Please choose ONE of the following topics:
Why is consciousness “what makes the mind-body problem really intractable”? Please explain and critically evaluate Nagel’s “what it’s like to be a bat” argument and discuss his claim that there are facts about the world that are not open to objective and scientific understanding. Is this true? (In light of these concerns, why does he think we should devise a new method, which he describes as “objective phenomenology”? Why not abandon physicalism altogether? Can “objective phenomenology” solve the mind-body problem?)
Does Jackson’s knowledge argument refute reductive physicalism? Explain Jackson’s argument and then explain and critically evaluate the response of Lewis. One key premise of Jackson’s “knowledge argument” is that, upon being released from the black and white room and having the visual experience of seeing red for the first time, Mary acquires new information about such experiences. What is David Lewis’ central objection to this premise? Is this a strong objection?
Does the explanatory gap argument refute reductive physicalism? Explain Levine’s explanatory gap argument and then explain and critically evaluate the response(s) of (i) McGinn and/or (ii) Churchland. (Is this gap merely apparent? Is it merely an epistemic gap that does not entail an ontological gap?)
