Physicalism about the Mind

Edited by István Aranyosi (Bilkent University)
Assistant editor: Zili Dong (University of Western Ontario)
About this topic
Summary Physicalism about the mind is the metaphysical view that all mental phenomena are ultimately physical phenomena, or necessitated by physical phenomena. There are various mental-physical relations proposed by physicalists to account for their claim. One relation is identity. Identity based physicalism about the mind takes two forms: token physicalism (which asserts that all token mental states are identical to a physical or neural state), and type physicalism (according to which all types of mental states are identical to types of physical or neural states). Another proposed relation is supervenience. Supervenience based physicalism about the mind is a form of type physicalism and it takes two main forms: a priori physicalism (the view that mental truths are a priori deducible from the totality of physical truths) and a posteriori physicalism (the view that mental truths are a posteriori or empirically necessitated by the totality of physical truths).
Key works Identity based physicalism was first proposed by Place 1956, Feigl 1958, and Smart 1959. Token identity based physicalism is taken to originate with Davidson 1963. Explicitly type identity based physicalist approaches are to be found in Lewis 1966 and in Armstrong 1968. An account of the distinction between a priori and a posteriori supervenience based physicalism is given in Chalmers 1996 and in Stoljar 2000. Particular a priori physicalist approaches are to be found in Dennett 1991Dretske 1995Lewis 1990Rey 1995. Particular a posteriroi physicalist approaches appear in Loar 1990Papineau 1993Tye 1995Hill 1997Balog 1999Block & Stalnaker 1999Balog 2012.
Introductions Stoljar 2015
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  1. Mental Causation, Exclusive Argument, and Non-reductive Physicalism.Xiaoyang Wang & Yuchen Wang - 2020 - Journal of Human Cognition 4 (2):53-67.
    Jeagwon Kim's exclusion argument is a well-known argument against non-reductive physicalism in the contemporary debate on mental causation. In this essay, we will first discuss two versions of the exclusion argument: the simple version and the sophisticated version. Secondly, we will take a conservative strategy to defend the kind of non-reductive physicalism initiated by Donald Davidson: the Token Identity Theory. Namely, we will explain where Kim failed to appropriately understand Davidson's work and argue that the simple version and the sophisticated (...)
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  2. Epiphenomenal Minds and Philosophers’ Zombies: Where do mental properties originate?George Aulisio - 2022 - National Taiwan University Philosophical Review 64 (Special Issue on Self and Other):267-312.
    Property dualism [PD], when adopted by physicalists, is the view that mental properties are irreducible and joined to the physical. Many property dualists who subscribe to physicalism hold epiphenomenalism—the view that the mind does not have a causal role in affecting physical events (e.g., bodily movements).1 In this paper, I examine two possible origins of mental properties and the entailments of those origins if one is committed to physicalism. First, mental properties have a generative origin (e.g., emergence, neurophysiological, etc.). Second, (...)
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  3. Reasons and Empty Persons: Mind, Metaphysics, and Morality: Essays in Honor of Mark Siderits.Christian Coseru (ed.) - 2023 - Springer.
    Best known for his groundbreaking and influential work in Buddhist philosophy, Mark Siderits is the pioneer of “fusion” or “confluence philosophy", a boldly systematic approach to doing philosophy premised on the idea that rational reconstruction of positions in one tradition in light of another can sometimes help address perennial problems and often lead to new and valuable insights. -/- Exemplifying the many virtues of the confluence approach, this collection of essays covers all core areas of Buddhist philosophy, as well as (...)
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  4. Modal Arguments against Physicalism in View of Scientific Findings Concerning Pain.Maja Malec - 2016 - Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 14 (4):360-368.
    I analyse Kripke’s modal argument against the mind-brain identity theories. Specifically, he argues against the identity between pain and C-fibres simulation by pointing out the difference between this identity claim and the theoretical identifications, such as ‘Water is H2O’ and ‘Lightning is a motion of electric charges’. Kripke’s argument relies on the assumption that the experience of pains is a simple and homogenous phenomenon, but scientific research shows that it is in fact a quite complex one. We can distinguish at (...)
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  5. Conceptual reductions, truthmaker reductive explanations, and ontological reductions.Savvas Ioannou - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-26.
