The argument from revelation against physicalism

The so called thesis of Revelation in the philosophy of mind claims that to have an experience and to think about it in terms of the way it is like (Nagel, 1974) for someone to have it is to know its nature. Physicalism about the mind claims that the nature of experiences may be fully captured in physical terms. My thesis deals with a philosophical argument – the argument from revelation – which has been first presented in an article by Martine Nida-Rümelin (2007) and infers the falsity of physicalism from the truth of revelation. Such an argument goes as follows. (1) Revelation: phenomenal concepts - those concepts which are used to think about experiences and attribute them to subjects via the way it is like for someone to undergo them – are nature-revealing, meaning that it is a priori, for a subject possessing a phenomenal concept and just in virtue of possessing it, what it is for the experience the concept refers to to be part of reality; (2) If physicalism about experiencess to be true, then for every experience there must be at least one nature-revealing physical concept of it; (3) phenomenal concepts and physical ones are conceptually independent; (4) given two concepts, they cannot be both conceptually independent and nature-revealing with respect to the same referent; (5) in virtue of (2), (3) and (4) either physicalism is false or experiential revelation is false; (6) in virtue of (1) and (5) physicalism is false. I aim to make the case that the three most discussed and renowned arguments that have been offered in the last 50 years at least against physicalism – Chalmers’ (1996; 1999; 2002; 2006; 2009; 2010) so called conceivability argument, Jackson’s (1982) so called knowledge argument, and Kripke’s (1980) so called modal argument – may be all reduced to the argument from revelation. By doing so, I hope to offer a radical simplification of the philosophical debate on the ultimate nature of consciousness. Here is how Iwill proceed throughout the essay. The first chapter is mostly introductory. In this chapter, I set the stage by elaborating on a number of working assumptions that will be on the background throughout the work. I also give a closer look at the argument from revelation and examine each and every premise of it in more detail. The second chapter deals with Chalmers’ conceivability argument. In this chapter, I make a case that, provided the two–dimensional semantic apparatus Chalmers deploys to draw the argument is in place, revelation threatens physicalism no matter whether so called phenomenal zombies are taken to be ideally conceivable or not. Hence, it is necessary and most likely necessary and sufficient that revelation is denied in order for physicalists to avoid the threat Chalmers’ two–dimensional semantics pose. As far as I can see, the arguments I draw in the second chapter to the case that revelation is incompatible with physicalism may be reiterated as for what concerns Jackson’s knowledge argument, which is the topic of the third chapter. However, in this chapter I also examine some physicalist reactions that have been offered to the thought experiment on which knowledge argument is based, arguing that it is necessary and possibly necessary and sufficient, in order for each of them to go through, that revelation is denied. This chapter contains also an interlude, in which I deal with Saul Kripke’s modal argument suggesting that it may be reduced to the rgument from revelation as well. Towards the end of the essay I will suggest that we may have very strong prima facie reasons to believe revelation is true, and hence physicalism should not be our default metaphysical stance in consciousness studies. I will conclude the essay by offering few remarks on what, I believe, may be the best metaphysical framework we have available to accomodate the obvious datum of phenomenal consciousness (plus revelation).