Justin Tiehen
Associate
Professor of Philosophy
Publications
“Physicalism Requires Functionalism: A New Formulation and
Defense of the Via Negativa,” forthcoming
in Philosophy and
Phenomenological
Research. [DRAFT]
How should ‘the physical’ be defined for the purpose of formulating
physicalism? In this paper I defend a version of the via
negativa according to which a property is physical just in case it is neither
fundamentally mental nor possibly realized by a fundamentally mental property.
The guiding idea is that physicalism requires functionalism, and thus that
being a type identity theorist requires being a realizer-functionalist. In §1 I
motivate my approach partly by arguing against Jessica Wilson’s no fundamental
mentality constraint. In §2 I set out my preferred definition of ‘the physical’
and make my case that physicalism requires functionalism. In §3 I defend my
proposal by attacking the leading alternative account of ‘the physical,’ the
theory-based conception. Finally, in §4 I draw on my definition, together with
Jaegwon Kim’s account of intertheoretic reduction, to defend the controversial view
that physicalism requires a priori physicalism.
“Grounding Causal Closure,” forthcoming
in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly. [DRAFT]
What does it mean to say that dualism
is causally problematic in a way that other mind-body theories are not? After
considering and
rejecting various
proposal, I advance my own, focusing on what grounds the causal closure of the
physical realm.
“The Role Functionalist Theory of
Absences,” Erkenntnis, 80.3 (2015), 505-519. [DRAFT]
Functionalist
theories have been proposed for just about everything: mental states,
dispositions, moral properties, truth, causation, and much else. In this work I
defend a role functionalist theory of nothing. Or, more accurately, a role
functionalist theory of those absences that are causes and effects.
“Explaining Causal Closure,” Philosophical
Studies, 172.9 (2015), 2405-2425. [DRAFT]
The physical realm is causally closed, but why is it
causally closed? In what follows I argue that reductive physicalists are
committed to embracing one explanation of causal closure to the exclusion of
others, and that as a result they must give up on using a causal argument to
attack mind-body dualism.
“A Priori Scrutability and That’s All,” The Journal
of Philosophy, 111.12 (2014), 649-666.
[DRAFT]
In his recent book Constructing
the World, David Chalmers defends A
Priori Scrutability, the thesis that there is a compact class of truths
such that for any truth p, a
Laplacian intellect could know a priori that if the truths in that class hold,
then p. In this paper, I develop an
objection to Chalmers’ thesis that focuses on his treatment of a so-called
that’s-all truth. My objection draws on Theodore Sider’s discussion of
border-sensitive properties, and also on the causal phenomenon of double
prevention.
“A Psychofunctionalist Argument against
Nonconceptualism,” Synthese, 191.16 (2014), 3919-3934. [DRAFT]
I argue that
conscious visual experience is a conceptual state (has “conceptual content”
rather than “nonconceptual content,” in one sense of these terms) by drawing on
Milner and Goodale’s Two Visual Systems Hypothesis and the holistic implications
of psychofunctionalism.
“Subset Realization and the Problem of
Property Entailment,” Erkenntnis, 79.2 (2014), 471-480. [DRAFT]
I argue that Sydney Shoemaker’s response to Brian
McLaughlin’s objection to the subset account of realization is unsuccessful. I
then put forward my own response to McLaughlin’s objection.
“The Cost of Forfeiting Causal Inheritance,” Philosophical
Studies,
165.2 (2013), 491-507. [DRAFT]
I draw on
Jaegwon Kim’s causal inheritance principle to argue against Sydney Shoemaker’s
subset account of realization. In the process, I draw on a debate regarding the
extended mind hypothesis defended by Andy Clark and David Chalmers.
“Ectoplasm Earth,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 42.3/4 (2012), 167-186. [DRAFT]
Distinguish
the general thesis of physicalism simpliciter from the more restricted thesis
of physicalism about the mental. Physicalism about the mental cannot be defined
in terms of psychophysical supervenience or any alternative relation that
entails such supervenience. Instead, it must be defined in terms of a form of
realization that is not supervenience-entailing.
“Psychophysical Reductionism without Type Identities,” American Philosophical
Quarterly,
49.3 (2012), 223-236. [DRAFT]
If you’re
going to be a psychophysical reductionist, must you be a type identity
theorist? No. In this work I set out an alternative reductionist view, type
eliminativism, and argue for its superiority to the type identity theory.
“Disproportional Mental Causation,”
Synthese, 182
(2011), 375-391. [DRAFT]
I argue
against the proportionality component of Stephen Yablo’s account of mental causation
and show that alternative nonreductive physicalist accounts of mental causation
that do not appeal to proportionality can avoid counterexamples that Yablo’s
account is susceptible to.
“Emergence
and Quantum Mechanics,” with Fred
Kronz, Philosophy of Science, 69.2
(2002), 324-347.
We develop
an account of dynamic emergence, according to which emergent wholes are
produced by an essential, ongoing interaction of their parts. We argue that
this account has application within quantum mechanics, and in particular that
it applies in cases involving nonseparable Hamiltonians.
Book Review
Review of Constructing the World by David Chalmers, Philosophy, 88.4 (2013), 630-635.
C.V.
Dissertation
A brief
summary of my dissertation on mental causation.
Dissertation: Normativism and Mental
Causation
All 293
pages of it.