(Straw?) Bob doesn’t seem necessary to this essay. Neither does some foil in general, with a bunch of lumped together viewpoints for you to contrast against. I encourage you to throw away that particular template for post-writing (Bob, anti-reductionists, people who believe in p-zombies, etc. etc.).
I encourage you to throw away that particular template
But why? Dialogues have been a mainstay of philosophical exposition for as long as there has been philosophy. They make an argument concluding ‘P is not the case, rather Q is’ easier to follow. They don’t need to be imputing P to anyone in particular in order to function. The point is to show the relationships among ideas. (Although of course if P doesn’t seem compelling, or even coherent, to anyone, then the exercise is pointless.)
(Straw?) Bob doesn’t seem necessary to this essay. Neither does some foil in general, with a bunch of lumped together viewpoints for you to contrast against. I encourage you to throw away that particular template for post-writing (Bob, anti-reductionists, people who believe in p-zombies, etc. etc.).
But why? Dialogues have been a mainstay of philosophical exposition for as long as there has been philosophy. They make an argument concluding ‘P is not the case, rather Q is’ easier to follow. They don’t need to be imputing P to anyone in particular in order to function. The point is to show the relationships among ideas. (Although of course if P doesn’t seem compelling, or even coherent, to anyone, then the exercise is pointless.)