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Ideas of Jaegwon Kim, by Text

[American, b.1934, Born in Korea. Professor at Cornell University, then at Brown University.]

1971 Causes and Events: Mackie on causation
p.79 For Kim, events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times [Psillos]
1973 Causes and Counterfactuals
p.100 Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Psillos]
5.2 p.408 Many counterfactuals have nothing to do with causation [Tooley]
p.205 p.205 Causation is not the only dependency relation expressed by counterfactuals
p.205 p.205 Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation
p.207 p.207 Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories
1976 Events as property exemplifications
p.7 How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Schaffer,J]
p.365 Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Simons]
p.365 Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Simons]
p.365 If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons]
p.366 Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons]
p.375 Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons]
1982 Psychophysical supervenience
9th pg p.113 Extrinsic properties, unlike intrinsics, imply the existence of a separate object [Lewis]
1984 Concepts of supervenience
§5 p.72 Supervenient properties must have matching base properties
1984 Epiphenomenal and supervenient causation
§2 p.95 All observable causes are merely epiphenomena
1988 What is 'naturalized epistemology'?
p.304 p.304 It seems impossible to logically deduce physical knowledge from indubitable sense data
1989 Mechanism, purpose and explan. exclusion
3 p.250 Explanatory exclusion: there cannot be two separate complete explanations of a single event
1993 Postscripts on supervenience
2 p.167 Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence
2 p.167 Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation
1996 Philosophy of Mind
p. 4 p.4 Cartesian dualism fails because it can't explain mental causation
p. 7 p.7 Are pains pure qualia, or do they motivate?
p. 10 p.10 Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible
p. 18 p.18 We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing
p. 21 p.21 Pain has no reference or content
p. 21 p.21 Intentionality involves both reference and content
p. 22 p.22 Both thought and language have intentionality
p. 23 p.23 Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect?
p. 29 p.29 Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural
p. 32 p.32 What behaviour goes with mathematical beliefs?
p. 35 p.35 Behaviour depends on lots of mental states together
p. 36 p.36 Behaviour is determined by society as well as mental states
p. 37 p.37 Snakes have different pain behaviour from us
p. 61 p.61 Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties
p. 64 p.64 If an orange image is a brain state, are some parts of the brain orange?
p. 66 p.66 We can't assess evidence about mind without acknowledging phenomenal properties
p. 67 p.67 Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation
p. 76 p.76 Neurons seem to be very similar and interchangeable
p. 78 p.78 Are dispositions real, or just a type of explanation?
p. 97 p.97 A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test
p. 97 p.97 The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements
p.100 p.100 The person couldn't run Searle's Chinese Room without understanding Chinese
p.110 p.110 Folk psychology has been remarkably durable
p.110 p.110 A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling
p.112 p.112 Machine functionalism requires a Turing machine, causal-theoretical version doesn't
p.114 p.114 Inverted qualia and zombies suggest experience isn't just functional
p.115 p.115 Crosswiring would show that pain and its function are separate [PG]
p.115 p.115 Are inverted or absent qualia coherent ideas?
p.118 p.118 How do functional states give rise to mental causation?
p.118 p.118 Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers
p.123 p.123 Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory
p.128 p.128 Beliefs cause other beliefs
p.128 p.128 Experiment requires mental causation
p.130 p.130 If epiphenomenalism were true, we couldn't report consciousness
p.133 p.133 A common view is that causal connections must be instances of a law
p.135 p.135 If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction
p.135 p.135 We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs
p.141 p.141 Counterfactuals are either based on laws, or on nearby possible worlds [PG]
p.143 p.143 Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause
p.146 p.146 Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds
p.147 p.147 Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete
p.158 p.158 Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism
p.159 p.159 How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another?
p.159 p.159 How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment?
p.171 p.171 What could demonstrate that zombies and inversion are impossible?
p.171 p.171 Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience
p.192 p.192 Content may match several things in the environment
p.193 p.193 Content depends on other content as well as the facts
p.197 p.197 'Arthritis in my thigh' requires a social context for its content to be meaningful
p.198 p.198 Pain, our own existence, and negative existentials, are not external
p.203 p.203 Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour
p.203 p.203 Content is best thought of as truth conditions
p.207 p.207 Externalism about content makes introspection depend on external evidence
p.212 p.212 Most modern physicalists are non-reductive property dualists
p.215 p.215 If one theory is reduced to another, we make fewer independent assumptions about the world
p.216 p.216 Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical
p.217 p.217 Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles
p.219 p.219 Resemblance or similarity is the core of our concept of a property
p.223 p.223 Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty)
p.228 p.228 Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property?
p.229 p.229 Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things
p.229 p.229 The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain
p.230 p.230 Should properties be individuated by their causal powers?
p.232 p.232 'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan
p.232 p.232 Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level
p.236 p.236 Reductionism gets stuck with qualia
p.237 p.237 Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling
1998 Mind in a Physical World
p.160 Protagoras says arguments on both sides are always equal [Seneca]
§1 p.002 p.2 Identity theory was overthrown by multiple realisations and causal anomalies
§1 p.008 p.8 Non-Reductive Physicalism relies on supervenience
§1 p.011 p.11 Supervenience is linked to dependence
§1 p.012 p.12 Maybe strong supervenience implies reduction
§1 p.013 p.13 Emergentism says there is no explanation for a supervenient property
§1 p.017 p.17 Maybe intentionality is reducible, but qualia aren't
§1 p.018 p.18 Mereological supervenience says wholes are fixed by parts
§1 p.025 p.25 Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency [PG]
§2 p.031 p.31 Agency, knowledge, reason, memory, psychology all need mental causes [PG]
§3 p.066 p.66 Metaphysics is the clarification of the ontological relationships between different areas of thought
§3 p.085 p.85 Properties can have causal powers lacked by their constituents
§4 p.095 p.95 Multiple realisation applies to other species, and even one individual over time
§4 p.101 p.101 Emotions have both intentionality and qualia
§4 p.101 p.101 It seems impossible that an exact physical copy of this world could lack intentionality
§4 p.101 p.101 Intentionality as function seems possible
§4 p.102 p.102 Knowledge and inversion make functionalism about qualia doubtful
§4 p.103 p.102 The only mental property that might be emergent is that of qualia
§4 p.119 p.119 Causal power is a good way of distinguishing the real from the unreal
B01 p.84 Not every person is the measure of all things, but only wise people [Plato]
B01 p.215 Why didn't Protagoras begin by saying "a tadpole is the measure of all things"? [Plato]
B06a p.126 There are two contradictory arguments about everything