    According to conceptual reductive accounts, if properties of one domain can be conceptually reduced to properties of another domain, then the former properties are ontologically reduced to the latter properties. I will argue that conceptual reductive accounts face problems: either they do not recognise that many higher-level properties are correlated with multiple physical properties, or they do not clarify how we can discover new truthmakers of sentences about a higher-level property. Still, there is another way to motivate ontological reduction, the (...)
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  6. The Problem "I" in Galen Strawson.Elaheh Khoshzaban & Zahra Khazaei - 2022 - Philosophical Investigations 16 (38):186-213.
    One of the topics in the philosophy of mind is the discussion of "I", which philosophers have referred to in various interpretations as "The self", "personal identity", "ego", "soul" and "spirit". Philosophers' different theories about the existence and even the nature of this seemingly simple and obvious have turned it into a philosophical problem. Galen Strawson is a physicalist who has addressed this issue by interpreting “The self”. On the one hand, he believes in the existence of the "empirical self", (...)
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  7. Philosophy of Mind: The Basics.Amy Kind - 2020 - New York, NY: Routledge.
    Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to the fundamental philosophical questions and theories about the mind. The author Amy Kind, a leading expert in the field, examines central issues concerning the nature of consciousness, thought, and emotion. The book addresses key questions such as: • What is the nature of the mind? • What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? • Can machines have minds? • How will future technology impact the mind? (...)
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Formulating Physicalism
  1. Studies in No-Self Physicalism.Feng Ye - 2023 - Springer Nature Singapore.
    This book demonstrates how a radical version of physicalism (‘No-Self Physicalism’) can offer an internally coherent and comprehensive philosophical worldview. It first argues that a coherent physicalist should explicitly treat a cognitive subject merely as a physical thing and should not vaguely assume an amorphous or even soul-like subject or self. This approach forces the physicalist to re-examine traditional core philosophical notions such as truth, analyticity, modality, apriority because our traditional understandings of them appear to be predicated on a cognitive (...)
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  2. Mindmelding, Chapter 2: An alternative framework.William Hirstein - 2012 - In Mindmelding: Consciousness, Neuroscience, and the Mind's Privacy. Oxford University Press.
    This chapter presents the following hypothesis: There is a perfectly sensible conception of the mind, consciousness, the self, what we mean by ‘I,’ how we perceive and know, and how we remember and decide, all of which cohere amongst one another as well as with what we know about the brain, according to which it is possible for one person to experience directly the conscious states of another person. Not only can one person be directly aware of the conscious states (...)
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  3. Flat Physicalism.Meir Hemmo & Orly Shenker - 2022 - Theoria 88 (4):743-764.
    This paper describes a version of type identity physicalism, which we call Flat Physicalism, and shows how it meets several objections often raised against identity theories. This identity theory is informed by recent results in the conceptual foundations of physics, and in particular clar- ifies the notion of ‘physical kinds’ in light of a conceptual analysis of the paradigmatic case of reducing thermody- namics to statistical mechanics. We show how Flat Physi- calism is compatible with the appearance of multiple realisation (...)
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  4. Fizikalizm, Bilgi Argümanı ve Felsefi Düşünce Deneyleri.Alper Bilgehan Yardımcı & Atilla Volkan Çam - 2021 - Nosyon: Uluslararası Toplum Ve Kültür Çalışmaları Dergisi 1 (8):1-11.
    Thought experiments, one of the most effective ways of acquiring knowledge, are an intellectual tool frequently used by scientists or thinkers in their fields of study. Thought experiments used to respond to scientific issues are considered scientific thought experiments, while thought experiments used for philosophical problems are called philosophical thought experiments. In this context, firstly, the differences between scientific and philosophical thought experiments are determined in the article. In particular, philosophical thought experiments are often needed in discussions within the field (...)
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  5. Physicalisme et monisme russellien.Victor Tremblay-Baillargeon - 2021 - Ithaque 28:119-137.
