Why did the plan of using zombie manufacture as a means of studying consciousness ever seem plausible? Why does it impress so many people today? The immediate reason surely lies in fascination with the Turing Test -- the suggestion that computer programs would be proved to be conscious if they managed to carry on conversations in a way that made them seem conscious to a naive observer.

By definition zombies would be physically and behaviourally just like us, but not conscious. This currently very influential idea is a threat to all forms of physicalism, and has led some philosophers to give up physicalism and become dualists. It has also beguiled many physicalists, who feel forced to defend increasingly convoluted explanations of why the conceivability of zombies is compatible with their impossibility. Robert Kirk argues that the zombie idea depends on an incoherent view of the nature of phenomenal (...) consciousness. His book has two main aims. One is to demolish the zombie idea once and for all. There are plenty of objections to it in the literature, but they lack intuitive appeal. He offers a striking new argument which reveals fundamental confusions in the implied conception of consciousness. The book's other main contribution is to develop a fresh and original approach to the true nature of phenomenal consciousness. Kirk argues that a necessary condition is a 'basic package' of capacities. An important component of his argument is that the necessary cognitive capacities are not as sophisticated as is often assumed. By focusing on humbler creatures than ourselves he avoids some of the distracting complications of our sophisticated forms of cognition. The basic package does not seem to be sufficient for phenomenal consciousness. What is also needed is 'direct activity' - a special feature of the way the events which constitute incoming perceptual information affect the system. This is an integrated process, to be conceived of holistically, and contrasts sharply with what is often called the 'availability' or 'poisedness' of perceptual information. This original, penetrating, and readable book will be of interest to all who have a serious concern with the nature of consciousness: not only professional philosophers and students, but psychologists and neuroscientists. (shrink)

In philosophy of mind, zombies are imaginary creatures that are exact physical duplicates of conscious subjects but for whom there is no first-personal experience. Zombies are meant to show that physicalism—the theory that the universe is made up entirely out of physical components—is false. In this paper, I apply the zombie thought experiment to the realm of morality to assess whether moral agency is something independent from sentience. Algorithms, I argue, are a kind of functional moral zombie, such that thinking (...) about the latter can help us better understand and regulate the former. I contend that the main reason why algorithms can be neither autonomous nor accountable is that they lack sentience. Moral zombies and algorithms are incoherent as moral agents because they lack the necessary moral understanding to be morally responsible. To understand what it means to inflict pain on someone, it is necessary to have experiential knowledge of pain. At most, for an algorithm that feels nothing, ‘values’ will be items on a list, possibly prioritised in a certain way according to a number that represents weightiness. But entities that do not feel cannot value, and beings that do not value cannot act for moral reasons. (shrink)

What Are Zombies? Zombies are stipulated to be creatures that are in some way identical to human beings-and thus, in some sense, indistinguishable from human beings-but which lack consciousness. Zombies are at least behaviorally identical to human beings or other conscious creatures, and they may also be like us in other ways.

Most materialist responses to the zombie argument against materialism take either a “type-A” or “type-B” approach: they either deny the conceivability of zombies or accept their conceivability while denying their possibility. However, a “type-Q” materialist approach, inspired by Quinean suspicions about a priority and modal entailment, rejects the sharp line between empirical and conceptual truths needed for the traditional responses. In this paper, I develop a type-Q response to the zombie argument, one stressing the theory-laden nature of our conceivability and (...) possibility intuitions. I argue that our first-person access to the conscious mind systematically misleads us into thinking that the distinctive qualities of conscious experience—qualia—are nonfunctional. Qualia, I contend, are functional, even though they do not seem to be. To support my claim, I introduce the “meditations” of Rene Descartes’ zombie twin. This establishes the plausibility of an appearance/reality distinction for consciousness and it undermines various anti-materialist objections based on privileged first-person access. I conclude that the best overall theory posits an appearance/reality distinction for qualia, and this, for the type-Q materialist, is decisive. (shrink)

The visual arts have managed to make the zombie an essential figure in popular culture. The cinematographic medium has contributed to building with him an imaginary of disaster against the backdrop of a pandemic. We will show the adequacy of the zombie with a collective imagination for which the world to come is inscribed under the sign of zombie collapse.

