Methodology week is now over: here are some photos. The conference was a success, with a number of interesting talks. Not all of the speakers put methodology front and center, but there were a lot of different approaches to philosophical methodology presented explicitly and implicitly. A recurring theme, present one way or another in all the papers, was the role of a priori methods in philosophy: their strengths and limitations, and their continuity or otherwise with empirical methods. In effect, two of the speakers challenged a priori methods, two of the speakers defended them, and two of the speakers questioned their distinctiveness.
Challenges came from Sally Haslanger and Steve Yablo. Sally considered pressure from the social and political spheres, arguing that a priori conceptual analysis can't do justice to concepts such as "race" and "parents", because their crucial social and normative role is not transparent to a priori reflection. Steve considered pressure from modal epistemology, arguing that a priori modal intuition can go wrong in ways that haven't yet been adequately explained e.g. by Kripke or by two-dimensionalists. The advocates of conceptual analysis and two-dimensionalism present argued in response that an appropriately broad and flexible use of these methods can accommodate all of the relevant phenomena.
Defenses came from Martin Davies and Frank Jackson. Martin considered the worry that a priori methods will "prove too much", allowing a priori arguments for apparently empirical conclusions, replying (in what was perhaps a slightly backhanded "defense" of a priori methods) that considerations about warrant transmission will prevent a priori premises from generating such powerful conclusions. Frank suggested that our ability to know what we mean with a word, combined with the "transparency" of language in referring to properties, will ground an ability to know what property a predicate ascribes, and went on, controversially, to use this method to argue against the "Australian" view (and his own prior view) that color predicates ascribe physical properties such as reflectance properties. The transparency claim led to a nice clear contrast with Sally's view, and led to some useful discussion of just what sort of transparency of language one can reasonably expect.
Doubts about distinctiveness came from Tim Williamson and Peter Godfrey-Smith. Tim argued that philosophical "intuitions" such as the Gettier thought-experiment rely on counterfactual reasoning, and that this sort of reasoning is continuous with counterfactual reasoning in empirical domains and doesn't require a distinctive sort of explanation. Peter applied ideas from the philosophy of science to the methodology of metaphysics, in effect arguing that a priori methods in metaphysics can be seen as model-based reasoning on a par with model-based reasoning in science, and evaluable by similar standards. In both cases, the moral could be taken as either supporting or as deflating the methods, depending on one's orientation.
In the end, I think everyone agreed that we should be pluralists about philosophical methodology: pretty obviously, there is no single method that's common to all good philosophical reasoning and that distinguishes it from inquiry in other domains. With that granted, the interesting questions concern the strength and limitations of various specific methods: what's the role for intuitions, for conceptual analysis, for formalization, for empirical observation, and so on. These questions are unlikely to be decisively settled anytime soon, so in the meantime, let a thousand flowers bloom.
Regarding conceivability and modal arguments:
There are some things that cannot be imagined. A square circle is a good example. An object being both a square and a circle is a direct contradiction.
However, when we imagine something, it is often the case that an inherent contradiction is hidden away in the complexity of the object being imagined. Take, for example, Lewis' disembodied talking heads (On the Plurality of Worlds, 87-88). When we imagine such a thing talking, it is in the normal manner of expelling air from lungs that it does not have. That is a contradiction, yet it does not inhibit us from imagining such a thing. I conclude that there is no possible world that contains such a thing.
This is relevant to your zombie world argument (from The Conscious Mind). We can imagine a world just like ours, only lacking consciousness. While I hold that such a zombie world is not a possible world, our ability to imagine it shows that physicalism provides an incomplete picture of our world.
I am in the process of revising a paper on genuine modal realism that accounts for this (and more). I've put a link to the draft below, and comments are welcome.
http://www.modalrealism.com/stuff/gmr.rtf
Posted by: Damon Woolsey | July 26, 2005 at 04:52 AM
Actually, perhaps what is shows is the faultiness of our imagination.
Posted by: Tennessee Leeuwenburg | July 29, 2005 at 03:19 PM
I disagree with Damon Woolsey.
I don't believe that our ability to imagine a zombie world shows that physicalism provides an incomplete picture of our world. For the physicalist must necessarily cling to nominalist metaphysics, and must dismiss the extra-physical as superstition.
I can very much imagine all sorts of demons, angels, and deities. But this does not mean that physics provides an incomplete picture of our world. Thus the "hardcore physicalist" would not feel at ease with thought experiments that seem to ask us to constantly violate the laws of physics. Then, I will imagine the omniscient, the omnipotent, and frame my thought experiments in the language of muddy medieval metaphysics, approximating a religious doctrine. That is hardly philosophy.
To be fair to your philosophical zombies, I will suggest that we must listen to Tim Williamson very carefully indeed on this matter. There is no useful distinction to make between counterfactual empirical arguments and other kinds of (metaphysical, etc.) arguments. When I am talking about intelligent agents that lack subjective states, I am venturing into the unknown, entertaining a possibility as a scientist does. Might there be a blackhole at the heart of our galaxy? It is not sensible to ascribe a higher significance to a slightly more elevated language. (Then we would look into novels to seek truth)
I think we can have an acceptable theory of qualia if and only if we approach the subject like a scientist does, paying little heed to the philosophical air of self-sustaining skyhooks.
Regards,
Posted by: Eray Ozkural | August 19, 2005 at 08:13 AM
Re: conceivability
Something's being conceivable does not guarantee that it is possible. However, it does set up a logical dilemma. Either, what we are conceiving is in fact possible, or we don't have knowledge of the relevant facts required to show that what we are conceiving is in fact impossible.
So it is with physicalism and consciousness. Either Chalmer's zombie world is in fact possible (and I don't think it is), or physicalism provides us with a grossly incomplete view of the world in relation to consciousness (which I believe to be the case).
Posted by: Damon Woolsey | September 02, 2005 at 05:33 AM