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Chalmers' paradox

The Zombie Argument proposed by Chalmers, instead of working as a defense of dualism, banishes qualia to a 'world' where they cannot influence our judgments about ourselves. For this reason, according to the argument itself, we may be all zombies and not know it. This is what Chalmers called The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment. The problem is that he accepts this paradox as part of his theory. This philosophical move, however, is not acceptable, for the paradox undermines Chalmers' theory, by showing that the zombie argument is, actually, an argument against dualism. Chalmers tries to solve this problem with many arguments based on the status of consciousness as brute indubitable explanandum. However, this attempt is a failure by a series of reasons showing that, even if he were right, we could still be zombies and not know it.

David Chalmers; Daniel Dennett; Zombies; Qualia; Dualism


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