2 When first presented with this hypothesis, our imaginations are quickly drawn to picturing the process whereby a quantity of such matter – call it gunk -is chopped up into smaller and smaller pieces. Prima facie, there is nothing problematic here: insofar as such a process continues without end, the initial quantity gets resolves into smaller and smaller chunks with no limit to the diminution. But suppose this process is packed into an hour, as imagined by Jose Bernadete in his 1964 monograph Infinity:

Inverted First-Person Authority

Abstract: Generally speaking, we can distinguish facts from our ways of knowing about them. On the one hand, there is a property instantiated by an object; on the other, there is our knowledge of this instantiation. The instantiation of the property is one thing; the faculty by means of which we detect it is another. This distinction simply reflects the familiar realist separation between ontology and epistemology: the object of knowledge is not to be conflated with the knowledge itself. Knowledge is a relation al matter, an interaction between an object and a knowing subject; so the idea of a conceptual inseparability between a fact and a given way of knowing about it sounds wrong as a matter of deep principle. The objec tivity of a fact seems to imply that it can always be conceptually distinguished from our means of gaining epistemic access to it. Given this fundamental distinction, we can expect various contin gency theses to present themselves?to the effect that a given range of facts is only contingently known about in a certain way. For example, we know about light by means of the sense of sight and sound by means of the sense of hearing: but can't we conceive of an inversion of these faculties with respect to those properties? Thus light waves might have interacted with our (or some other creature's) senses in such a way as to produce sensa tions of hearing, and similarly for sound and sensations of seeing: we just need to rig the sensory receptors up so that light stimuli are processed in the auditory cortex and sound waves are processed in the visual cortex.1 The objective property is one thing, and our perceptual reaction to it another. Accordingly, the connection between them is metaphysically contingent. Then there is spectrum inversion: here the same subjective sensation might lie behind different discriminatory behavior, and different sensa tions might lie behind the same such behavior. The behavioral evidence is thus inverted with respect to what it is evidence for?the two are only contingently connected. The behavioral evidence for the sensation is not the same as the sensation, so we can conceive of inversions in how the two

Thought Experiments, Ontology, And Concept-Dependent Truthmakers

Abstract: Thought experiments are usually employed by philosophers as a tool in conceptual analysis. We pose ourselves questions such as "Would it be the same F if pT or "Would it count as knowledge if q" where and q state some bizarre circumstances that are unlikely actually to occur and may even be beyond current technical possibility.2 The answers we are inclined to give to such questions are held to throw light on the nature of our concepts of, in these cases, identity and knowledge. But the facts about our concepts that are unearthed in this way are implicitly assumed to be deep, not superficial, facts. They are not meant to be facts contingent upon our current linguistic usage, psychology, or social structure, where these could easily be otherwise. If they were just facts of this superficial kind, it would hardly be worth the effort of uncovering them, for they would bind no-one who preferred a different convention or practice. The conceptual truths revealed are meant to be unavoidable, in some sense, and not merely conventional: there is something Platonic or Kantian in the background. The argument of Sections 2-8 of this essay is that, in the case of the thought experiments used to throw light on our concepts of person and personal identity, the results do not seem to be deep or hard to revise, and that this is so largely because of the ontological assumptions shared by more or less all participants in the debate.31 shall be arguing that it is primarily these ontological assumptions, rather than the insight into our concepts that the thought experiments are supposed to bring, that determine the answers to the questions about persons and their identity. In the final two sections I shall make some cautious qualifications to this conclusion.

Introspection, Perception, And Epistemic Privilege

Abstract: Could there be a creature whose knowledge of its own mental states or properties is perceptual and whose knowledge of the physical proper ties of external objects is introspective? The answer to this question obviously depends not only on how one conceives of the distinction between mental and physical properties but also on one's conception of the differences between perceptual and introspective knowledge. On one view, introspective knowledge enjoys a range of epistemic privileges which perceptual knowledge lacks. On this account, a creature whose knowledge of the physical properties of external objects is introspective would be one whose knowledge of such properties is epistemically privileged in the way that our knowledge of our own mental properties is epistemically privileged. By the same token, a creature whose knowledge of its own mental proper ties is perceptual would be one whose knowledge of its mental properties is subject to what McGinn describes as "the frailties and fallibility of per ceptual knowledge."1 What are the epistemic privileges of introspective knowledge, and what do the frailties of perceptual knowledge consist in? As McGinn admits, there are disagreements over the precise nature and extent of first-person authority, but his discussion assumes the strongest possible contrast between the two types of knowledge. His idea is that the special authority of introspective knowledge consists in its being "non-criterial, non-infer ential, direct, infallible, incorrigible, and certain."2 In addition, it is knowledge of facts that are "self-intimating." In contrast, perceptual knowledge is not authoritative. It is not knowledge of self-intimating facts, and the knowledge that it furnishes us with is criterial, inferential, indirect, fallible, corrigi ble, and uncertain.

Skepticism, Deflation, And the Rediscovery of the Self

Abstract: Because the connection between our internal experiential states and their external causes is contingent, we can imagine keeping the former fixed while letting the latter vary. (The interface is simply the boundary between what is internal and what is external to the subject.) Thus we could have the same internal states, even though the external states were radically different and, indeed, even if the external states did not exist. Since the connection is causal, an inference from the internal to the external cannot be justified on conceptual grounds. And any non-concep