    Dans cet article, je propose de défendre le monisme russellien, une théorie posant l’existence de quiddités phénoménologiques au fondement de la réalité. Je propose en particulier de montrer que le monisme russellien échappe aux objections qui en font une version inadéquate du physicalisme. Pour ce faire, j’identifie les trois raisons qui motivent le physicalisme, c’est-à-dire la parcimonie, le naturalisme et l’argument de la clôture causale, et j’argumente qu’il faut considérer que le monisme russellien satisfait ces trois motivations. Ainsi, si j’ai (...)
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  6. Naturalism, Human Flourishing, and Asian Philosophy: Owen Flanagan and Beyond. [REVIEW]L. K. Gustin Law - 2021 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2021.
  7. Physicalism, Closure, and the Structure of Causal Arguments for Physicalism: A Naturalistic Formulation of the Physical.Hamed Bikaraan-Behesht - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (4):1081-1096.
    Physicalism is the idea that everything either is physical or is nothing over and above the physical. For this formulation of physicalism to have determinate content, it should be identified what the “physical” refers to; i.e. the body problem. Some other closely related theses, especially the ones employed in the causal arguments for different versions of physicalism, and more especially the causal closure thesis, are also subject to the body problem. In this paper, I do two things. First, I explore (...)
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  8. A Threat for Physicalism: a new Gedankenexperiment.Claudio Calosi & Vincenzo Fano - 2012 - Epistemologia 1:130-140.
    We present a new thought experiment that raises a threat for Minimal Physicalism, i.e. the thesis according to which mental properties supervene on physical properties. Our proposal is an example of the so called hard problems in philosophy of mind, in particular the problem of maximal consciousness. We do not however presuppose anything about its very nature apart from the minimal, weak assumption that it is determined by first order mental properties. We argue that either Minimal Physicalism is unable to (...)
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  9. The Materialism of Roy Wood Sellars.Balázs Gimes - 2021 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11 (1):166-182.
    Physicalism is often characterized as an empirical hypothesis. But according to an alternative conceptualization, it is instead a stance or an attitude. I analyze Roy Wood Sellars’s materialist philosophy in order to show that it is a counterexample to a specific physicalist empirical hypothesis: the minimal completeness of the physical. However, it is arguably not reducible to a stance: it is a meaningful metaphysical thesis with substantive cognitive content.
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  10. A Dilemma about the Mental.Guy Dove & Andreas Elpidorou - 2021 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 1.
    Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one—viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory—is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. The (...)
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  11. Physicalism without supervenience.Lei Zhong - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (5):1529-1544.
    It is widely accepted that supervenience is a minimal commitment of physicalism. In this article, however, I aim to argue that physicalism should be exempted from the supervenience requirement. My arguments rely on a parallel between ontological dependence and causal dependence. Since causal dependence does not require causal determination, ontological dependence should not require ontological determination either. Moreover, my approach has a significant theoretical advantage: if physicalism is not committed to supervenience, then the metaphysical possibility of zombies—which is still wide (...)
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  12. Review of Kevin Morris, Physicalism Deconstructed: Levels of Reality and the Mind-Body Problem. [REVIEW]Jessica M. Wilson - 2020 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:0-0.
    Morris’s book is a valuable contribution. For the reasons below, I don’t think his case against NRP succeeds, and his version of EP faces a serious difficulty. Even so, this is an admirably clear, subtle, and well-informed brief, and philosophers interested in the structure of natural reality have much to gain from Morris’s insightful discussion and argumentation.
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  13. Metaphysical Emergence.Jessica M. Wilson - 2021 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Both the special sciences and ordinary experience suggest that there are metaphysically emergent entities and features: macroscopic goings-on (including mountains, trees, humans, and sculptures, and their characteristic properties) which depend on, yet are distinct from and distinctively efficacious with respect to, lower-level physical configurations and features. These appearances give rise to two key questions. First, what is metaphysical emergence, more precisely? Second, is there any metaphysical emergence, in principle and moreover in fact? Metaphysical Emergence provides clear and systematic answers to (...)
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  14. The Fundamentality of Physics: Completeness or Maximality.Alyssa Ney - 2021 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 12.
    There is a standard way of interpreting physicalism. This is as a completeness thesis of some kind. Completeness physicalists believe there is or in principle could be some future physics that provides a complete explanatory or ontological basis for our universe. And this provides a sense in which physics is special among the sciences, the sense in which it is fundamental. This paper contrasts this standard completeness physicalism with what is a more plausible maximality physicalism. Maximality physicalists believe physics is (...)
