PHYSICALISM AND

HEMPEL’S DILEMMA. An investigation into a theory based account of the physical. (TBC).

What is Physicalism?

Everything that exists is physical or

supervenes on the physical ‘stuff’ in the world.

All the facts of the world are fully exhausted

and determined by the physical facts of the

world.

Physicalism is the 21st century equivalent of

Materialism.

Physicalism is a Monist Theory

The Completeness Question

Everything that exists is physical or

supervenes on the physical ‘stuff’ in the world.

What does it mean for ‘everything’ to be

physical?

Fire

The Condition Question

Everything that exists is physical or

supervenes on the physical ‘stuff’ in the world.

What does it mean for something to be

‘physical’?

Are ghosts physical? Demons? Particles?

Fields? Atoms? Etc.

Physical Criterion

X is physical iff X is [?]

Physical Criterion

The Theory Based Conception of the physical

states that we define the physical as whatever

is in the ontology of physics.

[TBC]: X is physical (or X

supervenes on the physical) iff X is

in physics (or X supervenes on

physics).

The hierarchy of the natural world

Hempel’s Dilemma

1st Horn: If we define the physical as whatever is in current physics, then physicalism is false, since the ontology of current physics is incomplete.

2nd Horn: If we define the physical as whatever is in some ideal completed future physics, then physicalism if true, is trivial or vacuously true as whatever is of low constitutional complexity will end up being in the ontology physics, no matter what it is.

First Horn: Bokulich and Smart

Objection to the first horn: restrict the

Physicalist thesis to biology and the mind.

“I concede that there are sure to be

revolutionary changes in physics, but I

deny that such changes are likely to be

relevant to the philosophical problem

about mind and its relation to the

physical world." (p. 339) [Smart, The

Content of Physicalism, 1978]

Bronstein Cube

Defense of the First Horn

The Parameter Problem

- No reason to suspect that the mind can be fully

characterized via QED.

- Penrose and Hameroff’s Quantum Mind Theory.

The Final Integration Problem

- Our conception of QED and its ontology may be

different in the future, even if it is the case that it

as a theory is complete with respect to its domain.

Relativistic vs Newtonian Equation of

Kinetic Energy

Newtonian

Relativistic

Falls into the Second Horn.

The Second Horn RECAP

2nd Horn: If we define the physical as

whatever is in some ideal completed future

physics, then physicalism if true, is trivial or

vacuously true as whatever is of low

constitutional complexity will end up being in

the ontology physics, no matter what it is.

Argument against TBC of the

Physical.

No Fundamentality Constraint

(Wilson)

The argument via negativa.

Modifies premise (1) or the Physical Criterion.

(X is physical iff X is [?])

X is physical iff X is in physics and X is not

mental (or if mental, X supervenes on

physics).

Wilson’s Paradigmatic Criterion

If X is paradigmatically non-physical, then X

cannot ever be considered physical, even if X

is in the fundamental base of physics.

Argument against the PC.

(P1) If more than one thing X can satisfy the

paradigmatic criterion [PC] then [PC] is not a

satisfactory criterion.

(P2) More than one thing X can satisfy the

paradigmatic criterion [PC].

------------------------------

C: [PC] is not a satisfactory criterion. [MP 1,2]

Paradigmatically (Historically) Non-

Physical Stuff – Fields.

Gravity as a non-physical object.

“There the Cartesians regarded the notion of

attraction as an occult quality, a surrender to

Aristotelianism, and a retrogression to the

immaterial influences and sympathies which

had been banished from physics so recently

and with such difficulty” (p 157) [Mary B

Hesse, Forces and Fields]

Paradigmatically (Historically) Non-

Physical Stuff – Fields. (Cont.)

“[…] some immaterial substances or some spiritual

rays, or some accident without substance, or some

kind of species intentionalis, or some other I know

now of what […] Of which sort of things, the author

seems to have still a good stock in his head,

without explaining himself sufficiently. That means

of communication (says he) is invisible, intangible,

not mechanical. He might as well have added,

inexplicable, unintelligible, precarious, groundless

and unexamined[…] ‘tis a chimerical thing, a

scholastic occult quality.” (p 94) [Leibniz-Clarke

Correspondence]

The Anti-Materialist Foundations of

Modern Physics

“The Cartesian theory collapsed soon afterwards,

when Newton showed that terrestrial and planetary

motion lie beyond the bounds of the mechanical

philosophy – beyond what was understood to be

body or matter. What remained was a picture of the

world that was ‘anti-materialist’ and that ‘relied

heavily on spiritual forces’ […]” (p 3) [Language and

Nature, 1995, Chomsky]

Lange on the notion of ‘Force’

“We have in our days so accustomed ourselves to the

abstract notion of forces, or rather to a notion hovering in

a mystic obscurity between abstraction and concrete

comprehension, that we no longer find any difficulty in

making on particle of matter act upon another without

immediate contact. […] From such ideas the great

mathematicians and physicists of the seventeenth

century were far removed.” (p 308) [Lange, A History of

Materialism, 1865]

Conclusion

Hempel’s Dilemma hasn’t been evaded.

TBC of the physical isn’t sufficient for a

definition of physicalism.