Philosophy 290-4

In the philosophy of mind, physicalism is, roughly, the view that mentality is a physical phenomenon. My interest is in physicalism as a general thesis: the view, roughly, that all of reality is fundamentally physical. This thesis entails that everything must either be explained in physical terms or else eliminated. We will consider some arguments for and against physicalism: based on a priori entailment, based on causal exclusion, and based on multiple realizability. We will also consider what the best version of physicalism is: should it be understood in terms of grounding, identification, or in some other way? Along the way we will consider some hard cases for physicalism, including consciousness, normativity, and mathematics. Readings will likely include work by philosophers like David Chalmers, Jonathan Schaffer, Karen Bennett, David Lewis, Shamik Dasgupta, Jaegwon Kim, Jessica Wilson, Hartry Field, Geoff Lee, and Jerry Fodor.