Ce manifeste propose d’étudier des situations où des objets issus de la « Pop culture » mondialisée sont accidentellement mis au rebut puis réappropriés par des communautés dans des localités bien particulières. Au-delà de l’analyse d’un simple réemploi, le présent postulat est que la friction entre des évènements industriels et les imaginaires de la culture populaire contribue à éclairer la déliquescence des infrastructures qui les distribuent, grâce à des communautés qui documentent ces situations par des récits situés. Cet article propose (...) le terme de zombie props pour qualifier ces artefacts qui sont médiés par des acteurs locaux comme des objets souvenirs de paysages ayant subi de plein fouet la mondialisation, qui entrent en ruines. (shrink)

Todd Moody’s Zombie Earth thought experiment is an attempt to show that ‘conscious inessentialism’ is false or in need of qualification. We defend conscious inessentialism against his criticisms, and argue that zombie thought experiments highlight the need to explain why consciousness evolved and what function(s) it serves. This is the hardest problem in consciousness studies.

Les zombies sont partout, au cinéma, à la télévision, dans nos rues, chez notre libraire. Grotesques et terrifiants, ils pourraient n’être qu’une tendance kitsch, un divertissement à la mode. Derrière sa démarche traînante et ridicule se cache pourtant une figure symptomatique de notre époque. Peur de l’épidémie ou fantasme de la catastrophe, aliénation moderne ou fascination pour la violence : le zombie et le monde apocalyptique qu’il crée nous parlent d’abord, intimement, de nous-mêmes. Par l’obscène exhibition de la mort, l’ultime (...) tabou de la société occidentale, il brise les limites de la condition humaine : celles de la conscience, de la vie, de la civilisation. Mais surtout, il trahit un fantasme émergeant dans notre culture, celui d’en finir. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree about whether there could be “zombies”: beings physically identical to normal human people but lacking consciousness. Establishing their possibility would refute physicalism. But it is seldom noted that the popular “constitution view” of human people implies that our bodies actually are zombies. This would contradict several widely held views in the philosophy of mind.

The zombie, mocking all nomological arguments, gives rise to axiological considerations that also result in a vindication ofthe nomological paradigm. So the ‘philosophical benefit of zombies’ ultimately proves to be that they lead to an understanding they were originally invented to refute.

Is it true that if zombies---creatures who are behaviorally indistinguishable from us, but no more conscious than a rock-are logically possible, the computational conception of mind is false? Are zombies logically possible? Are they physically possible? This paper is a careful, sustained argument for affirmative answers to these three questions.

The “hard problem” of consciousness is a challenge for explanations of the nature of our phenomenal experiences. Chalmers has claimed that physicalist solutions to the challenge are ill-suited due, in part, to the zombie argument against physicalism. Perry has suggested that the zombie argument begs the question against the physicalist, and presents no relevant threat to the view. Although seldom discussed in the literature, I show there is defensive merit to Perry’s “parry” of the zombie attack. The success of the (...) maneuver suggests a slight softening of the hard problem of consciousness for physicalists. (shrink)

El mito del zombi conservó durante varias décadas la misma estructura simbólica que la literatura y cinematografía acerca del uso perverso del magnetismo animal y la hipnosis, su genealogía. En el último tercio del siglo XX el mito sufre una profunda transformación que, no obstante, supone la continuación de su anterior sentido inconsciente. El análisis de los nuevos elementos arquetípicos que va a incorporar, estrechamente relacionados con un aspecto nuclear del espíritu del arte del siglo XX, nos va a (...) permitir realizar una aproximación interpretativa a cierto entramado mítico y su proceso psicológico subyacente que atraviesa actualmente la psique colectiva: la muerte iniciática y la dinámica disolvente y desintegradora del alma, respectivamente. Nos basaremos para ello en el marco teórico de la psicología analítica y haremos uso del método histórico-comparativo. (shrink)