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  15. Fundamental mentality in a physical world.Christopher Devlin Brown - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):2841-2860.
    Regardless of whatever else physicalism requires, nearly all philosophers agree that physicalism cannot be true in a world which contains fundamental mentality. I challenge this widely held attitude, and describe a world which is plausibly all-physical, yet which may contain fundamental mentality. This is a world in which priority monism is true—which is the view that the whole of the cosmos is fundamental, with dependence relations directed from the whole to the parts—and which contains only a single mental system, like (...)
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  16. Denialism: What Do the so-called Consciousness Deniers Deny?Orly Shenker - 2020 - Iyyun 68:307-337.
    Some philosophers consider that some of their colleagues deny that consciousness exists. We shall call the latter ‘deniers’, adopting a term that was initially meant pejoratively. What do the deniers deny? In order to answer this question, we shall examine arguments, both of some deniers and of their critics, and present denialism as a systematic highly non-trivial position that has had some interesting achievements. We will show that the denialist project concerns the epistemology of the mind and specifically of consciousness: (...)
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  17. Russellian Physicalism and its Dilemma.Lok-Chi Chan - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178:2043-2062.
    Russellian monism – an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (1927/1992) – is roughly the view that the natural sciences can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not about their categorical properties, and, moreover, that our qualia are constituted by categorical properties. Recently, Stoljar (2001a, 2001b), Strawson (2008), Montero (2010, 2015), Alter and Nagasawa (2012), and Chalmers (2015) have attempted to develop this doctrine into a version of physicalism. Russellian monism faces the (...)
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  18. Consciousness, Conceivability, and Intrinsic Reduction.Jonathon VandenHombergh - 2020 - Erkenntnis 85 (5):1129-1151.
    Conceivability arguments constitute a serious threat against reductive physicalism. Recently, a number of authors have proven and characterized a devastating logical truth, centered on these arguments: namely, that their soundness entails the inconceivability of reductive physicalism. In this paper, I demonstrate that is only a logical truth when reductive physicalism is interpreted in its stronger, intrinsic sense, as opposed to its weaker—yet considerably more popular—extrinsic sense. The basic idea generalizes: perhaps surprisingly, stronger forms of reduction are uniquely resistant to the (...)
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  19. Physicalism.Daniel Stoljar - 2009 - In Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans & Patrick Wilken (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness. New York, NY, USA: pp. 529-532.
  20. The Mental-Physical Distinction.Daniel Stoljar - 2006 - In Donald Borchert (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition. New York, NY, USA:
  21. Hempel’s Dilemma.Daniel Stoljar - 2009 - In Heather Dyke (ed.), From Truth to Reality: New Essays in Logic and Metaphysics. New York, NY, USA:
  22. Philosophy: Meditation in mind. [REVIEW]Daniel Stoljar - 2011 - Nature 480.
  23. Material through and through.Andrew M. Bailey - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (8):2431-2450.
    Materialists about human persons think that we are material through and through—wholly material beings. Those who endorse materialism more widely think that everything is material through and through. But what is it to be wholly material? In this article, I answer that question. I identify and defend a definition or analysis of ‘wholly material’.
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  24. How to Achieve the Physicalist Dream Theory of Consciousness: Identity or Grounding? (2020).Adam Pautz - forthcoming - In G. Rabin (ed.), Grounding and Consciousness.
    I argue for three claims. First, there is a strong argument for identity physicalism (Lewis, Sider, Dorr) over dualism. It does achieve the physicalist dream of a maximally simple and uniform view of reality. However, there are also strong arguments against identity physicalism concerning the special nature of conscious experiences. Second, although nonidentity "ground" physicalism (Campbell, Johnston, Schaffer) is a possible fallback position, there is no reason to prefer to property dualism. It provides an equally complex and unattractive picture of (...)
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  25. Physicalism.Amanda Bryant - 2020 - In Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. New York: Routledge. pp. 484-500.
