Joseph Levine (born January 17, 1952) is an American philosopher at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst who received his PhD from
Harvard University in 1981.
He works on
philosophy of mind and is best known for formulating the
explanatory gap argument against a
materialist
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...
explanation for
consciousness. This has been cited as a precursor to
David Chalmers's formulation of the
hard problem of consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to d ...
and as one of the main objections materialist theories in philosophy of mind must address.
The idea of the explanatory gap is that an unbridgeable gap exists when trying to comprehend consciousness from the perspective of natural science, as a scientific explanation of mental states would require a reduction from a physical process to
phenomenal experience. The property of mental states to be experienced from a subjective point of view (
qualia) might not be reducible from the objective, i.e. outside, perspective of science. In this sense there would be a gap between the outside perspective of science and the internal perspective of phenomenal experience. Levine does not believe this gap necessitates a
metaphysical conclusion; that is, he does not believe his argument refutes materialism. But he believes it poses a unique
epistemic
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
problem:
While I think this materialist response is right in the end, it does not suffice to put the mind-body problem to rest. Even if conceivability considerations do not establish that the mind is in fact distinct from the body, or that mental properties are metaphysically irreducible to physical properties, still they do demonstrate that we lack an explanation of the mental in terms of the physical.[J. Levine, "Conceivability, Identity, and the Explanatory Gap" in Stuart R. Hameroff, Alfred W. Kaszniak and David Chalmers (eds.), ''Towards a Science of Consciousness III: The Third Tucson Discussions and Debates'', The MIT Press, 1999,. pp 3-12.]
Levine is the author of popular and academic philosophy books and articles.
Personal life
Joseph Levine is married to fellow philosopher
Louise Antony and is the father of Bay Area musician
Rachel Lark.
See also
*
Thomas Nagel
*
John Searle
John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
*
Frank Jackson
*
Colin McGinn
References
Links
Homepage of Joseph Levine University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Joseph
1952 births
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American philosophers
Analytic philosophers
American consciousness researchers and theorists
Harvard University alumni
Living people
Materialists
Metaphysicians
Philosophers of language
Philosophers of mind
University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty