Realization and Physicalism (original) (raw)
Related papers
In Defense Of A Realization Formulation Of Physicalism (penultimate draft)
Topoi, 37.3, 483-493, 2018
In earlier work, I proposed and defended a formulation of physicalism that was distinctive in appealing to a carefully-defined relation of physical realization (Melnyk 2003). Various philosophers (Robert Francescotti, Daniel Stoljar, Carl Gillett, Susan Schneider) have since presented various challenges to this formulation. In the present paper, I aim to show that these challenges can be overcome.
2018
This paper aims at exposing a strategy to organize the debate around physicalism. Our starting point (following Stoljar 2010) is the pre-philosophical notion of physicalism, which is typically formulated in the form of slogans. Indeed, philosophers debating metaphysics have paradigmatically introduced the subject with aid of slogans such as "there is nothing over and above the physical", "once every physical aspect of the world is settled, every other aspect will follow", "physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical". These ideas are very intuitive but they are, of course, far from being a satisfactory metaphysical conception of Physicalism. For that end, we will begin with the definition of physicalism as the thesis that everything is physical, following Stoljar, we should be able to respond to one central question: how to interpret the physicalist claim that everything in physical.
The Indefinability of the Physical
Physicalism in the philosophy of mind is, most simply, the view that mental states, conscious thought and so on, are properly explained in terms of physical things and their interactions. That is, that there does not exist some immaterial, non-physical mind that is somehow an independent entity from the physical body of the person. The opposing view, dualism, is perhaps the more intuitive notion that minds are distinct non-physical entities from our bodies but are in some way crucially attached and related to them. There are then, as to be expected, many different competing views within each of these two camps, but the general dualism-physicalism distinction is seen to be pretty clear cut. However, when it comes to defining physicalism more precisely, that is, to outline precisely what things count as physical and just how they could be considered to adequately account for the not obviously physical, some troubling problems quickly emerge. The present paper will argue for a re-conception of the physicalist-dualist distinction and present physicalism as indefinable as a philosophical thesis.
Realization Relations in Metaphysics (Minds and Machines, 2015)
2015
“Realization” is a technical term that is used by metaphysicians, philosophers of mind, and philosophers of science to denote some dependence relation that is thought to obtain between higher-level properties and lower-level properties. It is said that mental properties are realized by physical properties; functional and computational properties are realized by first-order properties that occupy certain causal/functional roles; dispositional properties are realized by categorical properties; so on and so forth. Given this wide usage of the term “realization”, it would be right to think that there might be different dependence relations that this term denotes in different cases. Any relation that is aptly picked out by this term can be taken to be a realization relation. The aim of this state-of-the-field article is to introduce the central questions about the concept of realization, and provide formulations of a number of realization relations. In doing so, I identify some theoretical roles realization relations should play, and discuss some theories of realization in relation to these theoretical roles.