Philosophy Colloquium: Barbara Gail Montero (City University of New York)
Prof. Barbara Gail Montero (City University of New York), will present: “Minimally Modal Metaphysics” on Friday, April 16, 2021, at 3:00. All are welcome to attend.
Abstract:
What matters about the mind? Much of philosophy of mind is centered on the question of whether creatures that are identical to us in all fundamental physical respects but lack consciousness—so called “zombies”—are logically possible. I argue, however, that although the question of whether zombies are possible may be intrinsically interesting, it is of little relevance to what is important about the nature of the mind. What truly matters, I argue, is the actual nature of the mind as well as what is possibly true about the mind when we hold fixed the laws that govern our world. The logical or even metaphysical possibility of zombies bears little on these issues.