philosophy papers presumably obey thermodynamics, so it should be possible to speak of the physical processes that produce different sentences in philosophy papers, and why we should think of those processes as more or less truth-tracking.
Actual epiphenomenalism would mean that you can’t have any causal influence on philosophy papers; so I assume we’re not going for anything that crazy.
I don’t know why you keep bringing that up. Epiphenomenalists believe they are making true statements, and they believe their statements aren’t caused by consciousness , so they have to believe that their statements are caused physically by a mechanism that is truth seeking. And they have to believe that the truth of their statements about consciousness is brought about by some kind of parallelism with consciousness. Which is weird.
But you don’t refute them by telling them “there is s physical explanation for you writing that paper”. They already know that.
I don’t know why you keep bringing that up. Epiphenomenalists believe they are making true statements, and they believe their statements aren’t caused by consciousness , so they have to believe that their statements are caused physically by a mechanism that is truth seeking. And they have to believe that the truth of their statements about consciousness is brought about by some kind of parallelism with consciousness. Which is weird.
But you don’t refute them by telling them “there is s physical explanation for you writing that paper”. They already know that.