The Conceptual Link from Physical to Mental

How are truths about physical and mental states related? Robert Kirk articulates and defends 'redescriptive physicalism'--a fresh approach to the connection between the physical and the mental, which answers the problems that mental causation has traditionally raised for other non-reductive views.

How are truths about physical and mental states related? Physicalism entails that non-physical truths are redescriptions of a world specifiable in narrowly physical terms. In The Conceptual Link from Physical to Mental Robert Kirk argues that physicalists must therefore hold that the physical truth ''logico-conceptually'' entails the mental truth: it is impossible for broadly logical and conceptual reasons that the former should have held without the latter. ''Redescriptive physicalism'' is a fresh approach to the physical-to-mental connection that he bases on these ideas. Contrary to what might have been expected, this connection does not depend on analytic truths: there are holistic but non-analytic conceptual links, explicable by means of functionalism--which, he argues, physicalism entails. Redescriptive physicalism should not be confused with ''a priori physicalism'': although physicalists must maintain that phenomenal truths are logico-conceptually entailed by physical truths, they must deny that they are also entailed a priori. Kripke-inspired ''a posteriori physicalism'', on the other hand, is too weak for physicalism, and the psycho-physical identity thesis is not sufficient for it. Though non-reductive, redescriptive physicalism is an excellent basis for dealing with the problems that mental causation raises for other non-reductive views. ''Cartesian intuitions'' of zombies and transposed qualia may seem to raise irresistible objections; Kirk shows that the intuitions are false. As to the ''explanatory gap'', there is certainly an epistemic gap, but it has a physicalistically acceptable explanation which deals effectively with the problem of how the physical and functional facts fix particular phenomenal facts.