Saturday, March 22, 2014

[PHI 1000] On Bats and Americans

In "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?," Thomas Nagel says the following:




The argument here seems to go roughly like this:
  1. Facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism are subjective.
  2. Facts about the neuro-physiology of the experiencing organism are objective.
  3. Therefore, facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism are not facts about the neuro-physiology of that organism.
Is this a valid argument? Nagel's argument seems to take the following form:
X has property F.
Y has property G.
X is not Y.
Now consider the following substitution instance:
  1. Americans are most likely to say that global warming is exaggerated.
  2. Americans are more worried about the economy than climate change.
  3. Therefore, Americans are not Americans.
Of course, it would be question-begging to say that the difference between Nagel's argument and this one is that Americans are Americans, whereas facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism are not facts about the neuro-physiology of that organism, for that is precisely what Nagel's argument purports to prove.

So, if the argument about Americans is invalid, does that mean that Nagel’s argument is invalid as well?

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