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Imitation-Man and the 'New' Epiphenomenalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1978

Eric Russert Kraemer
Eric Russert Kraemer*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
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Extract

A number of philosophers have recently held that the phenomenal aspect of experience cannot be adequately dealt with within a materialist account of the mind-body relation. A natural response for those who take both this objection and scientific considerations seriously is to adopt either a double-aspect theory of mind or a version of epiphenomenalism. In this paper I will examine such a view recently defended by Keith Campbell. Campbell calls his view a ‘new’ epiphenomenalism. I shall begin by considering Campbell's conception of an imitation-man, a notion which has been elsewhere employed in arguments against materialism. I shall demonstrate that Campbell is thereby committed to entertaining seriously a suspect form of causation which I have labeled "sometime-causation". I shall then proceed to argue that for this and other reasons, Campbell's ‘new’ epiphenomenalism is not clearly superior to its traditional predecessor.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 479 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1980

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References

1 All pages references in the text of this paper will be to this book.

2 See Kirk, Robert: “Zombies and Materialists,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, (Supplement) 48 (1974), 135–163,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Perkins, Moreland: “Matter, Sensation, and Understanding,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 8 (1971). 1–12.Google Scholar

3 Peter van lnwagen and Mark Woodhouse have pointed out to me that one might well wonder how ‘very like us’ such an imitation man would be if he has no phenomenal aspect to his experience. See also Perkins, op. cit.

4 Hume, for instance, seems to deny the coherence of this view; see A Treatise of Human L.A. Selby-Bigge, Nature ed. (Oxford: Oxford, 1888),Google Scholar p. 132, and An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Selby-Bigge, L. A. ed. (Oxford: Oxford, 1902), pp. 86-7.Google Scholar

5 See Campbell, Keith: ‘Comments on: Mark Woodhouse, “A new Epipheno– menalism”’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 52 (1974) p. 173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Woodhouse, Mark: ‘A New Epiphenomenalism,”’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 52 (1974) p. 167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See Herbert Feigl: Mind-Body, Not a Pseudo-problem,’ in Hook, S. ed., Dimensions of Mind (New York: Macmillan, 1961).Google Scholar

8 I am indebted to comments from Hardy Jones, William S. Kraemer, and Robert Audi. An earlier version of this paper was read at the Western Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association in Cincinnati, April 1978.