Implausibility Of Gennaro

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Implausibility of Gennaro’s 1st Objection to the argument of Dualism

Gennaro makes a few major mistakes in an argument set forth in his book. This argument is supposed to somehow show an objection that dualism cannot exist according to Rene Descates’ argument for Dualism based on introspection. Gennaro sets before us an objection that the use of “mental terms” such as “believes”, “knows”, etc. can violate Lievin’s Law. While it may still be plausible to somehow violate Lieviz’s Law using these terms, it will have to be through a means other than the argument set forth in his book. I do not attempt to argue the concept to be completely false here, but rather to refute this particular argument.

To simplify Gennaro’s argument, it procedes as such:

1. Jane knows no chemistry.
2. Jane knows what water is.
3. There is a pool of water in front of Jane.
4. Jane knows her pool is filled with water.
5. Therefore, water has a property which H2O does not.
6. Therefore, Water is not H2O.

This argument seems rather straight forward proof of the invalidity of knowledge statements as a violation of Leiviz’s Law. However, there are a few problems with this proof.

First and foremost, materialists often argue on the basis of scientific fact. Let us regard scientific fact in this particular instance. Scientifically, pure water is H2O. There is no scientific discrimination between the two substances. Water is simply the common name for H2O. Simply because an individual does not possess knowledge of the scientific name for a substance is not automatically grounds for a violation of Lieviz’s Law. This violates the first premise. The argument is based on the lack of Jane’s knowledge about the chemical (scientific) makeup of water. However, there is nothing to prevent Jane from eventually gaining this knowledge. This argument would have one believe that at the current time, x, water does not equal H2...