A zombie is a creature just like a conscious being in certain respects, but wholly lacking in consciousness. In this paper, I look at zombies from the perspective of basic ontology (“from below”), taking as my starting point a trope ontology I have defended elsewhere. The consequences of this ontology for zombies are mixed. Viewed from below, one sort of zombie—the exact dispositional zombie—is impossible. A similar argument can be wielded against another sort—the exact physical zombie—but here supplementary principles are (...) needed to get to the impossibility result. Finally, at least two sorts of zombie—the behavioural and functional zombies—escape these arguments from below. (shrink)

[Functionalism, Zombies and the Absence of a Mental Dictionary].

In response to Mole 2009, I present an argument for zombie action. The crucial question is not whether but rather to what extent we are zombie agents. I argue that current evidence supports only minimal zombie agency.

I want to take issue with the assertion by Flanagan and Polger that there are no good theories as to `why did evolution result in creatures who were more than just informationally sensitive'; that is, why evolution has apparently not produced zombies. I've proposed a theory which I'd like to think is good: that consciousness is for kinds of plausible reasoning not available to mechanistic systems -- that there have been evolutionary advantages in an organism being able to act out (...) choices between alternatives left open to it by the universal laws, choices which require consciousness of inconclusive and incommensurable reasons that the choices can resolve, and which are unique efficacious events rather than just the expression of the universal laws. This idea is developed and defended in Hodgson , 1994a, 1994b, 1995, 1996a, 1996b). No one has yet told me why it is no good. (shrink)

In der Debatte zwischen Dualisten und Physikalisten spielen Zombies seit geraumer Zeit eine entscheidende Rolle – physikalische Duplikate phänomenal bewusster Lebewesen, die selbst nicht phänomenal bewusst sind. Die Vorstellbarkeit bzw. Möglichkeit von Zombies bringt, so die Standardauffassung, den Physikalismus in Schwierigkeiten: Wenn die physikalische Ausstattung der Welt die Welt in ihrer Gesamtheit determiniert, wie vom Physikalismus gefordert, dann kann es keine physikalischen Duplikate phänomenal bewusster Lebewesen geben, die nicht ebenfalls phänomenal bewusst sind. Die Arbeit argumentiert dafür, dass die Standardauffassung falsch (...) ist. Aus den üblicherweise angestellten Überlegungen ergibt sich kein zwingendes Argument gegen den Physikalismus, sondern bestenfalls die überraschende Konsequenz, dass Physikalisten wie Dualisten ihre jeweilige Position nicht als kontingent betrachten können, und schlimmstenfalls die nicht minder überraschende Konsequenz, dass der Dualismus falsch ist, wenn der Physikalismus mit der Möglichkeit von Zombies unverträglich ist.The debate between dualism and physicalism has recently been dominated by zombies—physical duplicates of phenomenally conscious beings that lack phenomenal consciousness. According to the standard view, the conceivability or possibility of zombies creates a serious problem for physicalism: If the physical make-up of the word determines the world in its entirety, as physicalism maintains, then there can be no physical duplicates of phenomenally conscious beings that are not phenomenally conscious. This paper argues that the standard view is wrong. The considerations usually appealed to do not yield a convincing argument against physicalism. At best, they result in the surprising claim that physicalists and dualists cannot understand their respective views as a contingent claim; at worst , they yield the no less surprising result that dualism is wrong if physicalism is incompatible with the possibility of zombies. (shrink)

I argue that zombies are inconceivable. More precisely, I argue that the conceivability-intuition that is used to demonstrate their possibility has been misconstrued. Thought experiments alleged to feature zombies founder on the fact that, on the one hand, they _must_ involve first-person imagining, and yet, on the other hand, _cannot_. Philosophers who take themselves to have imagined zombies have unwittingly conflated imagining a creature who lacks consciousness with imagining a creature without also imagining the consciousness it may or may not (...) possess. (shrink)

