Philosophy and Phenonienological Research Vol. LXVI, No. 2, March 2003

The Epistemic/Ontic Divide

BARBARA MONTERO

Georgia State University

A number of philosophers think that, while we cannot explain how the mind is physical, we can know that it is physical, nonetheless. That is, they accept both the explanatory gap between the mental and the physical and ontological physicalism. I argue that this position is unstable. Among other things, I argue that once one accepts the explanatory gap, the main argument for ontological physicalism, the argument from causation, looses its force. For if one takes physicaVnonphysica1 causation and ontological physicalism to be equally mysterious, as physicalists who accept the explanatory gap are inclined to do, there is little justification for accepting ontological physicalism rather than rejecting the causal closure of the physical.

It is not at all unusual these days to hear philosophers claim that while they have no idea how the mind could be physical, they do not doubt that it is physical. As Joseph Levine has said, “I am prepared to maintain that materi- alism must be true, though for the life of me I don’t see how.”’ These phi- losophers are pessimistic physicalists: they are pessimistic about our ability to explain consciousness physically, yet think that consciousness is physical, nonetheless. Put differently, they are pessimistic about our ability to close the explanatory gap between mind and body yet confident that physicalism is true, confident, as it were, that there is no ontological gap. I want to look at why there should be such confidence in light of such pessimism. For i t seems to me, if one accepts that the explanatory gap is uncloseable, i t becomes difficult to explain why the ontological gap is not uncloseable as well.

It is important to note that the type of physicalism at issue here is sup- posed to be entirely ontological. For if physicalism were taken to be a theory about what we can explain-that is, the theory that everything can be com- pletely explained in physical terms-pessimistic physicalism would be con- tradictory. What, then, is ontological physicalism? The question I take to be at stake is whether mentality is a fundamental feature of the world. Thus, ontological physicalism (with respect to the mental) is the theory that men- tality is not a fundamental feature of the world, or as Levine puts it, that

’ Levine (1998), p. 475.

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“only non-mental properties are instantiated in a basic way.”2 This way of understanding physicalism has the ontological force pessimistic physicalists want, and it avoids the problems that beset definitions of the physical in terms of what physics tells us, or can in principle tell us, about the world. For such definitions turn physicalism into either a theory we cannot believe (when the physical is defined over current physics) or a theory that fails to exclude dualism (when the physical is defined over a future or a final physic^).^ But let me say no more about what ontological physicalism is supposed to be-most of what I have to say does turn on accepting this par- ticular notion of physicalism-and turn to the issue of pessimism.

1. Pessimism about Closing the Explanatory Gap While all pessimistic physicalists are pessimistic about closing the explana- tory gap, not all are pessimistic in the same way. Some hold that though there is, in some objective sense, a physical explanation of‘ consciousness, i t is one we cannot now fathom (though possibly someday Others, while they agree that such an explanation from a God’s eye point of view exists, think that we will never comprehend this explanation; we are as Collin McGinn puts it, “cognitively closed” to any explanation of mind i n terms of matter.’ And still others hold that the call for an explanation of con- sciousness in physical terms is misguided: it is just a brute fact that con- sciousness is a physical process and so there is no explanation of conscious- ness that would make this intelligible to US.^ My concern, here, is with only

Levine (2001). p. 21. 1 should add that if there happens to be no fundamental level, physicalism is the view that there is no mental infinite decent. For further discussion o f taking physicalism to be a theory about the fundamentally nonmental, see Montero (2001) and Levine (2001). If the terminology were not so awkward, I would, as I d o in (2001), refer to the position as “fundamental nonmentalism,” rather than physicalism. This would emphasize that the debate is not about whether physics will ultimately account for or pro- vide the dependence base for mentality. And it would also emphasize that the debate is about the nature of the mental, in particular. and not about what would count for anything at all to be physical. ( I actually do not think that there is a useful notion of what it is to be physical in general.) As I see it. the reason why the physical as defined over future or final physics fails to exclude dualism (and panpsychism) is that dualists (and panpsychists) can accept that something like Wigner’s hypothesis (i.e. that pure acts of consciousness are required in order to collapse the wave function) could be part of future or final physics. This would be a situation in which physics accounted for consciousness (in as much as it accounts for any other fundamental feature of the world) yet consciousness would be a fundamental feature of the world (hence, physicalism, as I’ve defined it, would be false). Moreover, if we take “final physics” to be a physics that accounts for everything, then. if conscious- ness exists, consciousness will be accounted for by a final physics even if it is a funda- mental feature of the world. For further criticisms of defining the physical over the posits of physics see Crane and Mellor (1990) and Montero (1999). See Nagel (1974) and (1998). and Levine (2001). See McGinn (1989), Loar (1997) and (1999) and. Hill and McLaughlin (1999). See Block and Stalnaker (1999).

