Dear all, This Thursday our own Ralph Weir will be at Serious Metaphysics talking on "The Compresence Relation: A Challenge for Property Dualism" (abstract below).
As usual, we'll meet from 1-2.30pm in the Philosophy Faculty Board Room, with roughly 45 minutes of presentation and then 45 minutes of discussion. Feel free to bring along your lunch. All welcome! I hope to see many of you there. Dan. Abstract. Dualism is the thesis that there are nonphysical mental entities whose existence is something over and above that of physical entities. We often distinguish two kinds of dualism: property dualism and substance dualism. According to property dualism the nonphysical mental entities are limited to properties. According to substance dualism the nonphysical mental entities are not limited to properties but include substances. It is widely felt that substance dualism is ‘no longer a live option’ (Kim 2005, 9) whereas property dualism is a serious position deserving our consideration. I argue that property dualism is unviable. This is because it contradicts a principle upon which standard arguments for property dualism rely: that absence of a priori entailment means absence of metaphysical necessitation. This conclusion presents property dualists with a choice. They can concede that the kind of a priori reasoning upon which they have relied is invalid. Alternatively, they can accept some kind of substance dualism. Finally, I propose a way in which my conclusion may be important for developmental psychology -- Daniel Williams PhD Candidate in Philosophy Email: [email protected] Trinity Hall, Cambridge _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