According to a view defended by Hubert Dreyfus and others, elite athletes are totally absorbed while they are performing, and they act non-deliberately without any representational or conceptual thinking. By using both conceptual clarification and phenomenological description the article criticizes this view and maintains that various forms of conscious thinking and acting plays an important role before, during and after competitive events. The article describes in phenomenological detail how elite athletes use consciousness in their actions in sport; as planning, attention, (...) thinking, decision, and monitoring of performance. Elite athletes do not act as zombies. It is concluded that qualia and phenomenal consciousness are important phenomena in elite sport. (shrink)

In this article I reply to the challenge set forth by Dennett in his critique of Flanagan and Polger (1995). Through careful textual analysis, I show that Dennett is presenting us with a dilemma and that this dilemma is the keystone of Dennett’s argument in his Consciousness Explained. I argue that one horn of the dilemma does not have the consequence that Dennett claims; Specifically, I argue that theories that allow for the possibility of non-conscious functional duplicates of conscious beings (...) (so called zombies) do not thereby entail epiphenomenalism about consciousness. I demonstrate how Dennett’s argument falls prey to a common mistake in reasoning about the functions of things, and recommend a correction. (shrink)

The possibility of zombies is seen to depend on a substantive thesis about powers and qualities: powers and qualities are contingently related. Earlier arguments provided grounds to challenge this thesis, however, hence to shed doubt on the possibility of zombies.

Philosophers have argued that the conceivability of philosophical zom- bies creates problems for physicalism. In response, it has been argued that zombies are not conceivable. Eric Marcus (2004), for example, challenges the conceivability claim. Torin Alter (2007) argues that Marcus’s argument rests on an overly restrictive principle of imagina- tion. I agree that the argument relies on an overly restrictive principle of imagination, but argue that Alter has not put his finger on the right one. In short, Marcus’s argument fails, (...) but not for the reasons Alter gives. (shrink)

In his ‘anti-zombie argument’, Keith Frankish turns the tables on ‘zombists’, forcing them to find an independent argument against the conceivability of anti-zombies. I argue that zombists can shoulder the burden, for there is an important asymmetry between the conceivability of zombies and the conceivability of anti-zombies, which is reflected in the embedding of a totality-clause under the conceivability operator. This makes the anti-zombie argument susceptible to what I call the ‘Modified Incompleteness’, according to which we cannot conceive of scenarios. (...) In this paper I also argue that conceiving of the zombie-situation is a good starting point for rendering the zombie argument plausible. (shrink)

In its recent history, the philosophy of mind has come to resemble an entry into the genre of Hammer horror or pulpy science fiction. These days it is unusual to encounter a major philosophical work on the mind that is not populated with bats, homunculi, swamp-creatures, cruelly imprisoned genius scientists, aliens, cyborgs, other-worldly twins, self-aware Computer programs, Frankenstein-monster-like ‘Blockheads,’ or zombies. The purpose of this paper is to review the role in the philosophy of mind of one of these fantastic (...) thought-experiments — the zombie — and to reassess the implications of zombie arguments, which I will suggest have been widely misinterpreted. I shall argue that zombies, far from being the enemy of materialism, are its friend; and furthermore that zombies militate against the computational model of consciousness and in favour of more biologically-rooted conceptions, and hence that zombie- considerations support a morereductivekind of physicalism about consciousness than has been in vogue in recent years. (shrink)

P-zombies are creatures that are physically (functionally, behaviourally) like you and I and yet lack phenomenal consciousness. If such creatures are possible, it’s (typically) taken to show property dualism is true: phenomenal consciousness isn’t reducible to – nor does it supervene on – physical states. If inverted qualia are possible, it’s possible that you and I have identical physical states and yet you see tomatoes as green and I see tomatoes as red. If this is the case, then (again) property (...) dualism is (typically) taken to be true. In this article, I???ll show that p-zombies and inverted qualia – if they are actually possible – prove more than previously thought: if one thinks p-zombies or inverted qualia are possible, then one should endorse one of the four following theses: (i) substance dualism, (ii) we have even more reason to reject p-zombies and inverted qualia since they entail an even more radical conclusion than previously thought (i.e. substance dualism), (iii) eliminativism about selves, or (iv) friends of p-zombies and inverted qualia have homework: they need to show a relevant, plausible disanalogy between arguments for p-zombies and inverted qualia as traditionally stated and my parallel arguments that entail substance dualism. My purpose here isn’t to defend any of these particular options. Instead, my purpose is to highlight that these are the four options available to take. (shrink)

