Notes on Jackson’s “Epiphenomenal Qualia”

As always, it’s important to keep the big picture in mind. What is Jackson’s thesis? Actually, Jackson argues for one thesis in sections 1 and 2, and with a related thesis in section 4. The first thesis has to do with the idea of physicalism, but what is that? Jackson describes it with a few words, but you might want to get a clearer idea by looking at the ‘Physicalism’ entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/

Reading just the first paragraph and section 3 should help.

Jackson’s title talks about qualia, and we’ll be discussing qualia quite a bit. To help get a better fix on what the heck this means, here is the first paragraph of the ‘Qualia’ entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Feelings and experiences vary widely. For example, I run my fingers over sandpaper, smell a skunk, feel a sharp pain in my finger, seem to see bright purple, become extremely angry. In each of these cases, I am the subject of a mental state with a very distinctive subjective character. There is something it is like for me to undergo each state, some phenomenology that it has. Philosophers often use the term ‘qualia’ (singular ‘quale’) to refer to the introspectively accessible, phenomenal aspects of our mental lives. In this standard, broad sense of the term, it is difficult to deny that there are qualia. Disagreement typically centers on which mental states have qualia, whether qualia are intrinsic qualities of their bearers, and how qualia relate to the physical world both inside and outside the head. The status of qualia is hotly debated in philosophy largely because it is central to a proper understanding of the nature of consciousness. Qualia are at the very heart of the mind-body problem.

Now that the basic notions are clearer, try to summarize the Knowledge Argument with just a couple sentences. Try to summarize the Modal Argument with just a couple sentences.

In section 4 Jackson finally turns to epiphenomenalism, although he doesn’t tell us what that is. Here is the first paragraph of the entry on ‘Epiphenomenalism’ from — you guessed it! — the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (isn’t it useful!):

Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events. Behavior is caused by muscles that contract upon receiving neural impulses, and neural impulses are generated by input from other neurons or from sense organs. On the epiphenomenalist view, mental events play no causal role in this process. Huxley (1874), who held the view, compared mental events to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. James (1879), who rejected the view, characterized epiphenomenalists' mental events as not affecting the brain activity that produces them "any more than a shadow reacts upon the steps of the traveller whom it accompanies".