The Trouble with Mary

Abstract

Two arguments are famously held to support the conclusion that consciousness cannot be explained in purely physical or functional terms - hence, that physicalism is false: the modal argument and the knowledge argument. While anti-physicalists appeal to both arguments, this paper argues there is a methodological incoherence in jointly maintaining them: the modal argument supports the possibility of zombies; but the possibility of zombies undercuts the knowledge argument. At best, this leaves anti-physicalists in a considerably weakened rhetorical position. At worst, it shows that commonsense intuitions on which anti-physicalists rely mislead us about the true nature of conscious experience. Show more