Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical. — SEP
Seems to me these kinds of views seem most usrful when you have something to contrast them against like dualism. — Apustimelogist
I wonder if these views, rather than a metaphysical view, maybe could be seen as closer to like an loose grouping of scientific hypitheses about the absence of certain type of things like extra-mental things and against things like parapsychology, cryptozoology, pseudoscience (pseudoscience maybe just being more like a label applied to certain ideas that are considered false but are still discussed as true in some fringe communities). Arguably the same denouncement could be said applied to methods too. — Apustimelogist
Very few things can be proven to exist with 100% certainty, only existence itself and a few other concepts. However, physical objects and laws are high up there in the 99%. If you want some meat on your worldviews, you can't go wrong with physicalism!the best arguments for it are — frank
On the one hand, we may define the physical as whatever is currently explained by our best physical theories, e.g., quantum mechanics, general relativity. Though many would find this definition unsatisfactory, some would accept that we have at least a general understanding of the physical based on these theories, and can use them to assess what is physical and what is not. And therein lies the rub, as a worked-out explanation of mentality currently lies outside the scope of such theories.
On the other hand, if we say that some future, "ideal" physics is what is meant, then the claim is rather empty, for we have no idea of what this means. The "ideal" physics may even come to define what we think of as mental as part of the physical world. In effect, physicalism by this second account becomes the circular claim that all phenomena are explicable in terms of physics because physics properly defined is whatever explains all phenomena.
I think maybe I would also say that without some additional distinctive structure beyons current scientific hypotheses then the metaphysical idea that everything is mental is just as vague and empty as the idea everything is physical. — Apustimelogist
If you want some meat on your worldviews, you can't go wrong with physicalism! — mentos987
The very successful use of scientific method in the West, and reductionist arguments as possible explanations of seemingly non-physical phenomena. — J
Wouldn't you have to argue that physicalism itself is successful? Is that possible? — frank
If you are a physicalist, what convinced you? Or is it just the grounding of your thinking? — frank
I think maybe I would also say that without some additional distinctive structure beyond current scientific hypotheses then the metaphysical idea that everything is mental is just as vague and empty as the idea everything is physical. — Apustimelogist
I would state that everything that we've discovered so far is physical in origin. — Philosophim
So, choosing monism as a necessity, all that's left is to call whatever remains something, and here we just choose, I think "physical", rightly understood, is less problematic than mental or ideal. — Manuel
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