Frank Cameron Jackson

Frank Cameron Jackson (* 1943 ) is an Australian philosopher .

Jackson studied mathematics and philosophy at Melbourne University and is now Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University .

His main areas of work are philosophy of mind and metaphysics .

The Mary Thought Experiment

Main article: Mary (thought experiment)

In 1982 Jackson caused a sensation with the essay "Epiphenomenal Qualia" in the philosophy of mind. In this essay he developed an argument against materialism that was supposed to show that qualia can not be material states. "Qualia" are the experiences of mental states, such as the experience of pain or color.

Jackson developed a thought experiment centered around the fictional super scientist Mary. Mary has been locked up in a lab since she was born and everything is gray. So she has never seen colors. At the same time, she is an outstanding physiologist who knows all the physical facts about seeing colors. However, when she is finally released from the lab, she learns what colors look like for the first time. Jackson's argument now goes as follows: Before Mary comes out of the lab, she knows all the physical facts about seeing colors. When she comes out of the lab, she learns new facts about seeing colors. So Mary did not know all of the facts about seeing color, even though she knew all of the physical facts about seeing color. So there are non-physical facts. So materialism is wrong.

Jackson drew the conclusion from his argument that some form of dualism must be true and advocated a variant of epiphenomenalism . However, several materialist objections have been raised against Jackson's argument. David Lewis stated that Mary would not learn any new facts. She would just acquire a new skill. Michael Tye claimed that Mary would only see known facts from a new perspective . Daniel Dennett , after all, felt that Mary would learn nothing new. If Mary really existed, nothing would surprise her when she was released. She would already know the colors.

Reduction and concept analysis

Jackson himself no longer accepts his thought experiment. Rather, he now advocates a reductive physicalism , thus declaring that in principle all facts can be traced back to physical facts. Such a position depends on the general feasibility of reductive explanations, which, according to Jackson, should be possible with the help of conceptual analysis.

For example , if you want to reduce water to H ₂ O, you have to start with an analysis of the term “water”. This shows that water is what has a number of properties - for example, it is liquid, transparent and tasteless. These properties can also be analyzed. Liquid is what we call entities that, among other things, adapt to the shape of a vessel. Once we have advanced this far with the conceptual analysis, we can explain the properties of water in terms of the chemical properties of H ₂ O. Water adapts to the shape of a vessel, for example, because the binding forces between H ₂ O molecules are very low.

According to Jackson, analogous to the water-H ₂ O example, all facts should be traced back to the physical facts. Since this reduction should be possible through conceptual analysis - that is, independent of experience - Jackson is assigned to a priori physicalism.

Works

Monographs

• Mind, Method, and Conditionals: Selected Essays , Routledge, 1998
• From Metaphysics to Ethics , Oxford University Press, 1997
• with David Braddon-Mitchell The Philosophy of Mind and Cognition , Basil Blackwell, 1996
• Conditionals , Basil Blackwell, 1987
• Perception: A Representative Theory , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977

Important essays

• "Epiphenomenal Qualia" in: Philosophical Quarterly , 32, pp. 127-136, 1982
• "What Mary didn't know", Journal of Philosophy , 83, pp. 291-295, 1986
• "Mind and Illusion", in: Minds and Persons , Anthony O'Hear (Ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 251-271, 2003

Web links

• Jackson's page at the Australian National University
• The classic essay “Epiphenomenal Qualia” ( Memento from June 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive )