Alexander Carruth

Durham University

Being Physical

7 July 2017, 16:00

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Sala Mattos Romão (Departamento de Filosofia)

Abstract: In order for certain debates in the philosophy of mind to proceed in good order—especially those concerning the relationship between mind and body—there are certain desiderata that any characterisation of the notion of ‘physical’ ought to meet. Our understanding of what it is for something to be physical ought not, for instance, to render the doctrine of physicalism either obviously false or trivially true—and much has been said about these desiderata in discussions concerning Hempel’s dilemma. It is also sometimes, although not always, suggested that there ought to be an empirical component to the truth of physicalism—our notion of what it is for something to be physical should render it conceivable that empirical evidence could come to light which falsifies physicalism. In this talk it will be argued that another, less discussed, desideratum for a satisfying characterisation of the physical is that it ought to be able to distinguish physicalism not just from dualism, but from alternative, non-physicalist monisms such as idealism, phenomenalism, panpsychism and neutral monism. To set the scene, the problem that Hempel’s dilemma raises for simple science-based accounts of the physical will be outlined. Two recently popular accounts of the physical, the via negativa account and object-physicalism, however, can avoid such problems. But these two accounts, it will be shown, fail to meet the fourth desideratum—they cannot distinguish phsyicalism from other forms of monism.