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V. 43, n.2: Physicalism without identity, 2020
This paper presents and discusses the most influential attempts to characterize physicalism without postulating relations of identity between the physical and the prima facie non-physical. The first section deals with a possible criticism that these attempts are misguided, since they contradict the physicalist slogan "everything there is physical." In the second section, I elucidate the different formulations of the physicalist supervenience claim, and argue that none of them consists in an adequate characterization of physicalism. Three reasons are given in favor of this conclusion: their compatibility with forms of dualism (or pluralism); the fact that the supervenience relation is left unexplained; and Kim's causal exclusion argument, which asserts that merely supervenient entities (i.e., ones that are not in identity relations with strictly physical entities) must be epiphenomenal. The third section presents the general features of another identity-independent attempt to characterize physicalism, namely realization physicalism. According to this view, tokens of prima facie non-physical types are realized by tokens of strictly physical types performing functional roles that specify the nature of the former. The third section also shows how realization physicalism deals with the objections that make physicalist supervenience claims inadequate for characterizing physicalism.
Physicalism, Supervenience and the Fundamental Level
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2009
We provide a formulation of physicalism, and show that this is to be favoured over alternative formulations. Much of the literature on physicalism assumes without argument that there is a fundamental level to reality, and we show that a consideration of the levels problem and its implications for physicalism tells in favour of the form of physicalism proposed here. Its key elements are, first, that the empirical and substantive part of physicalism amounts to a prediction that physics will not posit new entities solely for the purpose of accounting for mental phenomena, nor new entities with essentially mental characteristics such as propositional attitudes or intentions; secondly, that physicalism can safely make do with no more than a weak global formulation of supervenience.
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.
On the Relevance of Supervenience Theses to Physicalism
Acta Analytica, 2008
This paper is an investigation into the nature of physicalism as well as to the possibility of formulating physicalism as a supervenience thesis. First, I review the motivation for finding a supervenience thesis that characterizes physicalism. Second, I briefly survey the types of supervenience theses that have been proposed as necessary (or, in some cases, as necessary and sufficient) for physicalism. Third, I analyze the recent supervenience thesis proposed by Frank Jackson and expounded upon by Gene Witmer. Jackson claims the supervenience thesis is both necessary and sufficient for physicalism; Witmer has proposed a different interpretation of one of the Jackson's key notions and has suggested an amended supervenience thesis that is, if not sufficient, at least necessary for physicalism. However, I will argue that neither Jackson's nor Witmer's supervenience theses as stated are necessary for physicalism.
A Note on the Definition of Physicalism
Thought, 2015
Abstract: Physicalism is incompatible with the possibility (called the possibility of “zombies”) of a world physically like ours, but in which there are no conscious experiences. But it is compatible with the possibility (called the possibility of “ghosts”) of a world which is physically like ours, but in which there are additional nonphysical entities. In this paper we argue that a revision to the traditional definition of physicalism designed to accommodate the possibility of ghosts inadvertently accommodates the possibility (called the possibility of “inverted spectra”) of a world which is physically like ours, but in which colour experience is inverted. This consequence is unwelcome, because it’s widely agreed that the possibility of inverted spectra is incompatible with physicalism. We argue for a revised definition of physicalism which resolves this problem. We then use our definition to argue that physicalism is not compatible with the possibility (called the possibility of “blockers”) of a world which is physically like ours, but in which additional nonphysical entities have prevented the existence of conscious experience. This undermines Stephan Leuenberger’s (2008) attempt to defend physicalism from arguments which purport to establish the possibility of zombies.
Open Journal of Philosophy
Physicalism, if it is to be a significant thesis, should differentiate itself from key metaphysical contenders which endorse the existence of platonic entities, emergent properties, Cartesian souls, angels, and God. Physicalism can never be true in worlds where things of these kinds exist. David Papineau, David Spurrett, and Barbara Montero have recently developed and defended two influential conceptions of physicalism. One is derived from a conception of the physical as the non-mentally-and-non-biologically identifiable. The other is derived from a conception of the physical as the non-sui-generis-mental. The paper looks at the resources available to those conceptions, but argues that each is insufficient to yield a conception of physicalism that differentiates it from key anti-physicalist positions. According to these conceptions, if we lived in a world full of things that clearly cannot be physical, we would still live in a physical world. Thus, such conceptions of physicalism are of little theoretical interest.
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.
2001
Many contemporary philosophers claim to be ‘physicalists’; many of these philosophers take themselves to be heirs to Greek atomism and seventeenth century materialism. Many other contemporary philosophers hold that ‘physicalism’ either admits of no intelligible formulation, or else is hopelessly vulgar and undeserving of serious philosophical attention. Before we can arbitrate this apparent dispute, we need to get clearer about what ‘physicalism’ might mean. In the circumstances, it would not be surprising to learn that those who claim to be ‘physicalists’ defend a far more modest doctrine than those ‘physicalist’ views which others allege to be hopelessly vulgar and undeserving of serious philosophical attention. The plan of the discussion is as follows. In the first section of the paper, I consider some initial difficulties which arise in the formulation of a statement of what it is that ‘physicalists’ believe. These difficulties concern the range of entities which are quantified over—objects or properties?—and ways of handling mathematics, logic, and the like. In the second section of the paper, questions about the status of ‘physicalism’ are considered: should it be taken to be necessary, and/or analytic, and/or a priori; and should it be taken to be telling physicists how to conduct their investigations? This section includes some discussion of microphysicalism, and some discussion of the doctrine of Humean supervenience. The third section of the paper is devoted to consideration of issues concerning reduction and elimination: what should ‘physicalists’ say about everything which lies outside of physics, or their favoured part of physics, or the physical sciences more broadly construed? Here, I argue that the most promising form of ‘physicalism’ provides for non–analytic reduction of the non–physical to the physical. In the fourth section of the paper, a range of supervenience theses is canvassed. One aim is to show that there are no decent prospects for ‘non–reductive physicalism’. Another aim is to exhibit a new supervenience claim which, I argue, succeeds in capturing what it is that ‘physicalists’ should want to say about the relation between the physical and the non–physical. The fifth section of the paper takes up some questions about the importance of physicalism as thus characterised. I shall suggest that physicalism is a relatively anodyne doctrine, without much importance for anything other than fundamental metaphysics. In the sixth section of the paper, I turn to a brief examination of reasons for supposing that non–analytic reductive physicalism is true. Finally, I conclude with some brief remarks about the spirit in which this investigation has been conducted.