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the former two positions since if one does not think that an explanation of how physicalism could be true exists, the lack of explanation does not pro- vide reason to question it. In contrast, if one thinks that if physicalism is true, it would have an explanation, then our inability to arrive at this expla- nation should be at least a prima facie reason to question physicalism.

Why are pessimistic physicalists so pessimistic about our ability to understand how physicalism could be true? Their motivation comes primarily from the patent difficulty in seeing how anything physical could have experi- ences, the difficulty of seeing how one could get from the nonmental to the mentaL7 As McGinn expresses it: “How could the aggregation of millions of individually insentient neurons generate subjective awareness?”’ William Seager has dubbed this problem the “generation problem,” and according to pessimistic physicalists, we cannot even conceive of the basic shape a solu- tion to it would take.’

Often pessimists (physicalists or otherwise) argue for their pessimism with a battery of thought experiments. The zombie argument, the inverted spectrum argument, the knowledge argument and the modal argument are all part of the artillery.” But as I see it, our intuitions about these thought experiments all ultimately depend on our intuitions about the generation problem: if you find it puzzling how a physical brain could generate con- sciousness, zombies will seem possible, as will inverted spectra, as will Mary’s lamentable condition. On the other hand, if you are an optimistic physicalist and do not find the generation of consciousness from insentient matter puzzling, the thought experiments that are supposed to elicit anti- physicalistic intuitions will not have their desired effect.

Dualists, of course, also think that the generation problem is unsolvable; yet pessimistic physicalists are not dualists. To be sure, it would be impos- sible to solve the generation problem if insentient processes did not generate consciousness, that is, if physicalism were false. But pessimistic physicalists point out that this implication holds only in one direction: the falsity of physicalism does not necessarily follow from the impossibility of solving the generation problem. For according to the pessimistic physicalist, the gen- eration problem is unsolvable because of our peculiar epistemic situation with respect to the relation between mental and physical properties. That is to

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I focus on the qualitative side of the mind-body problem since this is where pessimistic physicalism is most likely to arise. Though one could be a pessimistic physicalist about intentionality: pessimistic about explaining intentionality in a way that does not already presuppose the notion yet, nonetheless, think that intentionality is not a rock-bottom feature of the world. McGinn (1989), p. 349. See Seager (1998) for a discussion of this problem. As he points out, it is important to bear in mind that “generate” should not be interpreted as “cause.” The relation might be realization, instantiation, constitution etc. See Chalrners (19%) for a discussion of these arguments.

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say, according to the pessimistic physicalist, the generation problem lies on the epistemic side of the epistemic/ontic divide.

2. The Leap from Pessimism to Physicalism Pessimistic physicalists sometimes assume that once we see what is wrong with the main arguments against physicalism, we should embrace physical- ism with open arms. And since the generation problem embodies the central idea behind these arguments, once we see that it does not give us reason to deny ontological physicalism, we can all be physicalists. But a further step is required to take us from having no reason to deny a view to accepting a view. For it is one thing to claim that the generation problem is merely epistemic and quite another to claim that physicalism is correct, to claim, as McGinn puts it, that with respect to the physical nature of the mind, “there is no tnetaphysicaf problem.”’ ’

An analogy proffered by Nagel highlights the difficulty of taking this fur- ther step. The analogy is intended to illustrate our epistemic situation with respect to physicalism, but it also indicates how very difficult the justifica- tory project may be. According to Nagel, “at the present time the status of physicalism is similar to that which the hypothesis that matter is energy would have had if uttered by a pre-Socratic philosopher.”’* This may be so. However, if the widely shared view that the mind is physical actually does have the same status today as the view that matter is energy would have had over 2000 years ago, our belief in physicalism would not be justified at all. Given what the pre-Socratics knew about the world, they would have had little hope of justifying the view that matter is energy. And unless pessimis- tic physicalists have some further argument for believing in physicalism, i t is not clear that their view fares any better. In other words, without at least some reason to believe in physicalism, the explanatory gap seems to leave us with an ontological chasm.

