Jaegwon Kim | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1934-09-12)September 12, 1934 |
| Died | November 27, 2019(2019-11-27) (aged 85) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | Seoul National University Dartmouth College Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisors | Carl Gustav Hempel |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic |
| Institutions | Brown University |
| Doctoral students | Alyssa Ney, Uriah Kriegel |
| Main interests | |
| Notable ideas | Reductive physicalism Weaksupervenience[1] |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 김재권 |
| Hanja | 金在權 |
| RR | Gim Jaegwon |
| MR | Kim Chaegwŏn |
Jaegwon Kim (September 12, 1934 – November 27, 2019)[2] was aKorean-Americanphilosopher. At the time of his death, Kim was anemeritus professor ofphilosophy atBrown University. He also taught at several other leading American universities during his lifetime, including theUniversity of Michigan,Cornell University, theUniversity of Notre Dame,Johns Hopkins University, andSwarthmore College. He is best known for his work onmental causation, themind-body problem and the metaphysics ofsupervenience andevents. Key themes in his work include: a rejection ofCartesianmetaphysics, the limitations of strictpsychophysical identity,supervenience, and theindividuation ofevents. Kim's work on these and other contemporarymetaphysical andepistemological issues is well represented by the papers collected inSupervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (1993).
Kim took two years of college inSeoul National University,South Korea as aFrench literature major, before transferring toDartmouth College in 1955. Soon after, at Dartmouth, he changed to a combined major inFrench,mathematics, andphilosophy, and received aB.A. degree. After Dartmouth, he went toPrinceton University, where he earned hisPh.D. in philosophy.[3]
Kim was the Emeritus William Herbert Perry Faunce Professor of Philosophy atBrown University (since 1987). He also taught atSwarthmore College,Cornell University, theUniversity of Notre Dame,Johns Hopkins University, and, for many years, at theUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. From 1988 to 1989, he was president of theAmerican Philosophical Association, Central Division. Since 1991, he has been a fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[4] Along withErnest Sosa, he was a joint editor of the quarterly philosophical journalNoûs.[5]
According to Kim, two of his major philosophical influences areCarl Hempel andRoderick Chisholm. Hempel, who sent him a letter encouraging him to go to Princeton, was a "formative influence".[3] More specifically, Kim claims that he hopes he learned "a certain style of philosophy, one that emphasizes clarity, responsible argument, and aversion to studied obscurities and feigned profundities."[3] From Chisholm he learned "not to fearmetaphysics." This allowed him to go beyond thelogical positivist approaches that he had learned from Hempel in his investigations in metaphysics and thephilosophy of mind.[3] Although not a logical positivist, Kim's work always respected the limitations on philosophical speculation imposed by the sciences.
Kim's philosophical work focuses on the areas ofphilosophy of mind,metaphysics,action theory,epistemology, andphilosophy of science.
Kim has defended variousmind-body theories during his career. He began defending a version of theidentity theory in the early 1970s, and then moved to anon-reductive version ofphysicalism, which relied heavily on thesupervenience relation.[6]
Kim eventually rejected strict physicalism on the grounds that it provided an insufficient basis for resolving themind-body problem. In particular, he concluded that thehard problem of consciousness—according to which a detailed and comprehensiveneurophysical description of the brain would still not account for the fact ofconsciousness—is insurmountable in the context of a thoroughgoing physicalism. His arguments against physicalism can be found in his two latest monographs:Mind in a Physical World (1998) andPhysicalism, or Something Near Enough (2005). Kim claims "that physicalism will not be able to survive intact and in its entirety."[7] This, according to Kim, is becausequalia (the phenomenal or qualitative aspect of mental states) cannot be reduced to physical states or processes. Kim claims that "phenomenal mental properties are not functionally definable and hence functionally irreducible"[8] and "if functional reduction doesn't work for qualia, nothing will."[8] Thus, there is an aspect of themind that physicalism cannot capture.