In philosophical thought experiments, as in ordinary discourse, our understanding of verbal case descriptions is enriched by automatic comprehension inferences. Such inferences have us routinely infer what else is also true of the cases described. We consider how such routine inferences from polysemous words can generate zombie intuitions: intuitions that are ‘killed’ (defeated) by contextual information but kept cognitively alive by the psycholinguistic phenomenon of linguistic salience bias. Extending ‘evidentiary’ experimental philosophy, this paper examines whether the ‘zombie argument’ against materialism (...) is built on zombie intuitions. We examine the hypothesis that contextually defeated stereotypical inferences from the noun ‘zombie’ influence intuitions about ‘philosophical zombies’. We document framing effects (‘zombie’ vs ‘duplicate’) predicted by the hypothesis. Findings undermine intuitions about the conceivability of ‘philosophical zombies’ and address the philosophical ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Findings support a deflationary response: The impression that principled obstacles prevent scientific explanation of how physical processes give rise to conscious experience is generated by philosophical arguments that rely on epistemically deficient intuitions. (shrink)

Zombie art, or salvage art, are artworks that are damaged beyond repair, deemed by insurance companies, and removed from the market and stored at claims inventories due to their purported loss of value. This paper aims to make sense of the notion of zombie art. It then aims to determine whether artefacts that fall under this concept retain any aesthetic value, and whether they can genuinely cease being artworks, i.e. be dead art.

Certain recent philosophical theories offer the prospect that zombies are possible. These theories argue that experiential contents, or qualia, are nonphysical properties. The arguments are based on the conceivability of alternate worlds in which physical laws and properties remain the same, but in which qualia either differ or are absent altogether. This article maintains that qualia are, on the contrary, physical properties in the world. It is shown how, under the burden of the a posteriori identification of qualia with physical (...) properties, a reasoned choice can be made between the two types of theories which ultimately favors materialism and rejects zombies. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility that the human mind underwent substantial changes in recent history. Assuming that consciousness is a substantial trait of the mind, the paper focuses on the suggestion made by Julian Jaynes that the Mycenean Greeks had a "bicameral" mind instead of a conscious one. The suggestion is commonly dismissed as patently absurd, for instance by critics such as Ned Block. A closer examination of the intuitions involved, considered from different theoretical angles , reveals that the idea (...) of 'Greek zombies' should be taken more seriously than is commonly assumed. (shrink)

How should we understand the relation between corporate agency, corporate moral agency and corporate moral patienthood? For some time, corporations have been treated as increasingly ontologically and morally sophisticated in the literature. To explore the limits of this treatment, I start off by redeveloping and defending a reductio that historically has been aimed at accounts of corporate agency which entail that corporations count as moral patients. More specifically, I argue that standard agents are due a certain type of moral concern, (...) but corporate agents are not due that type of concern, so they are not agents of, at least, the standard type. Diagnosis: because corporations plausibly lack qualia, they are ‘zombie agents’ that mimic real agents. This explains why they are neither standard agents nor standard moral patients: they are not standard agents because they lack mental states, and because they lack experiences, they are, at best, morally notable rather than morally respectable. However, I then argue that we nevertheless have instrumental reasons to include them in our moral responsibility practices, both because that is what notability involves and bluffingly, and both when it comes to treating them as moral agents and as moral patients. Hence, we may treat corporations as part of our moral responsibility practices to a limited extent anyway. (shrink)