    This chapter considers potential applications of grounding to the formulation of physicalism. I begin with an overview of competing conceptions of the physical and of physicalism. I then consider whether grounding physicalism overcomes well-known and seemingly fatal problems with supervenience physicalism. I conclude that while grounding physicalism improves upon supervenience physicalism in certain respects, it arguably falls victim to some of the same difficulties.
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  26. On Characterizing Metaphysical Naturalism.Lok-Chi Chan - 2021 - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind 1:232-260.
    The disciplinary characterisation (DC) is the most popular approach to defining metaphysical naturalism and physicalism. It defines metaphysical naturalism with reference to scientific theories and defines physicalism with reference to physical theories, and suggests that every entity that exists is a posited entity of these theories. DC has been criticised for its inability to solve Hempel’s dilemma and a list of problems alike. In this paper, I propose and defend a novel version of DC that can be called a historical (...)
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  27. Ceteris Absentibus Physicalism.Stephan Leuenberger - 2008 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 4:145-170.
  28. Fundamentality physicalism.Gabriel Oak Rabin - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (1):77-116.
    ABSTRACT This essay has three goals. The first is to introduce the notion of fundamentality and to argue that physicalism can usefully be conceived of as a thesis about fundamentality. The second is to argue for the advantages of fundamentality physicalism over modal formulations and that fundamentality physicalism is what many who endorse modal formulations of physicalism had in mind all along. Third, I describe what I take to be the main obstacle for a fundamentality-oriented formulation of physicalism: ‘the problem (...)
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  29. The Absentminded Professor.Justin Tiehen - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    In this paper, I argue that absences pose a challenge to our understanding of physicalism that has not been properly appreciated. I do this by setting out a thought experiment involving a being in whom absence properties occupy the causal roles that functionalists take to define mental properties, in which case these absence properties realize the being’s mental properties. Such a being should be compatible with the truth of physicalism, I argue, even though its mental properties are neither themselves physical (...)
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  30. Causal Exclusion and Physical Causal Completeness.Dwayne Moore - 2019 - Dialectica 73 (4):479-505.
    Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes: Sid climbs the hill because he wants to. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes: Sid climbs the hill because a complex neural process in his brain triggered his climbing. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of (...)
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  31. Emergence and Non-reductive Physicalism.Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Frank Macdonald - 2019 - In Sophie Gibb, Robin Findlay Hendry & Tom Lancaster (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Emergence. New York, NY, USA; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 195-205.
  32. Underestimating the Physical.G. Strawson - 2019 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 26 (9-10):228-240.
    Many hold that (1) consciousness poses a uniquely hard problem. Why is this so? Chalmers considers 12 main answers in 'The Meta-Problem of Consciousness'. This paper focuses on number 11, and is principally addressed to those who endorse (1) because they think that (2) consciousness can't possibly be physical. It argues that to hold (2) is to make the mistake of underestimating the physical, and that almost all who make this mistake do so because they think they know more about (...)
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  33. Fisicalismo e o problema mente-cérebro: uma questão de definição.Julio César Martins Mazzoni - 2019 - Sofia 8 (1):146-170.
    O Fisicalismo tem sido a posição filosófica monista mais aceita no mainstream do debate contemporâneo sobre a natureza do mental. Mas o que significa dizer que tudo o que existe é “físico”? O presente trabalho busca responder à pergunta: Como as teses fisicalistas contemporâneas têm definido o termo ‘físico’ em suas proposições? Para respondê-la foi realizada uma investigação teórico-filosófica baseada em revisão bibliográfica e análise lógica e conceitual. Quatro categorias gerais de definição do termo ‘físico’ foram identificadas numa revisão da (...)
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  34. The Physical as the Nomalous.J. Goldwater - 2019 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 26 (5-6):65-88.
    I argue physicalism should be characterized as the thesis that all behavior is law-governed. This characterization captures crucial desiderata for a formulation of physicalism, including its broad import and worldview defining features. It also has more local virtues, such as avoiding Hempel’s dilemma. A particularly important implication, I argue, is that this thesis makes the question of the mind’s physicality turn on what the mind can do- rather than what experience is like.
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  35. Taking Emergentism Seriously.Lei Zhong - 2020 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (1):31-46.
