academic writing

Summarize Frank Jackson’s article, “Epiphenomenal Qualia,”

Jackson talks about how his “Knowledge argument” proves that Physicalism is false and compare the “Knowledge argument” with the Modal and “What is it like to be” argument to find the argument with the “greatest polemical utility.”

In his “Knowledge argument”, he gives an example of Fred being able to see colours that nobody else can. He states that even if we know all every physical nature of Fred, it does not mean we know everything about Fred. This shows that Physicalism is incomplete.

The example for the Modal argument is an alternate world with humans without conscious mental life. Everything physically is the same yet there is something more in us than just purely physical. Hence, Physicalism is false. The problem of the Modal argument is that it rest on a disputable modal intuition. And not everybody agree with the intuition after thinking about it again. Hence, “Knowledge argument” is better.

The “What is it like to be X” argument shows that we cannot imagine what it is like to be X regardless of the amount of physical information we have. However, it is not a problem for Physicalism as it does not claim that such extrapolation is possible.

(200 words)