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HomeUpcoming EventsGabriel Rabin (UCLA): Supplementation, Meta-semantics, and Modal Arguments Against Physicalism
Gabriel Rabin (UCLA): Supplementation, Meta-semantics, and Modal Arguments against Physicalism

Abstract: The supplementation question asks: "How does one turn a necessitation base (a set of facts that necessitates all facts) into an a priori entailment base (a set of facts that a priori entails all facts)?"  An answer to the supplementation question turns on one's views in meta-semantics - how words acquire the meanings they do.  The zombie and knowledge arguments against physicalism require a specific answer to the supplementation question - the answer offered by strong modal rationalism.  I argue that there are reasons to doubt the meta-semantic picture that underlies strong modal rationalism.  I offer an alternative meta-semantic model and sketch its applications to the knowledge and zombie arguments (one of which is a defense of physicalism).

Date & time

  • Tue 12 Jul 2011, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Location

Coombs Seminar Room B

Event Series

Philsoc seminars