On Fred Feldman’s Physicalistic Objections Against Saul Kripke’s Dualistic Arguments

Physicalist Philosophers of the mind in the 20^th century put forward a long list of various theories in defense of a materialistic explanation of the mind and mental events and states. Identity theories were only a part of this list. Saul Kripke, by proposing several arguments, challenged the identity theories and the physicalist philosophers of the mind. In this article, I will examine separately Kripke’s criticisms on the person-body identity and the token-token identity. I will analyze and criticize Feldman’s detailed criticism of these two versions. Then I discuss Lewis’s alternative scheme and his counterpart theory against Kripke’s argument and Feldman’s critiques. I will try to show why Feldman’s materialistic claims in criticizing Kripke’s arguments are not correct.
 
Introduction
Kripke has argued against several versions of physicalist identity theories on the mind-body issue. In the last decades of the 20^th century, many analytic philosophers have written various papers in defense of or in criticism of his arguments. Among the most famous criticisms are those of David Lewis (1971) and Fred Feldman (1974), which I will try to answer in this article.
Body
Feldman, in defense of the person-body identity and also against Kripke’s modal arguments, claims that based on a reading of materialism, ‘the property of being alive is an accidental property of the things that have it. Something can have it for a while, and then cease to have it, without thereby ceasing to exist’ (1974, p. 667). So entities (bodies) that were persons can exist even after death. Or in simpler words, bodies are alive in a contingent and accidental (and not intrinsic) way. And of course, sometimes they would not be such. In my view, the requirement of this claim would be that just as there can be two types of living and non-living bodies, there must also be two types of persons: a living person and a dead person! And it is also assumed that these two, that is, the living body and the living person, are the same, just as the dead body and the dead person are considered to be the same. My claim is that we intuitively and from a commonsensical point of view, accept that the body can be alive or dead, and in both cases, we intuitively accept that the body exists. But we consider being alive or at least having a mental state (such as any kind of consciousness) necessary and essential for being a person (personhood). So a person is alive as long as he or she is a person.
I will also try to reinforce this point by offering two counter-examples. In the first counter-example, I try to show that accepting the last bit as a criterion for a person’s survival is based on strange things or leads to non-intuitive ideas. In the second case, I explain that the last bit of a person’s body may be gone, but intuitively we can still consider him a person because his mental states still exist somehow.
I also design an ontological test to criticize Feldman’s claim. Since Feldman claims that a person is identical with his body, then as a rule he must accept that as long as there is a dead body in a special place, for example, in a room, exactly in that place a person (a dead person) also exists. A rival view (in defense of Kripke) is opposed to such restrictions; that is, we need not accept that when a person dies, in the exact same place and as long as his dead body exists, a person also exists at the very location. Based on this criterion or the ontological test, the materialist theory gives rise to many limitations as well as unwarranted consequences.
Then I explain that Feldman tries to present and criticize various formulations of Kripke’s first argument. But he does not explain in any way what the personhood of an entity, for example, Descartes, depends on. Is it solely dependent on his body and physical properties? Or just dependent on his mind and mental properties? Or a mixture of both types of properties? How long is Descartes the same person as before? How can we know that Descartes (as a person) at time B is the same person as the previous Descartes, for example, Descartes at time A? How long is Descartes the same person as before and since when does that person no longer exist? I think such questions can help us understand why Feldman’s criticisms against Kripke are not so clear and mature; he does not sufficiently explain what he means by the person, and to the necessary extent, he does not clarify why his materialistic conception is superior to Kripke’s or why Kripke’s view against the person-body identity is insufficient or unacceptable.
In defense of Kripke’s position about the token identity, it seems that some properties are involved in the individuation of pain, and therefore are intrinsic to pain. The phenomenological position of a pain is intrinsic to that pain. For example, a toothache cannot be a leg pain (the phenomenological position refers to the position where the pain is felt phenomenologically, even though there is no such physical injury in such a bodily location/position). But many relevant aspects of pain are not intrinsic to pains. For example, the physical output of a pain is not essential for it. For example, in the actual world, pains may cause persons to cry only as a contingent fact. It even seems that pain can occur a little earlier or later, or its intensity can vary a little and be the same pain. Thus all properties of pain are not essential to it. Now, why is the coexistence and co-occurrence of pain with C neural firing intrinsic to it?
Conclusion
The claim that pain is individuated by C firing is actually without any reason, and on the other hand, Kripke has a good reason to show that C neural firing is not intrinsic to pain because a separation between the two is easily conceivable. Overall, it seems that Feldman’s claims are not correct, and he has not well illustrated the options available to Kripke. Lewis has also criticized Kripke’s argument based on his own metaphysical and semantic foundations (in the counterpart theory), which are not intuitive and acceptable to many. The foundations are, per se, doubtful. Therefore, Kripke’s anti-physicalist modal arguments are still thought-provoking and interesting.