How, then, can one accept the epistemological gap and at the same time deny the ontological gap? What reasons do pessimistic physicalists give for thinking that, despite our inability to understand how consciousness could be physical, it is physical, nonetheless? Optimistic physicalists can argue that

’ I McGinn (l989), p. 363. I should note that while McGinn does not refer to himsclf as a physicalist. he does claim that it is “in virtue of .some natural property of the brain that organisms are conscious” and also rejects “radical emergence of the conscious with respect so the cerebral” (p. 353). I see this analogous to the claim that since it is in virtue of certain properties of molecules that some substances are liquid, liquidity is a higher- level feature of these molecules that have those properties and not a fundamental feature of the world. Consciousness, it would thus seem, according to McGinn. is a higher-level feature of the brain and not a fundamental feature of the world. And thus. given how I understand physicalism, McGinn would count as a physicalist. Nagel (1974). p. 447. I should emphasize that Nagel does not intend this to be a justifica- tion of physicalism, just an illustration of what our situation may be.

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we should accept physicalism because physicalism makes sense and appears to be correct. That is, one reason to think that rn is ontologically p is that we can explain how rn is p and thus understand how rn could be p . However, pessimistic physicalists are quite adamant about our inability to understand how the mind could be physical: “physicalism” according to Nagel, “is a position we cannot understand because we do not at present have any concep- tion of how it might be true.”13 And according to McGinn, “we are perma- nently locked from forming a concept of what accounts for [the mind-brain] link.”“ Given this, it is difficult to see what motivates these philosophers to accept physicalism.

In an interesting twist, some pessimistic physicalists appear to try to jus- tify their ontological conclusion by actually arguing for the explanatory gap, specifically by providing reasons for why we should expect such an explana- tion to be impossible.15 That is, they appear to argue from the impossibility of closing the explanatory gap to the truth of physicalism. Sometimes this argument is only implicit, while at other times it appears to be explicitly used to defend physicalism. For as McGinn puts it, “the solution [to the phi- losophical mind-body problem] is to recognize that the sense of a miracle comes from us and not from the world.”16 But how can showing that the phi- losophically puzzling aspect of the mind-body problem is epistemic consti- tute a defense of physicalism?

To be sure, sometimes a psychological account of why someone believes p (when p is not actually the case) can play an important role in our explana- tion of what actually is the case.” For example, Jim might believe that he communicated with his dead father. However, we may be fairly certain that such communication is not possible and so explain Jim’s mistaken beliefs away by citing certain facts about his psychological makeup: his strong desire to make amends with his father, and so forth. But this type of explana- tion would have little force if we had no reason to question communication with the dead in the first place. Even more, if we thought that it was a mys- tery how this communication could have failed (as pessimistic physicalists think i t a mystery how the mind could be physical), the explanation of the son’s psychological state would do little, if anything, to convince us that he was mistaken. For example, if Jim had been speaking to his (live) father via a highly reliable telephone system, his overwhelming desire to communicate

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l 3 Nagel (1974). p. 446. l 4 McGinn (1989). p. 360. l5 For example, Hill and McLaughlin (1999) claim to “explain the a posterioricity of

psychophysical identities” (emphasis added) by arguing that because of the distinction between physical concepts and sensory concepts, sensory states and their nomologically correlated physical states will always seem to us to be distinct (even thought they are not). McGinn (I989), p. 363. See Stroud’s (2000) discussion of what he calls “unmasking explanations.”

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with his father would not in any way lead us to question whether the com- munication was successful. Pessimistic physicalists, then, must tell us something more.

Clearly one lesson pessimistic physicalists want us to learn is that in try- ing to understand the mind, epistemology and metaphysics ought to be kept distinct. As Levine says, “one’s ideas can be as clear and distinct as you like, and nevertheless not correspond to what is in fact possible.”” And certainly in some sense this is correct: how things are, is one thing; what we know about them, is something else. But maintaining this distinction typically leads to agnosticism rather than to positive views about the world. For example, if we assume that we will never know what color the dinosaurs were, we should withhold our assent to any claim about their color-for instance, we should not assert that they were all purple. To do so, of course, would be absurd. Yet pessimistic physicalists, at least without further argu- ment, seem to be making a similar mistake. For pessimistic physicalists think that we cannot understand how consciousness could be physical yet are not at all agnostic about whether i t is physical. While it may be, as Christo- pher Hill and Brian McLaughlin tell us, that “a sensory state and its nomologically correlated brain state would seem contingently related even if they were necessarily one,” this is no more of a defense of the identity theory, which they accept, than the claim “even if the world was created five minutes ago we would still think that it was very old,” is a defense of the view that the world was created five minutes ago.l9 In other words the mere fact that we are barred from understanding the relation between sensory phenomena and neural phenomena lends no support to the view that sensory phenomena are physical .”

