Recent worries about possible epiphenomenalist consequences of nonreductive physicalism are misplaced, not, as many have argued, because nonreductive physicalism does not imply epiphenomenalism but because the epiphenomenalist implication is actually a virtue of the theory, rather than a vice. It is only by showing how certain kinds of mental properties are causally impotent that cognitive scie...

THEJOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY HOW TO KEEP THE 'PHYSICAL' IN PHYSI(:ALISM* Physicalism is roughly the thesis (1) that every entity is either itself a physical entity or is exhaustively composed, ultimately, of physical entities, and (2) that every property is either itself a physical property or is realized, ultimately, by physical properties.l Never mind whether exhaustive composition and realizatio...

Since the time of Descartes, various versions a modal argument have been proffered for substance dualism. Until recently, premise most frequently attacked is one that moves from conceivability to metaphysical possibility. However, more new criticism has surfaced, viz., an contingent physicalism. The purpose this article show what I take be sophisticated physicalist fails as defeater argument. A...

1.1 Conceivability and PossibilityDavid Chalmers’ challenge to physicalism has dominated the philosophy of mind for the last seventeen years. His 1995paper ‘Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness’ and his 1996 book The Conscious Mind reinvigorated the debate between physicalists and dualists. But Chalmers’ mature attack on physicalism appeared over a decade later in his extensive 2009 paper ...

Larry Hardin has been the most steadfast and influential critic of physicalist theories of color over the last 20 years. In their modern form these theories originated with the work of Smart and Armstrong in the 1960s and 1970s 1 and Hardin appropriately concentrated on their views in his initial critique of physicalism. 2 In his most recent contribution to this project 3 he attacks Michael Tye...

Paul Churchland argues that Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument against physicalism is so strong that if it defeated physicalism it would, at the same time, defeat ‘substance dualism’. The purpose of this paper is to articulate this ‘parity of reasons’ objection. In the first part of the paper, I discuss Churchland’s argument. I demonstrate that although his formulation of the objection is not w...