A Physicalist Manifesto

A Physicalist Manifesto
Author: Andrew Melnyk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2003-10-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139442279

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A Physicalist Manifesto is a full treatment of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to a carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience; that, so formulated, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; that it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and that it has the a posteriori epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. Two concluding chapters argue in detail that contemporary science provides no significant empirical evidence against physicalism and some considerable evidence for it. Written in a brisk, candid and exceptionally clear style, this 2003 book should appeal to professionals and students in philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of science.

Big and Small

Big and Small
Author: Jim Pipe
Publisher: Franklin Watts
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2001
Genre: Readers (Primary)
ISBN: 9780749648367

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A Physicalist Manifesto is the fullest and most comprehensive defense of a view of physicalism called 'realization physicalism', in which everything either is or is not realized by something physical. The book is composed of two parts: In the first part Andrew Melnyk explains what realization physicalism is and distinguishes it from other formulations of physicalism which he considers inferior. In the second part he considers objections to realization physicalism and concludes that there is no significant evidence against realization physicalism. He then considers the evidence for his type of physicalism and finds that there is much evidence for realization physicalism as a plausible hypothesis as to the nature of contingent reality. Written in a brisk and exceptionally clear style, this book should appeal to students and professionals in philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of science.

Consciousness and Physicalism

Consciousness and Physicalism
Author: Andreas Elpidorou
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317402073

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Consciousness and Physicalism: A Defense of a Research Program explores the nature of consciousness and its place in the world, offering a revisionist account of what it means to say that consciousness is nothing over and above the physical. By synthesizing work in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of science from the last twenty years and forging a dialogue with contemporary research in the empirical sciences of the mind, Andreas Elpidorou and Guy Dove advance and defend a novel formulation of physicalism. Although physicalism has been traditionally understood to be a metaphysical thesis, Elpidorou and Dove argue that there is an alternative and indeed preferable understanding of physicalism that both renders physicalism a scientifically informed explanatory project and allows us to make important progress in addressing the ontological problem of consciousness. Physicalism, Elpidorou and Dove hold, is best viewed not as a thesis (metaphysical or otherwise) but as an interdisciplinary research program that aims to compositionally explain all natural phenomena that are central to our understanding of our place in nature. Consciousness and Physicalism is replete with philosophical arguments and informed, through and through, by findings in many areas of scientific research. It advances the debate regarding the ontological status of consciousness. It will interest students and scholars in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of science. And it will challenge both foes and friends of physicalism.

Physicalism, or Something Near Enough

Physicalism, or Something Near Enough
Author: Jaegwon Kim
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2007-12-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1400840848

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Contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind have largely been shaped by physicalism, the doctrine that all phenomena are ultimately physical. Here, Jaegwon Kim presents the most comprehensive and systematic presentation yet of his influential ideas on the mind-body problem. He seeks to determine, after half a century of debate: What kind of (or "how much") physicalism can we lay claim to? He begins by laying out mental causation and consciousness as the two principal challenges to contemporary physicalism. How can minds exercise their causal powers in a physical world? Is a physicalist account of consciousness possible? The book's starting point is the "supervenience" argument (sometimes called the "exclusion" argument), which Kim reformulates in an extended defense. This argument shows that the contemporary physicalist faces a stark choice between reductionism (the idea that mental phenomena are physically reducible) and epiphenomenalism (the view that mental phenomena are causally impotent). Along the way, Kim presents a novel argument showing that Cartesian substance dualism offers no help with mental causation. Mind-body reduction, therefore, is required to save mental causation. But are minds physically reducible? Kim argues that all but one type of mental phenomena are reducible, including intentional mental phenomena, such as beliefs and desires. The apparent exceptions are the intrinsic, felt qualities of conscious experiences ("qualia"). Kim argues, however, that certain relational properties of qualia, in particular their similarities and differences, are behaviorally manifest and hence in principle reducible, and that it is these relational properties of qualia that are central to their cognitive roles. The causal efficacy of qualia, therefore, is not entirely lost. According to Kim, then, while physicalism is not the whole truth, it is the truth near enough.

Physicalism and Its Discontents

Physicalism and Its Discontents
Author: Carl Gillett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2001-11-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521801751

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A collection of essays by physicalists and their critics on the important doctrine of physicalism, first published in 2001.

