Extended Theory of Rationality

Chapter 2 presents the main tenets of the extended theory of rationality (ETR). According to ETR, both the given attitudes (“inputs”) and the conclusion of practical reasoning (“outputs”) are actions (more particularly, the intentional pursuit of ends). The principle of instrumental reasoning, which tells us (roughly) to adopt means to our ends, is the only principle of derivation, and a principle (roughly) requiring agents not to pursue incompatible ends is the only principle of coherence. The chapter also presents one of the main theses of ETR; namely that the rationality of an agent through an interval t1-tn does not supervene on the rationality of the agent at each moment t1-tn (what I call the “non-supervenience thesis”). In other words, someone may be irrational over a period of time without there being any moment during that time at which they were irrational.

Indeterminate Ends and the Puzzle of the Self-Torturer

Chapter 4 looks at Quinn’s puzzle of the rational self-torturer. The puzzle presents, in a clear way, a structure that pervades our pursuit of ends through time. The chapter argues that a proper solution for the puzzle, and thus a proper account of instrumental rationality that applies to extended action, must accept the non-supervenience thesis. We also need to understand how the agent’s extended perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of long-term ends) and the agent’s punctate perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of momentary actions) interact in realizing the agent’s indeterminate ends. This chapter presents ETR’s account of this interaction. Since extant theories of instrumental rationality cannot do justice to the non-supervenience thesis, and a fortiori, to the structure of agency illustrated in the puzzle of the rational self-torturer, this account represents an important argument in favour of ETR.

Physicalism UnBlocked

What has become known as the blockers problem is an alleged difficulty facing attempts to formulate physicalism as a supervenience thesis. A blocker is an entity, itself contrary to physicalism, with the power to disrupt an otherwise necessary connection between physical and nonphysical conditions. I argue that there is no distinct blockers problem. Insofar as a problem can be identified, it turns out to be just a rather baroque version of a distinct and familiar objection to supervenience formulations and to be of no independent interest. Work on the formulation of physicalism can thus proceed without worrying about blockers.

Vehicles, contents and supervenience

In this paper, I provide an argument for the assumption that contents supervene on vehicles, which is based on the explanatory role of representations in the cognitive sciences. I then show that the supervenience thesis together with the explanatory role imply that the individuation criteria for contents and vehicles are tightly bound together, such that content internalism (externalism) is in effect equivalent to vehicle internalism (externalism). In the remainder of the paper, I argue that some of the different positions in the debate stem from different research questions, namely the question about the acquisition conditions and the question about the entertaining conditions for mental representation. Finally, I argue that the thesis of externalism is much more interesting if understood as a claim about how mental representation works in our world as opposed to how they work in all metaphysically possible worlds. In particular, I argue that this ?nomological? understanding of the thesis is able to explain how and why the experimental methods used in contemporary cognitive sciences are able to provide insight into behavior generation.

Representationalism, perceptual distortion and the limits of phenomenal concepts

This paper replies to objections from perceptual distortion (blur, perspective, double vision, etc.) against the representationalist thesis that the phenomenal characters of experiences supervene on their intentional contents. It has been argued that some pairs of distorted and undistorted experiences share contents without sharing phenomenal characters, which is incompatible with the supervenience thesis. In reply, I suggest that such cases are not counterexamples to the representationalist thesis because the contents of distorted experiences are always impoverished in some way compared to those of normal experiences. This can be shown by considering limit cases of perceptual distortion, for example, maximally blurry experiences, which manifestly lack details present in clear experiences. I argue that since there is no reasonable way to draw the line between distorted experiences that have degraded content and distorted experiences that do not, we should allow that an increase in distortion is always accompanied by a degradation in content. I also discuss the prospects for a positive account of the contents specific to distorted experiences. I argue that the prospects for such an account are dim, but that this is due to limitations of our phenomenal concepts, not to the falsity of the representationalist thesis.

Explaining why this body gives rise to me qua subject instead of someone else: an argument for classical substance dualism

Since something cannot be conscious without being a conscious subject, a complete physicalist explanation of consciousness must resolve an issue first raised by Thomas Nagel, namely to explain why a particular mass of atoms that comprises my body gives rise to me as conscious subject, rather than someone else. In this essay, I describe a thought-experiment that suggests that physicalism lacks the resources to address Nagel's question and seems to pose a counter-example to any form of non-reductive physicalism relying on the mind–body supervenience thesis, which would include William Hasker's emergent dualism. Since the particular thought-experiment does not pose any problems for classical substance dualism (CSD) and since the problem, as I call it, of explaining subjectivity is the central problem of mind, I conclude that CSD is better supported than any form of non-reductive physicalism.