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Comments on Sydney Shoemaker’s Physical Realization

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Abstract

This paper interprets and criticizes some of the views presented in Sydney Shoemaker’s book, Physical Realization (Oxford University Press, 2007), on the topic of how mental properties are realized by physical properties, given that, on his view, human persons are not even token-identical with human bodies.

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Notes

  1. It was a pleasure and a privilege to present these comments on April 10, 2009 in an Author-Meets-Critics session organized by Amy Kind at the 2009 Pacific Division meeting of the APA in Vancouver, Canada.

  2. A human animal is simply a member of the species, Homo sapiens.

  3. I assume that, for Shoemaker, a sortal property is one the instantiation of which by an entity entails certain persistence conditions for that entity.

  4. Compare: “There is need for the relation of realization2 if, and probably only if, there can be [distinct but] coincident entities, and properties in one of a pair of coincident entities can be said to realize properties of the other” (Shoemaker 2007, p. 29).

  5. In a third, as yet unmentioned sense, of “realized”.

  6. Microphysical states of affairs are individuated more finely than swarms of microphysical entities, since the former are individuated by the properties of, and relations among, the microphysical entities involved in them, and not just by the microphysical entities themselves.

  7. Aside from some very brief remarks (Shoemaker 2007, pp. 112–113).

References

  • Lewis, D. (1971). Counterparts of persons and their bodies. Journal of Philosophy, 68, 203–211.

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  • Shoemaker, S. (2007). Physical realization. New York: Oxford University Press.

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  • Shoemaker, S., & Swinburne, R. (1984). Personal identity. Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri, 439 Strickland Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Andrew Melnyk

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  1. Andrew Melnyk
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Correspondence to Andrew Melnyk.

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Melnyk, A. Comments on Sydney Shoemaker’s Physical Realization . Philos Stud 148, 113–123 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9500-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9500-9

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