A Physicalist Manifesto

Author : Andrew Melnyk
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521827119
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Physicalist Manifesto written by Andrew Melnyk and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-09 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the fullest formulation of a comprehensive physicalist view to date ^ Evaluates the empirical standing of physicalism in unprecedented detail Self-contained and thesis-driven discussions, accessible to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, make it an ideal seminar text A Physicalist Manifesto is the fullest yet of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience; that, so forumlated, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; that it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and that it has the a posterior epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. Two concluding chapters argue in inprecedented detail that contemporary science provides no significant empirical evidence against physicalism and some considerable evidence for it. Written in brisk, candid and exceptionally clear style, this book should appeal to professionals and students in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of science.

Author : Andrew Melnyk
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139442279
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Physicalist Manifesto written by Andrew Melnyk and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-09 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Physicalist Manifesto is a full treatment of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to a carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience; that, so formulated, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; that it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and that it has the a posteriori epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. Two concluding chapters argue in detail that contemporary science provides no significant empirical evidence against physicalism and some considerable evidence for it. Written in a brisk, candid and exceptionally clear style, this 2003 book should appeal to professionals and students in philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of science.

Author : Jim Pipe
Publisher : Franklin Watts
ISBN 13 : 9780749648367
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Big and Small written by Jim Pipe and published by Franklin Watts. This book was released on 2001 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Physicalist Manifesto is the fullest and most comprehensive defense of a view of physicalism called 'realization physicalism', in which everything either is or is not realized by something physical. The book is composed of two parts: In the first part Andrew Melnyk explains what realization physicalism is and distinguishes it from other formulations of physicalism which he considers inferior. In the second part he considers objections to realization physicalism and concludes that there is no significant evidence against realization physicalism. He then considers the evidence for his type of physicalism and finds that there is much evidence for realization physicalism as a plausible hypothesis as to the nature of contingent reality. Written in a brisk and exceptionally clear style, this book should appeal to students and professionals in philosophy of mind, metaphysics and philosophy of science.

Author : Jaegwon Kim
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400840848
Total Pages : 201 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Physicalism, or Something Near Enough written by Jaegwon Kim and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind have largely been shaped by physicalism, the doctrine that all phenomena are ultimately physical. Here, Jaegwon Kim presents the most comprehensive and systematic presentation yet of his influential ideas on the mind-body problem. He seeks to determine, after half a century of debate: What kind of (or "how much") physicalism can we lay claim to? He begins by laying out mental causation and consciousness as the two principal challenges to contemporary physicalism. How can minds exercise their causal powers in a physical world? Is a physicalist account of consciousness possible? The book's starting point is the "supervenience" argument (sometimes called the "exclusion" argument), which Kim reformulates in an extended defense. This argument shows that the contemporary physicalist faces a stark choice between reductionism (the idea that mental phenomena are physically reducible) and epiphenomenalism (the view that mental phenomena are causally impotent). Along the way, Kim presents a novel argument showing that Cartesian substance dualism offers no help with mental causation. Mind-body reduction, therefore, is required to save mental causation. But are minds physically reducible? Kim argues that all but one type of mental phenomena are reducible, including intentional mental phenomena, such as beliefs and desires. The apparent exceptions are the intrinsic, felt qualities of conscious experiences ("qualia"). Kim argues, however, that certain relational properties of qualia, in particular their similarities and differences, are behaviorally manifest and hence in principle reducible, and that it is these relational properties of qualia that are central to their cognitive roles. The causal efficacy of qualia, therefore, is not entirely lost. According to Kim, then, while physicalism is not the whole truth, it is the truth near enough.

Author : Andreas Elpidorou
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317402073
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Consciousness and Physicalism written by Andreas Elpidorou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consciousness and Physicalism: A Defense of a Research Program explores the nature of consciousness and its place in the world, offering a revisionist account of what it means to say that consciousness is nothing over and above the physical. By synthesizing work in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of science from the last twenty years and forging a dialogue with contemporary research in the empirical sciences of the mind, Andreas Elpidorou and Guy Dove advance and defend a novel formulation of physicalism. Although physicalism has been traditionally understood to be a metaphysical thesis, Elpidorou and Dove argue that there is an alternative and indeed preferable understanding of physicalism that both renders physicalism a scientifically informed explanatory project and allows us to make important progress in addressing the ontological problem of consciousness. Physicalism, Elpidorou and Dove hold, is best viewed not as a thesis (metaphysical or otherwise) but as an interdisciplinary research program that aims to compositionally explain all natural phenomena that are central to our understanding of our place in nature. Consciousness and Physicalism is replete with philosophical arguments and informed, through and through, by findings in many areas of scientific research. It advances the debate regarding the ontological status of consciousness. It will interest students and scholars in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of science. And it will challenge both foes and friends of physicalism.

Author : Carl Gillett
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521801751
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Physicalism and Its Discontents written by Carl Gillett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-26 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays by physicalists and their critics on the important doctrine of physicalism, first published in 2001.

Author : Michel Onfray
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231538367
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Hedonist Manifesto written by Michel Onfray and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Onfray passionately defends the potential of hedonism to resolve the dislocations and disconnections of our melancholy age. In a sweeping survey of history's engagement with and rejection of the body, he exposes the sterile conventions that prevent us from realizing a more immediate, ethical, and embodied life. He then lays the groundwork for both a radical and constructive politics of the body that adds to debates over morality, equality, sexual relations, and social engagement, demonstrating how philosophy, and not just modern scientism, can contribute to a humanistic ethics. Onfray attacks Platonic idealism and its manifestation in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic belief. He warns of the lure of attachment to the purportedly eternal, immutable truths of idealism, which detracts from the immediacy of the world and our bodily existence. Insisting that philosophy is a practice that operates in a real, material space, Onfray enlists Epicurus and Democritus to undermine idealist and theological metaphysics; Nietzsche, Bentham, and Mill to dismantle idealist ethics; and Palante and Bourdieu to collapse crypto-fascist neoliberalism. In their place, he constructs a positive, hedonistic ethics that enlarges on the work of the New Atheists to promote a joyful approach to our lives in this, our only, world.

Author : Kelly James Clark
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118657608
Total Pages : 548 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism written by Kelly James Clark and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Blackwell Companion to Naturalism provides a systematic introduction to philosophical naturalism and its relation to other schools of thought. Features contributions from an international array of established and emerging scholars from across the humanities Explores the historical development of naturalism and its ascension to the dominant orthodoxy in the Western academy Juxtaposes theoretical criticisms with impassioned defenses, encapsulating contemporary debates on naturalism Includes discussions of metaphysics, realism, feminism, science, knowledge, truth, mathematics, free will, and ethics viewed through a naturalist lens

Author : Derk Pereboom
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199764034
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism written by Derk Pereboom and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The deepest relation between the psychological and the microphysical is constitution, where this relation is not to be explicated by the notion of identity.

Author : Terry Horgan
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107077834
Total Pages : 283 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Qualia and Mental Causation in a Physical World written by Terry Horgan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of new essays that develop themes from the work of the philosopher Jaegwon Kim.