Multiple Realization: A Thesis with Identity Issues (original) (raw)

Multiple Realization and the Psychoneural Identity Theory

The phychoneural identity theory is often taken to be rebutted by the phenomenon known as multiple realization. In this paper i assess whether multiple realization does in fact contradict the identity theory, and whether multiple realizability is even a legitimate phenomenon at all.

Multiple Realizability and Mind-Body Identity

It is generally held that type-identity theories of mind have been definitively discarded by Putnam’s multiple realizability argument and by Kripke’s thesis on necessary identities. My general goal is to challenge this opinion, even if under some conditions, and to provide an argument in support of a causal reading of sensations that will deflate the importance of their individuation via qualitative properties. The multiple realizability argument is generally taken to show that identity statements between mental properties (say, have pain) and their realizers (C-fibers firing) are not necessarily true. These are contrasted, famously by Putnam and Kripke, with statements such as “heat = molecular motion”, which are considered as necessarily true. However, I will argue, the latter identity statement is subject to the same kind of multiple realizability. Many authors have already noticed that there are many ways in which the supposed identity “heat = molecular motion” may be shaken. On the one hand the concept of heat can be applied to different states of the matter (gases, plasma, vacuum) and in some of these cases the supposed identity with molecular motion is no longer necessarily valid. On the other hand, inter-level identities allow for minimal variability: two objects having the same temperature may have different physical arrangements of moving molecules. Both these observations, though, do not exclude that the identity holds at least in some specific phase of the matter (say, gases). I want to argue that also in this case the supposed identity could be nevertheless multiply realized, and in a more serious way then individual variability. The main hallmark for having multiple realizability, and not just multiple instantiation, is the presence of different natural kinds fulfilling a given high order property. In this sense, heat is multiply realized by molecular motion because it can be realized by different kinds of molecules, which are different natural kinds. This shows that the supposed identity “heat = molecular motion” is nothing more than a schema of identification. In order to obtain an identity statement it is necessary to fill the logical form of the schema by introducing co-referential rigid designators on both sides of the identity sign. Once this is done, we can have necessarily true identity statements again, but these have a quite narrow scope of validity. The same reasoning can be applied in the case of the supposed identity between pain and C-fibers activation or, more in general, between mental states and physical states. In such case, we have to narrowing the scope of the physical realization conditions of the mental state or property in the same way in which this is done in the case of purely physicalistic statements. Once this is done, identity statements relating mental and physical properties are on the same boat of those concerning physical properties alone. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the way in which the multiple realizability argument is tackled with respect to identity statements on physical entities (heat = molecular motion) can be applied also to identities relating mental and physical properties. I argue that the previous strategy not only provides an answer to Putnam’s argument but that, if supplemented, blocks Kripke's intuition according to which pain states find their identity conditions in the phenomenological component of such sensations. To this end, I analyze what sensations are and what their phenomenological component is. I first maintain that sensations are stable relations with properties of the world fixed by token-reflexive conditions of the receptors. Secondly, in order to individuate their qualitative component, is sufficient to consider their distinctiveness, leaving any qualitative consideration apart. Applying the above analysis to the case of pain we notice that it fits well with the distinction found in the medical literature between feeling pain and detecting pain. The detection can be individuated in purely causal-functional terms, on the stability criterion, while the feeling is conveniently considered in evolutionary way, on the distinctness criterion. Such an individuation may be not metaphysically necessary but such a strong reading of necessity is not what is needed for our goals. The general upshot is that the identity thesis, as originally proposed by Smart, Place and others, is no longer viable. In its place we should introduce more narrow tailored identities, but these are not different from those that we should accept in case of purely physicalistic terms, such as heat and molecular motion. Having set all this, I conclude that the type-identity theory of mind can be vindicated.

Mind-brain Identity to the rescue of Multiple Realization

To counter the thesis of the identity of Types, Putnam raised the famous argument of the multiple realization of the mental. Having inserted into functionalist thesis, argument is weakened (i) by the reductionism of Kim and Armstrong / Lewis, and (ii) by option of disjunction of properties. To make the relation of realization and multiple realization more coherent, Shoemaker offers an alternative thesis. In a recent article , incorporating Yablo's thesis on determinable properties, he constructs an original account on realized properties that on one side avoids reductionism and on the other gives way to multiple realization. However, as this article aims to show, the use of Yablo's thesis, mainly qualifying relation between the mental and physical as a relation of determinable to determinate, added to the individuation of properties according to their causal profile, somehow reintroduces the Type identity thesis.