In his later years, Kim defended the thesis thatintentionalmental states (e.g.,beliefs anddesires) can be functionally reduced to their neurological realizers, but that the qualitative orphenomenal mental states (e.g., sensations) are irreducibly non-physical andepiphenomenal. He, thus defended a version ofproperty dualism, although Kim argued his position was "something near enough" physicalism.[9] As of March, 2008, Kim still saw physicalism to be the most comprehensive worldview that is irreplaceable with any other world view.[10]
In a 2008 interview with Korean daily newspaperJoongang Ilbo, Kim stated that we must seek anaturalistic explanation for mind because mind is a natural phenomenon, andsupernatural explanation only provides "one riddle over another".[10] He believed that any correct explanation for the nature of mind would come fromnatural science rather than philosophy orpsychology.[10]
Kim has raised an objection based oncausal closure andoverdetermination tonon-reductive physicalism.[12]
The non-reductive physicalist is committed to following three principles: theirreducibility of the mental to the physical, some version of mental-physicalsupervenience, and the causalefficaciousness of mental states. The problem, according to Kim, is that when these three commitments are combined with a few other well-accepted principles, an inconsistency is generated that entails the causal impotence of mental properties. The first principle, which mostontological physicalists would accept, is the causal closure of the physical domain, according to which, every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause. The second principle Kim notes is that of causal exclusion, which holds that no normal event can have more than one sufficient cause. The problem is that a behavior cannot have as its cause, both a physical event and a (supervening) mental event, without resulting in a case of overdetermination (thus violating the principle of causal exclusion). The result is that physical causes exclude mental states from causally contributing to the behavior.
In detail: he proposes (using the chart on the right) thatM1 causesM2 (these are mental events) andP1 causesP2 (these are physical events).M1 hasP1 as its supervenience base, andM2 hasP2 as its supervenience base. The only way forM1 to causeM2, is by causing its supervenience baseP2 (a case of mental-to-physical causation). IfP1 causesP2, andM1 causesP2, then we have a case of causal overdetermination. Applying the principle of causal-exclusion, eitherP1 orM1 must be eliminated as a cause ofP2. Given the principle of the causal closure of the physical domain,M1 is excluded.
The non-reductive physicalist is forced to choose between two unappealing options: one could reject the causal-exclusion principle and claim that in this scenario we are dealing with a genuine case of overdetermination, or one could embraceepiphenomenalism. Kim argues that mental causation can only be preserved by rejecting the premise of irreducibility in favor ofreduction; in order for mental properties to be considered causally efficacious, they must be reducible to physical properties.
Kim's work inmetaphysics focuses primarily on events and properties.
Kim developed anevent identity theory, but has not defended it recently. This theory holds that events are identical if and only if they occur in the same time and place and instantiate the same property. Thus if one waves ten fingers, several events occur, including the waving of an even number of fingers, the event of waving fingers that are evenly divisible by five, and evenly divisible by ten. Some have criticized his theory as producing too many events.
Kim also theorized that events are structured. He is known for a property-exemplification account of events. They are composed of three things: Object(s), a property and time or atemporal interval. Events are defined using the operation [x, P, t].[citation needed]
A unique event is defined by two principles: the existence condition and the identity condition. The existence condition states "[x, P, t] exists if and only if object x exemplifies the n-adic P at time t". This means a unique event exists if the above is met. The identity condition states "[x, P, t] is [y, Q, t`] if and only if x=y, P=Q and t=t`".[citation needed]
Kim is a critic of thenaturalized epistemology popularized byWillard Van Orman Quine in the latter half of the twentieth century. Kim's influential article "What is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?" (1988) argues that "naturalized" epistemologies like Quine's are not proper epistemologies as they are merely descriptive inscope, while one generally expects an "epistemology" to makenormative claims aboutknowledge. Kim argues that mere description of belief-forming practices cannot account for justified belief. (He also argues that to even individuate beliefs, the naturalized epistemologist must presuppose normative criteria ofjustification.) Naturalized epistemology cannot address the issue of justification, and therefore it does not share the same aspiration as the traditional approach to epistemology.
The following is apartial list of publications by Jaegwon Kim.
