Searle on the unity of the world |
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Authors: | Daniel D Novotny |
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Institution: | (1) Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science, Universitat des Saarlandes, IFOMIS, Postfach 151150, Saarbrücken, D-66041, Germany |
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Abstract: | According to mentalism some existing things are endowed with (subjectively) conscious minds. According to physicalism all existing things consist entirely of physical particles in fields of force. Searle holds that mentalism and physicalism are
compatible and true—“the world is one”. The aim of this paper is to show that Searle fails to make the compatibility between
mentalism and physicalism intelligible. The paper has three parts: first, I criticize drawing an analogy between solidity
and consciousness as macro-features of systems with micro-features. Second, I argue that Searle’s defence of the ontological
irreducibility of consciousness is terminologically confused and that his argument for the trivial nature of that irreducibility
is unsuccessful. Third, I defend Nagel’s argument for the causal irreducibility of conscious minds by answering some of Searle’s
objections to it.
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Keywords: | Physicalism/Naturalism Reduction Mind– Body problem Searle’ s ontology |
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