Joseph Levine (born January 17, 1952) is an American philosopher at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

who received his PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1981. He works on

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are ad ...

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 Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

. This has been cited as a precursor to

David Chalmers David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York Univer ...

'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 ...

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 In philosophy of mind, qualia ( or ; singular form: quale) are defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () ...

) 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 Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consci ...

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 Outline of philosophy, branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, an ...

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.

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

Personal life

See also

References

Links