I develop advice to the reductionist about consciousness in the form of a transcendental argument that depends crucially on the sorts of knowledge claims concerning consciousness that, as crucial elements in the anti-reductionists’ epistemicgap arguments, the anti-reductionist will readily concede. The argument that I develop goes as follows. P1. If I know that I am not a zombie, then phenomenal character is (a certain kind of) conceptualized egocentric content. P2. I know that I am not a zombie. P3. Phenomenal character (...) is (a certain kind of) conceptualized egocentric content. P4. Fixing my physical properties fixes my conceptualized egocentric contents. C. Fixing my physical properties fixes my phenomenal properties. (shrink)

Could robots be genuinely intelligent? Could they be conscious? Could there be zombies? Prompted by these questions Robert Kirk introduces the main problems of consciousness and sets out a new approach to solving them. He starts by discussing behaviourism, Turing's test of intelligence and Searle's famous Chinese Room argument, and goes on to examine dualism – the idea that consciousness requires something beyond the physical – together with its opposite, physicalism. Probing the idea of zombies, he concludes they are logically (...) impossible. Having presented the central problems, he sketches his solution: a version of functionalism, according to which consciousness consists in the performance of functions. While there is wide agreement among philosophers about what the main problems of consciousness are, there is little agreement on how to go about solving them. With this powerful case for his version of functionalism, Kirk offers an engaging introduction to both the problems and a possible solution. (shrink)

Case 1: Perhaps the phenomenal facts—facts about what it’s like to see red, or to taste freshly made pesto—do not supervene with metaphysical necessity on the physical facts and physical laws. This might be because the connections between the physical and the phenomenal are entirely unprincipled. Alternatively, it might be because whatever psychophysical laws do govern those connections are contingent. Either way, the claim is that there are metaphysically possible worlds that are just like the actual world in terms of (...) what physical laws hold, and in terms of the distribution of physical properties, but which are phenomenally different from the actual world. In some such worlds, different phenomenal facts obtain. In other such worlds, no phenomenal properties are instantiated at all. Call the latter sort of world a ‘phenomenal zombie world’, or, for short, just a ‘zombie world’. (shrink)

Knock-down refutations are rare in philosophy, and unambiguous self-refutations are even rarer, for obvious reasons, but sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes philosophers clutch an insupportable hypothesis to their bosoms and run headlong over the cliff edge. Then, like cartoon characters, they hang there in mid-air, until they notice what they have done and gravity takes over. Just such a boon is the philosophers' concept of a zombie, a strangely attractive notion that sums up, in one leaden lump, almost everything that (...) I think is wrong with current thinking about consciousness. Philosophers ought to have dropped the zombie like a hot potato, but since they persist in their embrace, this gives me a golden opportunity to focus attention on the most seductive error in current thinking. (shrink)

This paper explores the viability of rejecting a largely unchallenged third premise of the conceivability argument against materialism. Fittingly labeled 'type-Z' , this reply essentially grants to the zombie lover, not just the possibility of zombies, but also their actuality. We turn out to be the very creatures Chalmers has taken such great pains to conceive and more conventional materialists have tried to wipe off the face of the planet. So consciousness is a wholly material affair. What is conceivable but (...) non-actual are not zombies, but rather 'angelic' beings possessing an acquaintance with supermaterial phenomenal states. After showing how Chalmers' recent discussion of the phenomenal concepts strategy should incline those pursuing such a strategy toward a type-Z response, this paper relates type- Z materialism to similar replies that Chalmers has found 'hard to classify' and closes with a brief remark about how a type-Z materialist might reply to the knowledge argument. (shrink)

Recently, a review regarding the mechanics and evolution of mitochondrial fission appeared in Nature. Surprisingly, it stated authoritatively that the mitochondrial outer membrane, in contrast with the inner membrane of bacterial descent, was acquired from the host, presumably during uptake. However, it has been known for quite some time that this membrane was also derived from the Gram‐negative, alpha‐proteobacterium related precursor of present‐day mitochondria. The zombie idea of the host membrane still surrounding the endosymbiont is not only wrong, but more (...) importantly, might hamper the proper conception of possible scenarios of eukaryogenesis. Why? Because it steers the imagination not only with regard to possible uptake mechanisms, but also regarding what went on before. Here I critically discuss both the evidence for the continuity of the bacterial outer membrane, the reasons for the persistence of the erroneous host membrane hypothesis and the wider implications of these misconceptions for the ideas regarding events occurring during the first steps towards the evolution of the eukaryotes and later major eukaryotic differentiations. I will also highlight some of the latest insights regarding different instances of endosymbiont evolution. (shrink)

