Links to Papers

Note for Brown students: Some of the links to the papers require that your IP address is seen as being from Brown. You either need to be on campus or use the VPN software that Brown provides. You never need to pay any money for access to articles. For non-Brown readers, for some papers, you will need access through a library that has a subscription to the relevant journal.

Email me with any additional papers you are interested in covering or if you spot any errors.

Defining Physicalism

Week 1: David Papineau, "The Rise of Physicalism," Chapter 1 of Physicalism and Its Discontents; Barry Loewer, "From Physics to Physicalism," Chapter 2 of Physicalism and Its Discontents.

Week 2: Defining Physicalism: Jeff Poland, Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations., Chs. 1 and 2; Tim Crane and D. H. Mellor, "There is No Question of Physicalism"; Philip Pettit, "A Definition of Physicalism"; Tim Crane, Reply to Pettit.

Emergence

Week 3: McLaughlin, "The Rise and Fall of British Emergentism," O'Connor and Wong, "The Metaphysics of Emergence," Lowe, "The Self as Emergent Substance"

The Conceivability Argument

Week 4: Chalmer's excerpts from The Conscious Mind; Jackson, Ch. 1 of "From Metaphysis to Ethics."

Week 5: Block and Stalnaker, "Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap"; Chalmers and Jackson, "Conceptual Analysis and Reductive Explanation."

Supervenience and Realization Physicalism

Week 6: Gene Witmer, "Sufficiency Claims and Physicalism: A Formulation," Ch. 3 of Physicalism and Its Discontents. Jeff Poland, Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations, Ch. 4.

Week 7: Andrew Melnyk, Chs. 1 and 2 of A Physicalist Manifesto.

Reduction

Week 8: Jeff Poland, Physicalism: The Philosophical Foundations, Ch. 6; Andrew Melnyk, Chs. 3-4 of A Physicalist Manifesto. Read whatever you like from Empirical Fundamentalism, Vol. 1.

The Phenomenal Concept Strategy

Week 9: Brian Loar, "Phenomenal States"; Christopher S. Hill and Brian P. Mclaughlin, "Review: There are Fewer Things in Reality Than are Dreamt of in Chalmers's Philosophy"; Terry Horgan and John Tienson, "Deconstructing New Wave Materialism," and Response by McLaughlin, Ch. 15-16 of Physicalism and Its Discontents; Chalmers, "Phenomenal Concepts and the Materialist Constraint"

We already read but did not discuss Andrew Melnyk, "Physicalism Unfalsified: Chalmer's Inconclusive Conceivability Argument," Ch. 17 of Physicalism and Its Discontents. We might talk about this here.

Metaphysical Necessity

Week 10: Kripke, "Necessity and Identity"; Richard Boyd, "Materialism Without Reductionism: What Physicalism Does Not Entail"; Stephen Leeds, "The Rise of Physicalism," Chapter 1 of Physicalism and Its Discontents; Extra optional reading Empirical Fundamentalism, Vol. 2, Chs. 1-2.

Mathematics Physicalism

Week 11: To Be Announced.

Causal Exclusion

Week 12: Crane, "The Significance of Emergence," Chapter 10 of Physicalism and Its Discontents; Empirical Fundamentalism, Vol. 2, Ch 3, 5.