Frank Jackson, Latter Day Physicalist

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-99
Author(s):  
James Garvey ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Frank Jackson

Philosophical and Conceptual Analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. King
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Physical State ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Paradox Of Analysis ◽  
Relevant Notion

This article examines the main lines of contemporary thinking about analysis in philosophy. It first considers G. E. Moore’s statement of the paradox of analysis. It then reviews a number of accounts of analysis that address the paradox of analysis, including the account offered by Ernest Sosa 1983 and others by Felicia Ackerman (1981, 1986, 1991); the latter gives an account of analysis on which properties are the objects of analysis. It also discusses Jeffrey C. King’s (1998, 2007) accounts of philosophical analysis, before turning to views of analysis that are not aimed at addressing the paradox of analysis, including those associated with David Lewis, Frank Jackson, and David Chalmers. In particular, it comments on Lewis’s argument that conceptual analysis is simply a means for picking out the physical state that occupies a certain role, where formulating what that role is constitutes a conceptual analysis of the relevant notion.

Knowledge argument

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torin Alter
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Colour Vision ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Knowledge Argument ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Television Monitor ◽  
Physical Chemical ◽  
The World

The knowledge argument is an argument against physicalism, the view that the world is wholly physical. It was developed by Frank Jackson (1943–) and is based on the following thought experiment. Everything that can be known through the physical, chemical, and biological sciences – the complete physical truth – has been discovered. Mary is a brilliant scientist who is raised in a black-and-white room. She has never had colour experiences. But she learns the complete physical truth, which includes the completed science of colour vision, by reading books and watching lectures on a black-and-white television monitor. Then she leaves the room and sees colours. Jackson’s argument runs roughly as follows. When Mary leaves the room, she learns something new. She learns what it is like to see in colour. Evidently, the complete physical truth is not the complete truth about the world. Ergo, physicalism is false. Some react by denying that Mary learns anything when she leaves the room. Others react by accepting that she learns something but denying that this refutes physicalism. Still others accept the argument as sound. The ensuing discussion has led to a variety of insights about consciousness and its place in the natural world.

Does Anything Break Because it is Fragile?

1998 ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Paul Raymont
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Alternative Conception ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Causal Relevance ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
Negative Argument

I maintain that dispositions are not causally relevant to their manifestations. The paper begins with a negative argument, which is intended to undermine David Lewis’ recent attempt to restore causal potency to dispositions by identifying their instantiations with the instantiations of their causal bases. I conclude that Lewis’ attempt to vindicate the causal credentials of dispositions meets obstacles that are analogous to (though importantly different from) those that beset Donald Davidson’s attempt to accord a causal role to the mental. I then consider an argument recently given by Frank Jackson against the causal relevance of dispositions (to their manifestations). Jackson’s argument relies on a conception of dispositions that is not likely to be shared by those who defend their causal relevance. I sketch an alternative conception of dispositions that links them more closely to their causal bases, but argue that even on this model dispositions are causally impotent. The paper closes with a defense of the claim that dispositions, in spite of their causal irrelevance to their manifestations, are nevertheless causal-explanatorily relevant to them.

‘Looks Red’ and Dangerous Talk

Philosophy ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 70 (274) ◽  
pp. 545-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. C. Smart
Keyword(s):  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Armstrong ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Do So

This paper is partly to get rid of some irritation which I have felt at the quite common tendency of philosophers to elucidate (for example) ‘is red’ in terms of ‘looks red’. For a relatively recent example see, for example, Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter, ‘An Objectivist′s Guide to Subjectivism about Colour’. However rather than try to make a long list of references, I would rather say ‘No names, no pack drill’. I have even been disturbed to find the use of the words ‘looks red’ that I am opposing ascribed to me by Keith Campbell in his useful article ‘David Armstrong and Realism about Colour’. I am not saying that such talk is necessarily wrong. Talk of ‘looks red’ may be a way of harmlessly referring to the behavioural discriminations with respect to colour of a human percipient. Where it is dangerous, at least to those of us who wish to argue for a broadly physicalist account of the mind, is that it may have concealed overtones of reference to epiphenomenal and irreducibly psychic properties of experiences. Moreover even if it does not do so it may be fence sitting on this issue and liable to misinterpretation.

FRANK JACKSON

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 212-213
Author(s):  
JO STANLEY
Keyword(s):  
Frank Jackson

A POSITIVIST ROUTE FOR EXPLAINING HOW FACTS MAKE LAW

Legal Theory ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Plunkett
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Legal Norm ◽  
Planning Theory ◽  
Legal Institution ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Rational Relation ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Two Stages

In “How Facts Make Law” and other recent work, Mark Greenberg argues that legal positivists cannot develop a viable constitutive account of law that meets what he calls the “the rational-relation requirement.” He argues that this gives us reason to reject positivism in favor of antipositivism. In this paper, I argue that Greenberg is wrong: positivists can in fact develop a viable constitutive account of law that meets the rational-relation requirement. I make this argument in two stages. First, I offer an account of the rational-relation requirement. Second, I put forward a viable positivist account of law that I argue meets this requirement. The account that I propose is a version of Scott Shapiro's Planning Theory of Law. The version of Shapiro's account that I propose combines (1) the account of concepts and conceptual analysis put forward by David Chalmers and Frank Jackson with (2) the account of the conceptlegal institution(and its conceptual connections to the conceptlegal norm) that we get from a certain reading of Shapiro's Planning Theory. In addition to providing a compelling response to Greenberg's argument in “How Facts Make Law,” I argue that the explanation for why my response to Greenberg works underscores one of the central problems facing legal antipositivism: namely, its lack of a convincing account of the nature of legal institutions.

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