Physicalism as an empirical hypothesis

Synthese 194 (9):3347-3360 (2017)
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Abstract

Bas van Fraassen claims that materialism involves false consciousness. The thesis that matter is all that there is, he says, fails to rule out any kinds of theories. The false consciousness consists in taking materialism to be cognitive rather than an existential stance, or attitude, of deference to the current content of science in matters of ontology, and a favourable attitude to completeness claims about the content of science at a time. The main argument Van Fraassen provides for saying that materialism is not cognitive is an account according to which materialism has responded, so far, to changes in science by abandoning previous hallmarks of the material, and accepting new ones instead of by taking materialism to have been refuted. I argue that van Fraassen’s conclusions run far ahead of what his arguments establish. The fact of revision and revolution in the history of science, and the undoubted provisionality and incompleteness of science as we have it, do indeed tell against simply letting current science determine what the physical is for philosophical purposes. But the alternative to betting on current science need not be unconditional open-endedness. The changes that materialists have accepted so far do not, furthermore, support the false consciousness interpretation. The reason for this is not that materialists will swallow anything, but rather that the changes accepted are consistent with the truth of materialism when appropriately characterized

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Author's Profile

David Spurrett
University of KwaZulu-Natal

References found in this work

The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science.Nancy Cartwright - 1999 - New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Language and Mind.Noam Chomsky - 1968 - Cambridge University Press.
The Empirical Stance.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2004 - New York: Yale University Press.
The Empirical Stance.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 2002 - Yale University Press.

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