Frank Cameron Jackson
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Frank Cameron Jackson (born 1943) is Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University. Though he subsequently came to give up the view (see Ludlow, Nagasawa and Stoljar (eds) in Further Reading), Jackson is best known for his argument against physicalism, the thesis that everything supervenes on the kinds of entities postulated in physics. The view that Jackson urged instead is a more modest version of variant of Thomas Huxley's epiphenomenalism. On this view, some mental states are non-physical and, although caused to come into existence by physical events, they do not then cause any changes in the physical world. Jackson's argument for this view was based on a much-discussed thought-experiment he invented. (Mary, raised from birth in a completely black and white room, learns all there is to know about the physical nature of the world. When she leaves her black and white room for the first time, does she learn something new upon seeing a red rose? Jackson's answer was a resounding "No.") This thought-experiment was dramatised in the three-part BBC documentary "Brainspotting." It also forms the central motif of author David Lodge's novel "Thinks…" Jackson makes an appearance in Lodge's novel too as, of course, himself.
Jackson, whose father Allan Cameron Jackson was also a philosopher and student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, was awarded the Order of Australia in 2006 for service to philosophy and social sciences as an academic, administrator, and researcher. Jackson delivered the John Locke lectures in 1995. His father had delivered them many years earlier, making them the first father-son pair to do so.
Further reading
J. Franklin, Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia (Macleay Press, 2003), ch. 9P.Ludlow, Y.Nagasawa, and D.Stoljar (eds), "There's Something About Mary" (MIT Press, 2004).
External links
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