The Crazyist Metaphysics of Mind
... a new essay of mine, now in circulating draft. Comments welcome, either on this post or by email.
Abstract:
Crazyism about X is the view that something it would be crazy to believe must be among the core truths about X. In this essay, I argue that crazyism is true of the metaphysics of mind. A position is "crazy" in the intended sense if it is contrary to common sense and we are not epistemically compelled to believe it. Views that are crazy in the relevant sense include that there is no mind-independent material world, that the United States has a stream of conscious experience distinct from the experiences of the individuals composing it, that chimps or the intelligent-seeming aliens of science fiction fantasy entirely lack conscious experience, that mental events are causally inefficacious. This is by no means a complete list. Well developed metaphysical theories will inevitably violate common sense, I argue, because common sense is incoherent in matters of metaphysics. No coherent and detailed view could respect it all. With common sense thus impaired as a ground of choice, we lack the means to justifiably select among several very different metaphysical options concerning mind and body. Something bizarre must be true about the mind, but which bizarre propositions are the true ones, we are in no good position to know.