The philosophical zombie is an imaginary being that is just like us in every way, except that philosophical zombies don't have experience. Elite athletes who are 'in the zone' also lack experience, therefore, while in a zone state they are similar to philosophical zombies.

Despite their purported demographic and institutional decline, White evangelical voters were instrumental in the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and even more so in his 2020 loss. The story of Trump’s electoral successes among Christian voters in the last two elections is in large part the story of religious nationalism—and White Christian nationalism in particular—because Trump personifies the convergence of nationalism-infused forms of messianism and apocalypticism intrinsic to White evangelicalism, which culminate in QAnon cultic ideology. However, these same ethnoreligious/nationalist (...) patterns and logics extend much further back than Trump’s insurgent candidacy. This chapter traces the recurring, resurgent patterns of “zombie nationalism” among White evangelical Christians in the United States over the last half century that emerged in response to periods of significant societal change and certain recurring sociopolitical issues. In particular, alongside established elective affinities around ethnicity (whiteness) and religion (Christianity), this chapter makes the case for incorporating gender and sexual politics as key factors in the articulation and legitimation of religious nationalism in the United States. White Christian nationalism tends to reemerge as a salient political force during periods of rapid social change and diversification, driven by racialized religious grievances symptomatic of Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment, or the paradoxical internalization and reprojection of a person’s or group’s perceived endangerment, victimhood, and/or suffering, in order to gain power. Drawing on examples of marriage equality and reproductive rights, this chapter demonstrates how an understanding of sexual politics is key to both apprehending and breaking the cyclical reanimation of White Christian nationalism. Escaping the nihilistic impulses driving these cycles will require White evangelicals to develop new hermeneutical tools capable of transforming the exclusionary patterns of racism, ethnocentrism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy that fuel the engine of ressentiment animating zombie nationalism. (shrink)

In his "Access Denied to Zombies", Gualtiero Piccinini argues that the possibility of zombies does not entail the falsity of physicalism, since the accessibility relation can be understood so that even in S5 system for modal logic worlds inaccessible from our world are allowed (in the case in which the accessibility relation is understood as an equivalence rather than as universal accessibility). According to Piccinini, whether the zombie world is accessible from our world depends on whether physicalism is true in (...) our world, which is something that cannot be answered in a non-question-begging way. In order to show this, he recalls a well known strategy of making a parody of the zombie argument. After pointing out that Piccinini's strategy of parodying the zombie argument renders his former strategy, based on the distinguishing between the two notions of accessibility, redundant, I recall the two ways of handling parodies of the zombie argument. In addition, I argue that persisting on the distinction between accessibility understood as an equivalence and universal accessibility in dealing with the zombie argument relies upon accepting modal dualism (a view that there are two spaces of possibilities rather than one), which is something usually dismissed for methodological reasons (simplicity in particular). Given that Piccinini has not provided new arguments neither in favour of modal dualism nor in favour of parodying the zombie argument, the conclusion he infers remains unsupported by the premises he uses. (shrink)

John Heil’s From an Ontological Point of View (Heil 2003) is a tremendous philosophical work. The neo-Lockean ontology the reader finds within its 267 pages is a sensible and refreshing alternative to the neo-Humean ontologies which presently occupy the vast majority of the metaphysical literature. What Heil offers is a much needed change in perspective. Nor are the strengths of the book limited to Heil’s willingness to approach central metaphysical problems in largely untried and unpopular way; the book is very (...) clear in its presentation, accessible to wide readership, and tightly argued throughout. Heil’s efforts in this book are to be applauded, and the result is one that warrants serious consideration by all those interested in serious metaphysics. But the interest should not end there: the lessons of Heil’s book are ones that almost all philosophers ought to take seriously. Despite the criticism that follows, my overall position should not be taken as anything short of a whole-hearted endorsement of Heil’s book. Nonetheless, when philosophy is one’s trade, there is always going to be something to disagree about, however much one is amenable to a view. (shrink)

