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    Type physicalism is not a necessary condition for physica... — Carmelics
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    Home/Modality & Possibility
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    Type physicalism is not a necessary condition for physicalism

    Consciousness & MindModality & Possibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.If type physicalism were necessary for physicalism, then every property an entity has must be identical with some physical property
      ?

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    • 2.The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has properties (e.g., having a legal power over lower courts) that are unlikely to be identical with any physical property
      ?

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    • 3.Physicalism might still be true even if type physicalism fails for such properties
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Physicalism requires that all facts supervene on physical facts, and supervenience without type identity collapses into an unexplained brute correlation.
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    • 2.Jaegwon Kim's causal exclusion argument shows that non-identical higher-level properties lack genuine causal efficacy, making token physicalism explanatorily vacuous.
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    • 3.A physicalism that cannot account for the causal relevance of mental and institutional properties fails as a substantive metaphysical thesis, not merely a terminological one.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The Seventh Circuit example conflates ontological reduction with conceptual or social irreducibility; legal powers may still be realized by physical configurations of brains and institutions.
      ?

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    • 2.David Armstrong and David Lewis's functionalist realism holds that higher-order properties are type-identical to the physical realizer-types within a given world, preserving type physicalism locally.
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    • 3.If type identity is world-relative rather than necessary across all possible worlds, the counterexamples from social or institutional properties dissolve without abandoning type physicalism.
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    Topics

    Modality & PossibilityConsciousness & Mind

    Connections

    2 topics

    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedPersonal Identity1 linked

    Related

    A physicalism that cannot account for the causal relevance of mental and institu...David Armstrong and David Lewis's functionalist realism holds that higher-order ...If type identity is world-relative rather than necessary across all possible wor...If type physicalism were necessary for physicalism, then every property an entit...
    +5 moreShow less
    Jaegwon Kim's causal exclusion argument shows that non-identical higher-level pr...Physicalism might still be true even if type physicalism fails for such properti...Physicalism requires that all facts supervene on physical facts, and supervenien...

    Similar

    Token physicalism does not provide a necessary condition for physicali...99%Supervenience is not a sufficient condition for physicalism95%Supervenience physicalism articulates only a necessary condition for p...94%Supervenience physicalism does not entail fundamentality physicalism.89%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: physicalism
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    However, while (4) provides a sufficient condition for physicalism, it does not provide a necessary condition. Consider again the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. If type physicalism is true, then every property that the court has (for example, having a legal power over lower courts) must be identical with some physical property. But on the face of it, that is unlikely. Nevertheless, physicalism might still be true. If so, type physicalism is not necessary for physicalism.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    The Seventh Circuit example conflates ontological reduction with conceptual or s...
    The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has properties (e.g.,...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit