Summary: | In this paper, we make a case for the disjunctive view of phenomenal consciousness:
consciousness is essentially disjunctive in being either physical or non-physical in the
sense that it has both physical and non-physical possible instances. We motivate this
view by showing that it undermines two well-known conceivability arguments in
philosophy of mind: the zombie argument for anti-physicalism, and the anti-zombie
argument for physicalism. By appealing to the disjunctive view, we argue that two
hitherto unquestioned premises of these arguments are false. Furthermore, making
use of the resources of this view, we formulate distinct forms of both physicalism and
anti-physicalism. On these formulations, it is easy to see how physicalists and antiphysicalists can accommodate the modal intuitions of their opponents regarding
zombies and anti-zombies. We conclude that these formulations of phy
|