There may be certain situations, however, in which we can justifiably assert p even though it is entirely mysterious how p could be true. Here is an example that Nagel uses to illustrate this point. Imagine that a person unfa- miliar with insect metamorphosis places a caterpillar in a sealed room and upon returning a few weeks later finds a butterfly its place. It would seem, Nagel suggests, that this person would have reason to believe that the cater- pillar had turned into a butterfly even if how i t might have done this would be utterly mysterious. And the thesis of physicalism, Nagel thinks, may have a similar status.

Upon reflection, however, given that our caterpillar collector is truly per- plexed by the notion of metamorphosis, we can see that he should not be so

Levine (1992) . Hill and McLaughlin (1999), p. 449. Chalmers (1999) presents a related criticism. He argues that it may be that given the way mathematical concepts are formed, 1+1 would seem to be 2 even if it were 3. But this would, in no way, justify the claim that 1+1=3. And similarly, the claim that the mind is physical is in no sense justified by our inability to see that the mind is physical.

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confident. For it would seem that upon opening the safe, his belief that the caterpillar had turned into a butterfly would be justified only if he could eliminate a number of other plausible explanations of what took place, or at least show that these explanations are less plausible than an explanation that relies on metamorphosis. For example, perhaps the room was not hermeti- cally sealed, or perhaps the caterpillar escaped and a butterfly flew in right at the moment he was opening the door, or perhaps, as Nagel himself points out, the caterpillar contained within it a tiny butterfly parasite that devoured it and grew to its present size. If the idea of metamorphosis were actually utterly mysterious, accepting one of these alternatives would seem to be more reasonable. But, of course, this tale about metamorphosis is only an analogy to an argument that is supposed to show that physicalism, despite its unintel- ligibility, is true. So let us turn to the argument for physicalism itself; for i t could be that it is actually in better standing.

3. The Causal Argument for Physicalism When Nagel claims that we may have reason to believe that the mind is physical without being in a position to understand how this could be so, he is alluding to Davidson’s argument for physicalism, roughly, the argument that since 1) there are causal relations between the mental and the physical (e.g. my desire for water and my belief that there is water nearby causes me to go search for water), 2) causal relations must be backed by strict laws and 3) there are no strict psycho-physical laws, the mental must be physical.” Davidson’s argument, aimed as it is at intentional states, does not address the pessimistic physicalist’s main concern: experiential states. But Nagel thinks that we also have reason to believe experiential states are physical, without, as he says, “being in a position to understand how.”22 And the argument that many would now say shows this is a close relative of Davidson’s argument, what has variously come to be known as “the causal exclusion argument” or “the argument from causal closure” or what I’ll simply call “the causal argument” for physical i~m.~~ As with Davidson’s argument, it purports, in general, to show that the reason to believe in physicalism is that if the mind were not physical, the causal relevance of the mental would be unintelligible. Differences from Davidson’s argument, however, show up in the details. In its standard form, the argument is this: since 1) mental causes have physical

See Davidson (1970). Also see Heil and Mele (1995) for a discussion of Davidson’s argument. A much earlier argument for physicalism based on causal considerations between the mental and the physical is found in Lucretius’ de Rerum Narura, Book I l l where he argues, “when [the mind and soul] is seen to push the limbs, rouse the body from sleep, and alter the countenance and guide and turn about the whole man, and when we see that none of these effects can take place without touch nor touch without body, must we not admit that the mind and the soul are of a bodily nature?’ Nagel (1974). p. 448. See, for example, Kim (1996), Papineau (1993), Levine (2001), among many others.

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effects, 2) the physical world is causally closed (i.e. every physical effect that has a sufficient cause at time has a sufficient physical cause at that time) and 3) there is no systematic causal overdetermination (i.e. effects that have sufficient causes do not, systematically, have additional causes), we conclude that the mental is physical.24 Does this argument give the pessimistic physicalist what he needs?

