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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 4779 For Kim, events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times [Psillos]
1973 Causes and Counterfactuals
p.100 4781 Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Psillos]
5.2 p.408 8396 Many counterfactuals have nothing to do with causation [Tooley]
p.205 p.205 8429 Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation
p.205 p.205 8428 Causation is not the only dependency relation expressed by counterfactuals
p.207 p.207 8430 Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories
1976 Events as property exemplifications
p.7 10369 How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Schaffer,J]
p.365 8974 Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Simons]
p.365 8976 If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons]
p.365 8975 Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Simons]
p.366 8977 Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons]
p.375 8980 Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons]
1982 Psychophysical supervenience
9th pg p.113 15456 Extrinsic properties, unlike intrinsics, imply the existence of a separate object [Lewis]
1984 Concepts of supervenience
§5 p.72 3536 Supervenient properties must have matching base properties
1984 Epiphenomenal and supervenient causation
§2 p.95 3535 All observable causes are merely epiphenomena
1988 What is 'naturalized epistemology'?
p.304 p.304 8825 It seems impossible to logically deduce physical knowledge from indubitable sense data
1989 Mechanism, purpose and explan. exclusion
3 p.250 14470 Explanatory exclusion: there cannot be two separate complete explanations of a single event
1993 Postscripts on supervenience
2 p.167 13746 Supervenience is just a 'surface' relation of pattern covariation, which still needs deeper explanation
2 p.167 13745 Supervenience is not a dependence relation, on the lines of causal, mereological or semantic dependence
1996 Philosophy of Mind
p. 4 p.4 3359 Cartesian dualism fails because it can't explain mental causation
p. 7 p.7 3360 Are pains pure qualia, or do they motivate?
p. 10 p.10 3362 Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible
p. 18 p.18 3363 We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing
p. 21 p.21 3366 Pain has no reference or content
p. 21 p.21 3365 Intentionality involves both reference and content
p. 22 p.22 3367 Both thought and language have intentionality
p. 23 p.23 3368 Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect?
p. 29 p.29 3369 Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural
p. 32 p.32 3370 What behaviour goes with mathematical beliefs?
p. 35 p.35 3371 Behaviour depends on lots of mental states together
p. 36 p.36 3372 Behaviour is determined by society as well as mental states
p. 37 p.37 3373 Snakes have different pain behaviour from us
p. 61 p.61 3374 Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties
p. 64 p.64 3375 If an orange image is a brain state, are some parts of the brain orange?
p. 66 p.66 3376 We can't assess evidence about mind without acknowledging phenomenal properties
p. 67 p.67 3377 Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation
p. 76 p.76 3379 Neurons seem to be very similar and interchangeable
p. 78 p.78 3380 Are dispositions real, or just a type of explanation?
p. 97 p.97 3382 A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test
p. 97 p.97 3383 The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements
p.100 p.100 3384 The person couldn't run Searle's Chinese Room without understanding Chinese
p.110 p.110 3387 A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling
p.110 p.110 3386 Folk psychology has been remarkably durable
p.112 p.112 3388 Machine functionalism requires a Turing machine, causal-theoretical version doesn't
p.114 p.114 3389 Inverted qualia and zombies suggest experience isn't just functional
p.115 p.115 3391 Crosswiring would show that pain and its function are separate [PG]
p.115 p.115 3390 Are inverted or absent qualia coherent ideas?
p.118 p.118 3393 How do functional states give rise to mental causation?
p.118 p.118 3392 Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers
p.123 p.123 3394 Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory
p.128 p.128 3396 Experiment requires mental causation
p.128 p.128 3397 Beliefs cause other beliefs
p.130 p.130 3399 If epiphenomenalism were true, we couldn't report consciousness
p.133 p.133 3401 A common view is that causal connections must be instances of a law
p.135 p.135 3403 We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs
p.135 p.135 3402 If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction
p.141 p.141 3406 Counterfactuals are either based on laws, or on nearby possible worlds [PG]
p.143 p.143 3407 Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause
p.146 p.146 3408 Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds
p.147 p.147 3409 Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete
p.158 p.158 3410 Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism
p.159 p.159 3412 How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment?
p.159 p.159 3411 How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another?
p.171 p.171 3413 Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience
p.171 p.171 3414 What could demonstrate that zombies and inversion are impossible?
p.192 p.192 3416 Content may match several things in the environment
p.193 p.193 3417 Content depends on other content as well as the facts
p.197 p.197 3418 'Arthritis in my thigh' requires a social context for its content to be meaningful
p.198 p.198 3419 Pain, our own existence, and negative existentials, are not external
p.203 p.203 3420 Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour
p.203 p.203 3421 Content is best thought of as truth conditions
p.207 p.207 3422 Externalism about content makes introspection depend on external evidence
p.212 p.212 3424 Most modern physicalists are non-reductive property dualists
p.215 p.215 3426 If one theory is reduced to another, we make fewer independent assumptions about the world
p.216 p.216 3427 Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical
p.217 p.217 3428 Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles
p.219 p.219 3430 Resemblance or similarity is the core of our concept of a property
p.223 p.223 3431 Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty)
p.228 p.228 3432 Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property?
p.229 p.229 3434 Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things
p.229 p.229 3433 The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain
p.230 p.230 3436 Should properties be individuated by their causal powers?
p.232 p.232 3437 'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan
p.232 p.232 3438 Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level
p.236 p.236 3439 Reductionism gets stuck with qualia
p.237 p.237 3440 Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling
1998 Mind in a Physical World
p.160 13314 Protagoras says arguments on both sides are always equal [Seneca]
§1 p.002 p.2 2308 Identity theory was overthrown by multiple realisations and causal anomalies
§1 p.008 p.8 2309 Non-Reductive Physicalism relies on supervenience
§1 p.011 p.11 2310 Supervenience is linked to dependence
§1 p.012 p.12 2311 Maybe strong supervenience implies reduction
§1 p.013 p.13 2313 Emergentism says there is no explanation for a supervenient property
§1 p.017 p.17 2314 Maybe intentionality is reducible, but qualia aren't
§1 p.018 p.18 2315 Mereological supervenience says wholes are fixed by parts
§1 p.025 p.25 2317 Reductionism is good on light, genes, temperature and transparency [PG]
§2 p.031 p.31 2318 Agency, knowledge, reason, memory, psychology all need mental causes [PG]
§3 p.066 p.66 2319 Metaphysics is the clarification of the ontological relationships between different areas of thought
§3 p.085 p.85 2320 Properties can have causal powers lacked by their constituents
§4 p.095 p.95 2322 Multiple realisation applies to other species, and even one individual over time
§4 p.101 p.101 2323 Emotions have both intentionality and qualia
§4 p.101 p.101 2325 It seems impossible that an exact physical copy of this world could lack intentionality
§4 p.101 p.101 2324 Intentionality as function seems possible
§4 p.102 p.102 2327 Knowledge and inversion make functionalism about qualia doubtful
§4 p.103 p.102 2328 The only mental property that might be emergent is that of qualia
§4 p.119 p.119 2329 Causal power is a good way of distinguishing the real from the unreal
B01 p.84 2065 Not every person is the measure of all things, but only wise people [Plato]
B01 p.211 1547 Man is the measure of all things - of things that are, and of things that are not
B01 p.215 1550 Why didn't Protagoras begin by saying "a tadpole is the measure of all things"? [Plato]
B06a p.126 530 There are two contradictory arguments about everything