Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Arts

Major

Philosophy

Date of Defense

4-24-2013

Graduate Advisor

Professor Berit Brogaard

Committee

Jon McGinnis

Gualtiero Piccinini

Abstract

I argue that David Chalmers’s Conceivability Argument is just as easily applied to a physical account of consciousness as it is applied to dualism, which implies that the Conceivability Argument yields absurd conclusions. To do so, I give a physical account of phenomenal consciousness within the brain, and then argue that conceiving of zombies is begging the question. I also suggest that because I have a plausible account of phenomenal consciousness based within the physical, such a consciousness is just as conceivable as a zombie would be in the Conceivability Argument. As I have given a conceivable account of physical phenomenal consciousness, one can use the Conceivability Argument for both a dualist and non-dualist account of consciousness.

OCLC Number

862963988

Download

Share

COinS