Some Thoughts on Chalmers's Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism

In “The Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism,” David Chalmers argues that metaphysical zombies, beings who act in every way as if they are conscious but have no phenomenal experiences, are possible and uses this to argue that materialism is false. Chalmers begins by arguing that a world which has “all” the same “microphysical truths about the universe” and yet no phenomenal experiences is conceivable in a way which provides evidence for its possibility (1). He makes a distinction between something which is “prima facie conceivable,” which is when something is conceivable given an initial a priori conceptual inspection, and something which is “ ideally conceivable,” which is something which is conceivable after a priori inspection and “ideal rational reflection,” which is rational reflection abstracted from contingent states of the mind (2). Chalmers then engages with some objections to the conceivability-possibility link, such as the Goldbach conjecture, and shows that these examples do not sever the conceivability-possibility link because they are not ideally conceivable. Moving to more advanced objections, such as the Twin Earth situation, he explores the distinction between “primary” and “secondary conceivability” (4). Chalmers states that the critical difference between the two is that primarily conceivable notions are safely “in the a priori domain,” while secondarily conceivable notions are not (4). Chalmers argues that there is no link between secondary conceivability and possibility as a result of this fact. However, he notes this need not rule out the connection between primary conceivability and metaphysical possibility since secondary conceivability is a different type of conceivability from primary conceivability. It seems that Chalmers is saying that in cases where a certain scenario is conceptually clear and that scenario is the direct object of our intentional thinking, we have prima facie reason to think it is possible. The zombie world, according to Chalmers, is an example of this and so we have prima facie reason to think it is possible. He then uses this possibility to rule out materialism since, if materialism were true, it would not be possible to separate physical and phenomenal facts, and yet it is indeed possible, according to Chalmers. So, materialism must be false. 


Chalmers’ argument is interesting, but I think that its success is dependent on our accounts of modality. It seems to me that on an Aristotelian account of modality, where possibility reduces to what is actual and the causal powers of those actual things, makes it difficult to determine what is metaphysically possible from conceivability alone. There will likely still be a connection between conceivability and possibility if this view is true, but it seems that something which is prima facie possible from our conception of it could be shown to be impossible given further knowledge about our world. Chalmers acknowledged something similar to this towards the very end of the paper when he briefly discussed analytic functionalism. A second question is that it is not clear how likely the possibility of a thing is given that its conceivability satisfies Chalmers’s criteria. Chalmers’ does not seem to assign a particular value to it, which seems to undermine his move from conceivability to possibility.

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