Outline of Materialist Philosophy

Millikan’s Contribution to Materialist Philosophy of Mind

One of the great outstanding problems in materialist philosophy of mind is the problem of how there can be space in the material world for intentionality. In the 1980s Ruth Millikan formulated a detailed theory according to which representations are physical particulars and their contents are complex relational properties of those particulars which can be specified in terms of respectable prope...

Demythologizing Christian Philosophy: An Outline

Questions for a Materialist Philosophy Implying the Equivalence of Computers and Human Cognition

Issues related to a materialist philosophy are explored as concerns the implied equivalence of computers running software and human observers. One issue explored concerns the measurement process in quantum mechanics. Another issue explored concerns the nature of experience as revealed by the existence of dreams. Some difficulties stemming from a materialist philosophy as regards these issues ar...

A Materialist Believe in Qualia ?

Should a materialist believe in qualia? Yes and no. 'Qual ia ' is a name for the occupants of a certain functional role that is spelled out in our tacitly known folk psychology. If materialism is true, there are no perfect occupants of the role, and hence no perfect deservers of the name. But in all probability there are imperfect occupants of the role, imperfect deservers of the name. Good eno...

Subverting Campbell’s Materialist Conclusion

Keith Campbell and Jonathan Schaffer propose an ontology in which entities consist in collocated collections of tropes, and tropes are individuated by location. This would imply that immaterial entities are not possible. In this paper, I attempt to subvert this materialist conclusion by giving two arguments against the key individuation principle it requires. I show that the locational individu...