We imagine Zombies as beings identical to us with respect to all physical and behavioural facts but different with respect to phenomenal facts. For example, zombies might say, just like us, ‘this grapefruit is really sour’ or ‘my left knee hurts’, but, unlike us, they have no phenomenal experiences corresponding to these utterances or to the relevant physical states. The idea of zombies has been used to construct the following argument against the physicalist approach to consciousness.

This book offers solutions to two persistent and I believe closely related problems in epistemology. The first problem is that of drawing a principled distinction between perception and inference: what is the difference between seeing that something is the case and merely believing it on the basis of what we do see? The second problem is that of specifying which beliefs are epistemologically basic (i.e., directly, or noninferentially, justified) and which are not. I argue that what makes a belief a (...) perceptual belief, or a basic belief, is not any introspectible feature of the belief but rather the nature of the cognitive system, or "module", that is causally responsible for the belief. Thus, even zombies, who in the philosophical literature lack conscious experiences altogether, can have basic, justified, perceptual beliefs. -/- The theories of perceptual and basic beliefs developed in the monograph are embedded in a larger reliabilist epistemology. I use this theory of basic beliefs to develop a detailed reliabilist theory: Inferentialist Reliabilism, which offers a reliabilist theory of inferential justification and which solves some longstanding problems for other reliabilist views by demanding inferential support for some—but not all—beliefs. The book is an instance of a thoroughgoingly naturalistic approach to epistemology. Many of my arguments have an empirical basis, and the view that I endorse reserves a central role for the cognitive sciences—in particular, cognitive neuroscience—in filling in the details of an applied epistemological theory. (shrink)

The existential crisis in zombie apocalyptic fiction brings to the fore the problem of humanity's search for meaning in an increasingly global and secular world. Zombies are analyzed in the context of Buddhist thought, in contrast with social and religious critiques from other works.

If zombies were conceivable in the sense relevant to the ‘conceivability argument’ against physicalism, a certain epiphenomenalistic conception of consciousness—the ‘e-qualia story’—would also be conceivable. But the e-qualia story is not conceivable because it involves a contradiction. The non-physical ‘e-qualia’ supposedly involved could not perform cognitive processing, which would therefore have to be performed by physical processes; and these could not put anyone into ‘epistemic contact’ with e-qualia, contrary to the e-qualia story. Interactionism does not enable zombists to escape these (...) conclusions. (shrink)

A prevailing view in contemporary philosophy of mind is that zombies are logically possible. I argue, via a thought experiment, that if this prevailing view is correct, then I could be transformed into a zombie. If I could be transformed into a zombie, then surprisingly, I am not certain that I am conscious. Regrettably, this is not just an idiosyncratic fact about my psychology; I think you are in the same position. This means that we must revise or replace some (...) important positions in the philosophy of mind. We could embrace radical skepticism about our own consciousness, or maintain the complete and total infallibility of our beliefs about our own phenomenal experiences. I argue that we should actually reject the logical possibility of zombies. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cette étude examine la relation entre la demande que les zombies sont logiquement/métaphysiquement possible et de la position que la conscience phénoménal est epiphenomenal. Il est souvent présumé que la première entraîne ce dernier, et que, par conséquent, toute implausibility dans la notion de conscience epiphenomenalism remet en question la possibilité réelle de zombies. Quatre façons dont les zombist pourrait répondre sont examinées, et je soutiens que les deux les plus fréquemment rencontrés sont insuffisantes, mais les autres—dont l’un est (...) rarement formulés et l’autre nouveaux—sont plus persuasif. Le résultat, cependant, est que le zombist pourraient en effet être confronté à un engagement indésirables à l’epiphenomenalism de conscience. (shrink)