Mental Privacy and Argument Against Materialism. Seminar of the Center for Consciousness Studies

This seminar is a discussion of two of the recent provocative essays by Colin McGinn. The first one, “An Argument Against Materialism,” suggests that “If materialism were true, we should be able to know about matter by introspection; but we don’t, so it isn’t. For materialism is a theory of the nature of mind—what constitutes mental states—and so we ought to know this nature by knowing about the things that have it; but we don’t”—so materialism fails. The second essay, “Explaining Mental Privacy,” raises th