It seems that, as with the metamorphosis example, there are alternative routes one can take. And if the ontological nature of the mental as physical is as mysterious to us as pessimistic physicalists claim, arguments for physi- calism that are based on causal claims about the mental and the physical would be successful only if physicalism-as mysterious as i t is-is neverthe- less shown to be more probable than the failure of any one of the causal argument’s premises. For the pessimistic physicalist, however, this is no easy task since they think that the generation problem is at least primafacie a very compelling reason to reject physicalism.

One alternative route is epiphenomenalism. Epiphenomenalists reject the first premise: they think that mentality is real but that it causally affects only other mental states2’ And systematic causal overdetermination at least seems possible-something pessimistic physicalists will claim is not true of physi- calism; for as they see it, physicalism seems impossible (despite the fact that i t is actually true).26 To be sure, epiphenomenalism as well as systematic overdetermination may be implausible. But i t is not yet clear why the pessi- mistic physicalist accepts physicalism rather than rejects either of these premises.

Premise 2, the causal closure of the physical, is often taken to be inviola- ble; as Levine says, “interactionism. . .does seem to be out of the ques- t i ~ n . ” ~ ’ But what, according to pessimistic physicalists, makes the failure of premise 2 less probable than the failure of physicalism? It is interesting to note that arguments for the causal closure often rely on a notion of the physi- cal that dualists need not accept. For example, Jaegwon Kim argues that if the physical world were not causally closed “complete physics would in prin- ciple be impossible, even as an idealized Similarly, John Heil defends the causal closure of the physical by claiming, “modern science is premised on the assumption that the material world is causally a closed sys-

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See Lowe (2000) for a discussion of the difficulty in specifying what exactly counts as being causally overdetermined There is also a question about what counts as “system- atic” if occasional mental properties were epiphenomena1 with respect to their apparent physical effects, there may not be sy~lemaric overdetermination, yet the mental need not be physical See, for example, Chalmers (1996). Jackson (1982), and Huxley (1901) Crane (1995) and Mellor (1995). for example, accept systematic overdetermination Levine (2001), p 22 However, see Baker (1993) for an argument against the causal closure of the physical

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But these arguments for the causal closure of the physical work only if “the physical” is taken to mean something like whatever is accountable for by science or physics. Yet dualists can and should reject this notion of the physical since their main claim is that mentality is a fundamental feature of the world, a feature that, for all we know, could be accounted for by an ideal physic^.^'

Physicalist, thus, need to argue, not that whatever is accountable for by science or physics is causally closed, but that the fundamentally nonmental is causally closed. And some have tried to do this. For example, Spurrett and Papineau claim that “to deny [the causal closure of the physical] is to sup- pose that some non-mental effects are due to irreducibly mental causes” and while they think that this is possible, they also think that we have good reason to reject it.3’ The reason is roughly that we have good nonmental causal explanations of many physical effects and it seems likely that funda- mentally mental causes will not be needed. But even if there are good reasons to accept the causal closure of the physical as well as the other premises of the argument, pessimistic physicalists would then only be faced with a choice between two mysteries: the mystery (as they see it) of physicalism or the mystery (as they see it) of causal interaction between a non-physical mind and a physical body? For the pessimistic physicalist thinks that causal considera- tions lead to physicalism and that the generation problem leads to dualism or panpsychism. What, then, is their motivation to accept physicalism? One might think that their motivation comes from the relative strength of the arguments for physicalism over the arguments against it. But the fact that pessimistic physicalists do not accept this is precisely what makes them pes- simistic. For the pessimistic physicalist typically thinks that the central arguments for dualism (the generation problem, as well as the knowledge argument, the zombie argument, and the modal argument) are extremely compelling. And so the pessimistic physicalist must find a way to tip the balance.32

Heil (1998). For physics is in a state of flux and while we may be able to foresee some of the general properties that any future physics will have, dualists need not exclude the possibility that it may progress in such a way so as to take the mental to be fundamental. Moreover, if certain versions of the anthropic principle are part of current physics, physics already posits mentality as a fundamental feature of the world. Again, for further discussion of this way of understanding the notion of the physical, see Montero (2001). Spurrett and Papineau (1999). Also see Levine (2001). For a criticism of this approach see Gillett and Witmer (2001). Some invoke a variation of the causal argument: the argument from the conservation of energy. I t is sometimes argued that since I ) energy is conserved, 2) causation requires the transfer of energy, and 3) anything with energy is physical, it follows that the mental (if it is not epiphenomena]) must be physical or else it would violate the conservation of energy. But here, too. the premises, or at least the latter two, can be questioned: a number of philosophers reject the view that causation requires the transfer of energy and if

