engleski

Is Explanatory Gap to be Expected?

Today we know a neurological basis of many mental states and procesees, however, we do not know why we experience these neurological states exactly the way that we experience them rather than some other way. We know what is like to have increased level of adrenaline (C9H13NO3), that is the feeling of facing danger, excitemen and agression. However, we do not know why C9H13NO3 causes (or rather is) that feeling rather than some other. Some philosophers think that this gap will never be bridged and that therefore any reductionistic program in the philosophy of mind necessarily fails. However, these philosophers simply want to much. Explanatory gap between physical and mental is something to be expected. It is a consequence of the informativity of physicalistic explanations of the mental ; without the gap explanations would not be informative. We can explain mental states in terms of other mental states or we can explain them in terms of neurological terms. The taste of ginger is somewhere between the taste of lemon and the taste of horse-radish ; melissa (sweet balm, lemon balm) tastes like a mixture of lemon and nettle ; etc. On the other hand, we can explain taste by appel to molecular structure ; melissa tastes like it tastes because it contains essential oil of molecular structure ______ and because taste receptors at our tongues react ______ and send neurological impulses ______ . Autor argues that, in spite of the antireductionistic objections, explanations of the second kind are perfectly sound explanations which can not and need not "explain" why we experience certain neurological states the way we do rather than some other way. The argument can be put forward in the following way: P1: The nature of mental states may be explained either by appeal to mental states or by appeal to non-mental states. P2: If the nature of mental states is explained by appeal to other mental states, the explanatory gap is closed but the explanation is circular because mental is explained by appeal to mental. P3: If the nature of mental states is explained by appeal to non-mental states, the explanatory gap remains unbridged because explanation is incomplete. K: Hence, the explanation of the nature of mental states is either circular or incomplete. K': Hence, it is better to accept incomplete explanation than the circular one because the incomplete one is informative, while the circular one is not.

Mind; Brain; Explanatory Gap; Physicalism; Reductionism

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