The realiser-realiser identity theory of mind

2021

In order to see what is the realiser-realiser identity theory, it is worth comparing it to more familiar proposals on the metaphysics of mind. This is the topic of the present chapter. First, I will discuss the notion of realisation in order to clarify what the realiser-realiser identity theory holds. Second, I will compare my view with the classic identity theory proposed by U.T. Place and J.J.C. Smart. Third, I will compare my view with functionalism and other views known as a priori physicalism. I will be paying specific attention to a different proposal on the identity theory given by David Lewis and David Armstrong also known as Type-A physicalism. Fourth, I will compare my view with another proposal on the identity theory given by Brian Loar, Christopher Hill, Katalin Balog, Ned Block and others, and more generally, with the views known as a posteriori physicalism, also known as Type-B physicalism. Fifth, I will compare my view with classic dualism. At the end of this Chapter, I will present the plan of the thesis.

Identity Reconsidered: taking a dual perspective on the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Despite functionalism's long reign in philosophy of mind, it has never fully managed to carry off the older idea that the mind-matter relation might be a relation, not of multiple realizability, but of strict identity. Nowadays, we see a resurgence of identity-theoretical proposals in the so-called E-approaches to cognition, and especially in enactive and radical enactive approaches. Here, it is claimed that assuming a strict identity between certain physical structures and phenomenal consciousness isn't merely a viable option, it is perhaps the only way to avoid the Hard Problem of Consciousness. This paper wants to argue that the Hard Problem of Consciousness is a pseudo-problem that should indeed be avoided, rather than solved, and that this can be done by adopting a specific version of identity theory, one which isn't neuro-centric and which also avoids collapsing into ontological reductionism. This version of identity theory is based on classic work by Herbert Feigl, who provides one of the most elaborated, yet at the same time most overlooked identity theories. Inspired by his work, I will defend, what I will call, a dual perspective theory. The theory will be contrasted with, on the one hand, neuro-centric and reductionist identity theories, and, on the other hand, with other mind-body relation proposals such as supervenience, neutral monism and dual aspect theory. To explain the idea of 'dual perspectives', I shall rely on some of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological insights.

Empirical Evidence and the Multiple Realization of Mental Kinds

2018

This thesis explores the use of the concept 'realization' in the philosophy of mind. The primary focus is on the role realization plays in assessing or opposing identity theory. The history of the use of the concept of realization in the philosophy of mind is reviewed, and from that a set of desiderata to be used for assessing accounts of realization is extracted. The desiderata are applied to a sample account of realization proposed by Sydney Shoemaker (2007). Next the application of 'realization' in contemporary contexts is considered, focusing on the idea that mental kinds are, potentially, multiply realized. Based on interpretations of results from research in the relevant sciences this thesis considers two kinds of strategies used to object to multiple realization, (1) arguments against the concept of multiple realization: the Grain Argument (Bechtel and Mundale 1999), and Shapiro's Dilemma (Shapiro 2000), and (2) defeaters for alleged cases/examples of mult...

Realization and Multiple Realization, Chicken and Egg

A common view is that the truth of multiple realization, e.g., about psychological states, entails the truth of functionalism. This is supposed to follow because what is multiply realized is eo ipso realized. I argue that view is mistaken by demonstrating how it misrepresents arguments from multiple realization. In particular, it undermines the empirical component of the arguments, and renders the multiplicity of the realization irrelevant. I suggest an alternative reading of multiple realizability arguments, particularly in philosophy of psychology. And I explain the proper way to understand the relation between realization and multiple realization.

Reincarnating the Identity Theory

Frontiers in Psychology

The mind/brain identity theory is often thought to be of historical interest only, as it has allegedly been swept away by functionalism. After clarifying why and how the notion of identity implies that there is no genuine problem of explaining how the mental derives from something else, we point out that the identity theory is not necessarily a mind/brain identity theory. In fact, we propose an updated form of identity theory, or embodied identity theory, in which the identities concern not experiences and brain phenomena, but experiences and organism-environment interactions. Such an embodied identity theory retains the main ontological insight of its parent theory, and by invoking organism-environment interactions, it has powerful resources to motivate why the relevant identities hold, without posing further unsolvable problems. We argue that the classical multiple realization argument against identity theory is built on not recognizing that the main claim of the identity theory concerns the relation between experience and descriptions of experience, instead of being about relations between different descriptions of experience and we show how an embodied identity theory provides an appropriate platform for making this argument. We emphasize that the embodied identity theory we propose is not ontologically reductive, and does not disregard experience.

Identity theory ,Multiple Realizability and Functionalism

Pabna University of Science and Technology Studies, 2018

In the philosophy of mind functionalism, in contrast with identity theory, claims that mental state types are not reducible to physical state types. This claim relies on the concept of multiple realizability of the mental states, which was introduced by Hilary Putnam. This paper analyzes identity theory, the concept of multiple realizability and different types of functionalism and shows that functionalism is consistent with identity theory.

Reincarnating the Identity Theory (2018)

Multiple Realization: A Thesis with Identity Issues (original) (raw)

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