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4. Arguing for Physicalism by Arguing for the Explanatory Gap

There is one strategy that, if successful, could allow pessimistic physicalists to retain their pessimism while still affirming physicalism. And the strategy is this: to argue that we should accept physicalism because we have reason to think that we cannot understand physicalism (even if it is true) while we have no reason (or at least less reason) to think that we could not understand dual- ism (even if i t were true).33 In other words, to justify their acceptance of physicalism they can argue that while the generation problem may lead us to think that physicalism i s false and causal considerations lead us to th ink physicalism is true, we should accept physicalism because even if physical- ism were true, it would not seem true; moreover, if dualism were true, i t would seem true.

The first half of the strategy, then, requires pessimistic physicalists to provide a reason for why we cannot understand physicalism. And they cannot simply say that doing so would allow us to see why there might be an explanatory gap without an ontological gap. For if one is trying to defend one’s choice to accept the mystery of physicalism rather than the mystery of physical-nonphysical causal interaction, one cannot simply claim that the reason for thinking that we cannot understand physicalism is that doing so allows us to make this very choice. Rather, pessimistic physicalists need to provide an independent reason to think that epistemology is not a guide to the status of physicalism.

This part of the strategy is being pursued by a number of pessimistic physicalists. Nagel, Loar, McGinn and others have theories about why we cannot understand physicalism. Sometimes the theory, as i t seems to be in Loar’s case, is intended to present only a possible account of our cognitive structures that would, if true, show that we would not be able to understand physicalism. While others, such as McGinn. are bolder and assert that not only could we be cognitively structured in such a way as to be blocked from understanding physicalism but also that we are so blocked. In some form or other, however, it seems that a theory of our cognitive limitations is an essential component of pessimistic physicalism. And so it may not be so absurd after all to argue for physicalism by actually arguing for the explana- tory gap. Though, while not absurd, i t is not obviously successful either.

panpsychism is true, having energy would not suffice to make something physical. But furthermore. there is something odd about this argument since given that the mental is causal, and that causation requires the transfer of energy, the premise asserting the con- servation of energy is superfluous. To be more precise, I should be referring to not just dualism, but dualism and panpsychism since physicalism is opposed to both of these theses. This should be under- stood in what follows.

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One concern is that, while there is much disagreement among pessimistic physicalists about why we are (or at least may be) blocked from understand- ing physicalism, at least one approach seems to leave us with the same prob- lem it was intended to solve since it seems to posit concepts that are funda- mentally phenomenal. This approach involves distinguishing the kinds of concepts we employ when thinking about qualitative states, such as pain, us qualitative states and the concepts we employ when thinking about neural states, such as c-fiber stimulation (to use the standard example), as neural states. On this view, these two kinds of concepts-the former being, as Loar puts it, “couched in experiential terms,” the latter in physical terns-are merely psychologically distinct and do not pick out distinct proper tie^.^^ And it is the structure of our concept forming mechanism (rather than the structure of the things these concepts are of) that prevents us from seeing that the two concepts pick out the same thing, in other words, from seeing that pain is physical. Thus the door to physicalism, argues the pessimistic physicalist, is open: because of the nature of these concepts, the way in which the phe- nomenal is physical will be unintelligible, yet both pain and c-fiber stimula- tion could be concepts of the same thing. The explanatory gap is real, the ontological gap, illusory.

Now there are many layers to this argument, which involve, among other things, explaining just why there should be this type of conceptual distinc- tion. But let me stay at the topmost layer since it seems to me that the very positing of phenomenal concepts may be problematic. For even if we accept that there are these two distinct kinds of concepts that pick out one and the same physical property, the way in which we are acquainted with the phe- nomenal concept seems to be fundamentally phenomenal. Or at least, there seems to be just as much reason to think that phenomenal concepts do not supervene on the physical, as there originally was to think that the physically problematic properties that this strategy was supposed to make physically acceptable do not supervene on the physical.

Let us look at our dear friend, Mary. On this view, ensconced in her black and white environment Mary possesses the full physical concept of red but lacks the phenomenal concept of red. And indeed, it is thought, in this envi- ronment Mary cannot acquire the phenomenal concept of red. Rather, to acquire this new concept she must leave her black and white environment and

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34 Loar (1997), p. 599. I should note that McGinn’s (1989) approach to explaining why we cannot understand how physicalism could be true does not fit this model and that he in fact explicitly rejects this approach. For, as he puts it, he sees no reason for why we should not be able 10 “recognize intelligible connections between concepts (or proper- ties) even when those concepts (or properties) are necessarily ascribed using different faculties” (p. 15).

