The Philosophical Zombie and the Phenomenal Concepts Strategy

The paper examines the argument from the conceivability of philosophical zombies proposed by David Chalmers in support of property dualism. According to property dualism, there exist phenomenal properties—subjective characteristics of experience—that cannot be reduced to physical properties. The idea of the irreducibility of phenomenal properties poses a challenge to physicalism, the dominant metaphysical position in contemporary analytic philosophy. The article assesses the plausibility of this argument in light of the Phenomenal Concept Strategy (PCS), employed by so-called Type-B physicalists to defend the claim that the gap between the physical and the phenomenal is conceptual rather than ontological. Two versions of the zombie argument are analyzed in turn: its simplest form and the strengthened two-dimensional version, which takes into account objections based on necessary a posteriori identities. The paper then examines Chalmers’s main argument against the PCS, which confronts its proponents with a dilemma: either the psychological features associated with phenomenal concepts are not physically explicable, or they are incapable of accounting for the unique epistemic status of our access to phenomenal states. The study employs methods of logical-philosophical analysis, including comparative evaluation of arguments, critical examination of thought experiments, and assessment of the logical coherence of competing conceptual frameworks. The paper’s originality lies in its detailed analysis not only of the various versions of the zombie conceivability argument, but also of Chalmers’s principal objection to the PCS. Central to the discussion is a reconstruction of the dilemma this objection poses for the physicalist, along with an analysis of Katalin Balog’s response, which shows that the dilemma rests on a conflation of different modes of description of one and the same fact. The results indicate that the epistemic gaps on which Chalmers relies can be explained within a physicalist ontology by appealing to the distinctive features of phenomenal concepts. The dialectical outcome takes the form of a stalemate: neither anti-physicalism nor physicalism possesses a priori resources sufficient to decisively refute the opposing position. Nevertheless, this result is sufficient, as it allows physicalism to be retained as an internally coherent position, even if it cannot eliminate the intuition of the conceivability of zombies.

analytical philosophy, philosophy of mind, consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, phenomenal concepts, property dualism, physicalism, philosophical zombie, qualia, reductive explanation