    The Exclusion Argument has afflicted non-reductionists for decades. In this article, I attempt to show that emergentism—the view that mental entities can downwardly cause physical entities in a non-overdetermining way—is the most plausible approach to solving the exclusion problem. The emergentist approach is largely absent in contemporary philosophy of mind, because emergentism rejects the Causal Closure of Physics, a doctrine embraced by almost all physicalists. This article, however, challenges the consensus on causal closure and defends a physicalist version of emergentism. (...)
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  36. The Problem of the Base and the Nature of Information.C. Montemayor - 2017 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10):91-102.
    I present three problems regarding the Problem of the Base. They concern the nature of information, the kind of Platonism that physicalists allegedly confront, and the constraints imposed by causal principles. These problems focus on the notion of information and its relation to the Problem of the Base. I also highlight the importance of Schneider's paper, particularly its relevance for future debates.
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  37. On Physics' Faustian Bargain with Mathematics.G. Vision - 2017 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10):59-71.
    Standard physicalism is repudiated by Susan Schneider on the grounds that the science of physics at physicalism's foundation is individuated by mathematics, revealing that science is abstract rather than concrete. She seeks to remedy the situation for physics, though not for physicalism, with a panprotopsychist variant of panpyschism. Her approach is clever and well-developed, but I believe it suffers from at least two flaws. First, with few exceptions individuation is the wrong tool for the discovery of a thing's nature; second, (...)
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  38. Platonistic Physicalism without Tears.D. G. Witmer - 2017 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10):72-90.
    Susan Schneider argues that the entities to be identified as part of the 'physical base' for physicalism must be in part abstract and that this fact either falsifies physicalism or renders it so problematic as to be 'no physicalism worth having'. I accept the abstractness of the entities but argue both that physicalism is consistent with such and that none of the alleged problems for Platonistic physicalism are serious.
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  39. Does the Mathematical Nature of Physics Undermine Physicalism?Susan Schneider - 2017 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 24 (9-10):7-39.
  40. What is at Stake in Illusionism?J. Tartaglia - 2016 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (11-12):236-255.
    I endorse the central message of Keith Frankish's 'Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness': if physicalism is true, phenomenal consciousness must be an illusion. Attempts to find an intermediate position between physicalist illusionism and the rejection of physicalism are untenable. Unlike Frankish, however, I reject physicalism, while still endorsing illusionism. My misgivings about physicalist illusionism are that it removes any rational basis from our judgment inclinations concerning consciousness, undermines the epistemic basis required to explain the genesis of our physical conception (...)
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  41. Correction to: Grounding-Based Formulations of Physicalism.Jessica M. Wilson - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):261-261.
    This correction reflects that I forgot to cite Stephan Leuenberger's unpublished work in the paragraph beginning "More promising, perhaps, is the orthodox view ..." in Section 5. The overall argument of Section 5 is a development of an argument I gave in footnote 27 of 'No Work for a Theory of Grounding' (Inquiry, 2014). At issue in the relevant sections of 'No Work...' and 'Grounding-based Formulations...' is whether a proponent of Grounding has resources to accommodate strongly emergent phenomena, where strong (...)
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  42. Grounding-based formulations of physicalism.Jessica M. Wilson - 2016 - Topoi 37 (3):495-512.
    I problematize Grounding-based formulations of physicalism. More specifically, I argue, first, that motivations for adopting a Grounding-based formulation of physicalism are unsound; second, that a Grounding-based formulation lacks illuminating content, and that attempts to imbue Grounding with content by taking it to be a strict partial order are unuseful and problematic ; third, that conceptions of Grounding as constitutively connected to metaphysical explanation conflate metaphysics and epistemology, are ultimately either circular or self-undermining, and controversially assume that physical dependence is incompatible (...)
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  43. Grounding and the Formulation of Physicalism.Andrew Melnyk - 2016 - In Ken Aizawa & Carl Gillett (eds.), Scientific Composition and Metaphysical Ground. Palgrave. pp. 249-269.
    Grounding is all the rage in analytical metaphysics. But here I give three reasons for not appealing to a primitive relation of grounding in formulating physicalism. (1) It probably can't do the key job it would need to do. (2) We don't need it, since we already have realization. (3) It is probably not even consistent with physicalism.
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