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experience red.35 When she does this she merely acquires a new concept for something physical. But what sort of concept is this? It seems that a dualist would be just as skeptical about how something entirely physical, such as the physical changes in her brain that occur when she leaves the room, can account for this new concept-a concept that provides Mary with knowledge of wlzat if is like to see red-as she is about how an entirely physical being can have experience at all. For if phenomenal concepts are “experiential ways of conceiving,” as Loar puts it, it seems that a physical duplicate of me would not be privy to this special class of concepts.36 Or rather, I should say that this conclusion seems just as reasonable as the antiphysicalist’s original view that a physical duplicate of me would not be a phenomenal duplicate of me, an argument which the invocation of phenomenal properties is supposed to counter. So my concern, here, is that even if this approach succeeds in showing how the state picked out by m y everyday concept of pain picks could be identical to the state picked out by the neurologist’s concept of pain, i t would seem that the property of having a phenomenal concept now fails to supervene on the physical. And if this is so, physicalism is in no better shape than before.37

Pessimistic physicalists may have a way around this objection. But even if they do and can thus show, in a physically acceptable way, that we are blocked from understanding how the mind is physical, this is only the first half of my suggested strategy. For if pessimistic dualists (that is, dualists who claim “dualism must be true, though for the life of me I don’t see how”) can show that we are blocked from understanding how there could be (non- physical) mental to physical causation, pessimistic physicalists-even if they can explain why we cannot understand physicalism in a perfectly physicalistic manner-would still have no more reason to accept physicalism than to reject it.3n

Here is an indication of how this might be done. Both physicalists and dualists agree that we do not currently have a complete picture of the causal chain that leads from mental causes to physical effects, say, from the feeling of pain to the movements of my vocal cords when I say, “ouch.” Physical- ists, however, say that given that we have found no gaps that require positing a purely mental cause, there is no reason to think that such gaps will be found in the future. The pessimistic dualists, however, could claim that what

3s Of course, she need not see something red-she could dream in red or hallucinate red, etc. But she must in some sense experience red. Loar (1999). p. 468. Levine (2001) expresses a similar concern (pp. 85-86). To be more precise, this follows given that the reason to reject dualism is the causal argument for physicalism. Since this is the reason pessimistic physicalists typically give for rejecting dualism, I take the pessimistic dualist’s strategy that I limn to be of signifi- cance.

36

37

38

THE EPISTEMIC/ONTIC DIVLDE 415

leads us to assume that the chain is actually complete is that in thinking about causation we need to think about i t from either a first person point of view or from a third person point of view and that since a third person per- spective leaves no room for a first person perspective we are led to think that the neurological is a sufficient cause of my behavior when, in fact, it is only a partial cause. Of course, our understanding of the mind and brain may pro- gress to a point where such speculations would be revealed as misguided. But, as both sides agree, we are not there yet. And if such an explanation of why we are blocked from understanding how dualism could be true is as convinc- ing as the explanation the pessimistic physicalist gives of why we are blocked form understanding how physicalism could be true, pessimistic physicalists should convert from physicalism to agnosticism.

Of course, since I have merely hinted at how a pessimistic dualist might present his view, until the details are worked out (if they could be worked out) the burden of proof would seem to lie with the pessimistic dualist. Moreover, while pessimistic physicalists typically reject dualism because of the causal argument, there are other arguments against dualism that perhaps cannot be pushed over to the epistemic side of the epistemic/ontic divide. So pessimistic physicalism, for all I have said, may still be justifiable. Never- theless, in the end I suspect that neither pessimistic physicalism nor pessi- mistic dualism will provide the ultimate solution to the mind-body problem. For I suspect that any ontologically satisfying solution to the mind-body problem will need to be epistemically satisfying as

39 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 Eastern Division APA. and I would like to thank my commentator, Joseph Levine, and the audience members for their questions and comments. I would also like to thank the two anonymous referees from PPR as well as Michael Forster, Pete Mandik, Collin McGinn, Marya Schechtman, Elizabeth Vlahos. and William Wimssatt for their comments.

416 BARBARA MONTERO

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