How to be a (sort of) A Priori physicalist
Philosophical Studies 131 (1):185-225 (2006)
| Abstract | What has come to be known as “a priori physicalism” is the thesis, roughly, that the non-physical truths in the actual world can be deduced a priori from a complete physical description of the actual world. To many contemporary philosophers, a priori physicalism seems extremely implausible. In this paper I distinguish two kinds of a priori physicalism. One sort – strict a priori physicalism – I reject as both unmotivated and implausible. The other sort – liberal a priori physicalism – I argue is both motivated and plausible. This variety of a priori physicalism insists that the necessitation of non-physical truths by the physical facts must be underwritten in a certain fashion by a priori knowledge, but the a priori knowledge need not amount to a simple deduction of the non-physical truths from a complete physical description of the world. Further, this sort of liberal a priori physicalism has the advantage that it offers hope for a genuinely satisfying account of how the physical facts manage to necessitate the facts about phenomenal consciousness – thereby in effect solving the “hard problem” of consciousness. The first half of the paper sets out the motivation for liberal a priori physicalism and its superiority to the strict version; the second half presents one strategy available to the liberal a priori physicalist for showing how consciousness can be accommodated in a purely physical world | |||||||||
| Keywords | A Priori Entailment Identity Language Metaphysics Physicalism | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJ. L. Dowell (2008). A Priori Entailment and Conceptual Analysis: Making Room for Type-C Physicalism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (1):93 – 111.
Barbara Montero (2007). Physicalism Could Be True Even If Mary Learns Something New. Philosophical Quarterly 57 (227):176-189.
Jesper Kallestrup (2006). Epistemological Physicalism and the Knowledge Argument. American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1):1-23.
Torin Alter (2006). Does Representationalism Undermine the Knowledge Argument? In Torin Alter & Sven Walter (eds.), Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge: New Essays on Consciousness and Physicalism. Oxford University Press.
Daniel Stoljar (2001). Two Conceptions of the Physical. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (2):253 - 281.
Daniel Stoljar (2001). Two Conceptions of the Physical. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (2):253-81.
Richard Brown (2010). Deprioritizing the A Priori Arguments Against Physicalism. Journal of Consciousness Studies 17 (3-4):47-69.
Adrian Boutel (2013). How to Be a Type-C Physicalist. Philosophical Studies 164 (2):301-320.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads49 ( #21,706 of 548,984 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,729 of 548,984 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