A Hedonist Manifesto

A Hedonist Manifesto
Author: Michel Onfray
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2015-11-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231538367

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Michael Onfray passionately defends the potential of hedonism to resolve the dislocations and disconnections of our melancholy age. In a sweeping survey of history's engagement with and rejection of the body, he exposes the sterile conventions that prevent us from realizing a more immediate, ethical, and embodied life. He then lays the groundwork for both a radical and constructive politics of the body that adds to debates over morality, equality, sexual relations, and social engagement, demonstrating how philosophy, and not just modern scientism, can contribute to a humanistic ethics. Onfray attacks Platonic idealism and its manifestation in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic belief. He warns of the lure of attachment to the purportedly eternal, immutable truths of idealism, which detracts from the immediacy of the world and our bodily existence. Insisting that philosophy is a practice that operates in a real, material space, Onfray enlists Epicurus and Democritus to undermine idealist and theological metaphysics; Nietzsche, Bentham, and Mill to dismantle idealist ethics; and Palante and Bourdieu to collapse crypto-fascist neoliberalism. In their place, he constructs a positive, hedonistic ethics that enlarges on the work of the New Atheists to promote a joyful approach to our lives in this, our only, world.

The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism

The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism
Author: Kelly James Clark
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 548
Release: 2016-02-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1118657608

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The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism provides a systematic introduction to philosophical naturalism and its relation to other schools of thought. Features contributions from an international array of established and emerging scholars from across the humanities Explores the historical development of naturalism and its ascension to the dominant orthodoxy in the Western academy Juxtaposes theoretical criticisms with impassioned defenses, encapsulating contemporary debates on naturalism Includes discussions of metaphysics, realism, feminism, science, knowledge, truth, mathematics, free will, and ethics viewed through a naturalist lens

The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism

The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism
Author: William E Seager
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2019-12-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 131751078X

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Panpsychism is the view that consciousness – the most puzzling and strangest phenomenon in the entire universe – is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the world, though in a form very remote from human consciousness. At a very basic level, the world is awake. Panpsychism seems implausible to most, and yet it has experienced a remarkable renaissance of interest over the last quarter century. The reason is the stubbornly intractable problem of consciousness. Despite immense progress in understanding the brain and its relation to states of consciousness, we still really have no idea how consciousness emerges from physical processes which are presumed to be entirely non-conscious. The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism provides a high-level comprehensive examination and assessment of the subject – its history and contemporary development. It offers 28 chapters, appearing in print here for the first time, from the world’s leading researchers on panpsychism. The chapters are divided into four sections that integrate panpsychism’s relevance with important issues in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and even ethics: Historical Reflections Forms of Panpsychism Comparative Alternatives How Does Panpsychism Work? The volume will be useful to students and scholars as both an introduction and as cutting-edge philosophical engagement with the subject. For anyone interested in a philosophical approach to panpsychism, the Handbook will supply fascinating and enlightening reading. The topics covered are highly diverse, representing a spectrum of views on the nature of mind and world from various standpoints which take panpsychism seriously.

Consciousness and Fundamental Reality

Consciousness and Fundamental Reality
Author: Philip Goff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190677015

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The first half of this book argues that physicalism cannot account for consciousness, and hence cannot be true. The second half explores and defends Russellian monism, a radical alternative to both physicalism and dualism. The view that emerges combines panpsychism with the view that the universe as a whole is fundamental.

A Companion to Chomsky

A Companion to Chomsky
Author: Nicholas Allott
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 644
Release: 2021-04-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1119598680

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A COMPANION TO CHOMSKY Widely considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky has revolutionized modern linguistics. His thought has had a profound impact upon the philosophy of language, mind, and science, as well as the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science which his work helped to establish. Now, in this new Companion dedicated to his substantial body of work and the range of its influence, an international assembly of prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists reflect upon the interdisciplinary reach of Chomsky's intellectual contributions. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, the Companion is organized into eight sections—including the historical development of Chomsky's theories and the current state of the art, comparison with rival usage-based approaches, and the relation of his generative approach to work on linguistic processing, acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. Later chapters address Chomsky's rationalist critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, as well as his insistence upon a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science. Following a brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics to his work on political issues, the book concludes with an essay written by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work in his own words. A significant contribution to the study of Chomsky's thought, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in Noam Chomsky's intellectual legacy as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century.