Philosophy Stack Exchange
Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [physicalism]

151 questions
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What is the difference between naturalism and materialism?

What is the difference between naturalism and materialism, if any? I see definitions of naturalism that say, in effect, it is the belief that there is no supernatural. But what is the supernatural other than that which is not natural, which seems…
David Lewis
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Is knowledge non-physical?

What is the fundamental nature/ontology of knowledge? Is knowledge a physical state? Is knowledge a specific arrangement of physical particles in a brain, a book, a solid-state drive, a GPU, etc.? Or is knowledge fundamentally non-physical, existing…
user66156
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9 answers

Is there a causal influence of the mental on the physical?

Regardless of whether the mental is ultimately physical or not... doesn't the impact of human knowledge (science, mathematics, etc) on the world (ie: technology, agriculture, basically everything), give us proof that the mental affects the…
Ameet Sharma
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Could somebody clarify why people believe qualia are incompatible with physical models of the mind?

I see claims that qualia are evidence against physicalism, and I've never understood why. If the brain is capable of thought at all -- which is a premise of physicalism -- I see no reason why subjective experience would be any harder to encode and…
keshlam
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If zombies are possible would that imply that physicalism is false?

The SEP article on Zombies writes: Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchraft, they are exactly like us in all …
stoicfury
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Is consciousness causally superfluous?

I cannot for the life of me even conceptualize the idea of conscious decisions causing an actual, physical effect (unless one becomes an idealist). Consciousness will always be a first person experience. Physical effects, assuming that physical…
user74135
11
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11 answers

Is non-physicalism reasonable?

My question has two components: Reasonableness. What does it mean for a position to be reasonable? What conditions does a position have to meet to be regarded as reasonable? Physicalism. Wikipedia defines it as follows: In philosophy, physicalism…
user66156
11
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17 answers

What is lost upon death?

If something at the moment of death contains the same matter as that something when alive, what is lost? How does physicalism (physical monism) explain what that loss is?
user22555
10
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2 answers

What is the difference between Naturalism and Physicalism?

I am trying to figure the difference between Naturalism and Physicalism. As far as I could tell, they were the same thing, except that physicalism (physicalist vs dualist) was the term used when discussing philosophy of mind and naturalism was the…
Alexander S King
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Why does Chalmers' argument about "the hard problem" not entail idealism?

Chalmers famously argues in Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness: At the end of the day, the same criticism applies to any purely physical account of consciousness. For any physical process we specify there will be an unanswered question: Why…
David Lewis
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Should the evidence of OBEs and NDEs increase our epistemic probability of non-physicalist views of consciousness?

Should reports of out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs) increase our epistemic probability of non-physicalist views of consciousness? In other words, should we judge non-physicalist views of consciousness to be more…
user66156
10
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14 answers

How do we know that the mind is not a physical entity?

Most people believe that the mind is separate from the physical world. But how do we actually know that? Maybe the mind is a physical object. Of course, to answer this question, we need a rigorous definition of "physical". Anyway, has any…
user107952
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Serious challenges to materialism or physicalism?

I'm a materialist and a physicalist myself, in general and about consciousness in particular. I find both very, very depressing, but frankly uncontestable. I am, however, wondering whether there are any serious challenges to materialism and…
MaryMagdalene
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Is physicalism ultimately essentialist?

Classical Greek atomism arose basically as a response to the Eleatic criticism of the concept of change. The Eleatic argument was basically that if X=Y, then all properties of X must also be properties of Y, but if X is a thing at one time and Y is…
David Gudeman
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Physicalism + book recommendations

I'm 17 years old and I'm starting out in philosophy on my own. To get started I would like to get to know myself more and the way I think since according to what I have researched, I could define myself as someone who is a physicalist and at the…
WiseMode
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