Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Physicalism without supervenience.Lei Zhong - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (5):1529-1544.
    It is widely accepted that supervenience is a minimal commitment of physicalism. In this article, however, I aim to argue that physicalism should be exempted from the supervenience requirement. My arguments rely on a parallel between ontological dependence and causal dependence. Since causal dependence does not require causal determination, ontological dependence should not require ontological determination either. Moreover, my approach has a significant theoretical advantage: if physicalism is not committed to supervenience, then the metaphysical possibility of zombies—which is still wide (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Physicalism and the burden of parsimony.Giacomo Zanotti - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):11109-11132.
    Parsimony considerations are ubiquitous in the literature concerning the nature of mental states. Other things being equal, physicalist views are preferred over dualist accounts on the grounds of the fact that they do not posit new fundamental properties in addition to the physical ones. This paper calls into question the widespread assumption that parsimony can provide reasons for believing that physicalism is a better candidate than dualism for solving the mind–body problem. After presenting the theoretical core of physicalism and dualism, (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • Consciousness, Neuroscience, and Physicalism: Pessimism About Optimistic Induction.Giacomo Zanotti - 2023 - Acta Analytica 38 (2):283-297.
    Nowadays, physicalism is arguably the received view on the nature of mental states. Among the arguments that have been provided in its favour, the inductive one seems to play a pivotal role in the debate. Leveraging the past success of materialistic science, the physicalist argues that a materialistic account of consciousness will eventually be provided, hence that physicalism is true. This article aims at evaluating whether this strategy can provide support for physicalism. According to the standard objection raised against the (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • Introduction: The Character of Physicalism.Andreas Elpidorou - 2018 - Topoi 37 (3):435-455.
    The aim of this editorial introduction is twofold. First, Sects. 1–8 offer a critical introduction to the metaphysical character of physicalism. In those sections, I present and evaluate different ways in which proponents of physicalism have made explicit the metaphysical dependence that is said to hold between the non-physical and the physical. Some of these accounts are found to be problematic; others are shown to be somewhat more promising. In the end, some important lessons are drawn and different options for (...)
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Keeping it Real: Research Program Physicalism and the Free Energy Principle.Andreas Elpidorou & Guy Dove - 2023 - Topoi 42 (3):733-744.
    The Free Energy Principle (FEP) states that all biological self-organizing systems must minimize variational free energy. The acceptance of this principle has given rise to a popular and far-reaching theoretical and empirical approach to the study of the brain and living organisms. Despite the popularity of the FEP approach, little discussion has ensued about its ontological status and implications. By understanding physicalism as an interdisciplinary research program that aims to offer compositional explanations of mental phenomena, this paper articulates what it (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • Fundamental mentality in a physical world.Christopher Devlin Brown - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):2841-2860.
    Regardless of whatever else physicalism requires, nearly all philosophers agree that physicalism cannot be true in a world which contains fundamental mentality. I challenge this widely held attitude, and describe a world which is plausibly all-physical, yet which may contain fundamental mentality. This is a world in which priority monism is true—which is the view that the whole of the cosmos is fundamental, with dependence relations directed from the whole to the parts—and which contains only a single mental system, like (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Physicalism, supervenience, and monism.Torin Alter & Robert J. Howell - 2022 - Synthese 200 (6):1-19.
    Physicalism is standardly construed as a form of monism, on which all concrete phenomena fall under one fundamental type. It is natural to think that monism, and therefore physicalism, is committed to a supervenience claim. Monism is true only if all phenomena supervene on a certain fundamental type of phenomena. Physicalism, as a form of monism, specifies that these fundamental phenomena are physical. But some argue that physicalism might be true even if the world is disorderly, i.e., not ordered by (...)
    No categories
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
    		•
  • A defense of the supervenience requirement on physicalism.Torin Alter - 2021 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 10 (4):264-274.
    The supervenience requirement on physicalism says roughly that if physicalism is true then mental properties supervene on fundamental physical properties. After explaining the basis of the requirement, I defend it against objections presented by Lei Zhong (“Physicalism without supervenience,” Philosophical Studies 178 (5), 2021: 1529–44), Barbara Gail Montero (“Must physicalism imply supervenience of the mental on the physical?” Journal of Philosophy 110, 2013: 93–110), and Montero and Christopher Devlin Brown (“Making room for a this-worldly physicalism,” Topoi 37 (3), 2018: 523–32).
    Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Physicalism.Amanda Bryant - 2020 - In Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. New York: Routledge. pp. 484-500.
    This chapter considers potential applications of grounding to the formulation of physicalism. I begin with an overview of competing conceptions of the physical and of physicalism. I then consider whether grounding physicalism overcomes well-known and seemingly fatal problems with supervenience physicalism. I conclude that while grounding physicalism improves upon supervenience physicalism in certain respects, it arguably falls victim to some of the same difficulties.
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Causal after all : a model of mental causation for dualists.Bram Vaassen - 2019 - Dissertation, Umeå University
    In this dissertation, I develop and defend a model of causation that allows for dualist mental causation in worlds where the physical domain is physically complete. In Part I, I present the dualist ontology that will be assumed throughout the thesis and identify two challenges for models of mental causation within such an ontology: the exclusion worry and the common cause worry. I also argue that a proper response to these challenges requires a thoroughly lightweight account of causation, i.e. an (...)
    Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations