Position
Physicalism
Everything mental is physical or wholly grounded in the physical; no immaterial mind is required.
Classification
- Position level
- specific
- Domains
- Philosophy of Mind
Overview
Physicalism holds that there is nothing to the mind over and above the physical: mental states are either identical with physical states or wholly fixed by them, so that once the physical facts are settled the mental facts are settled too. Its main support is causal. Mental events plainly make things happen — a decision moves a hand — and the physical world appears causally closed, leaving no work for a non-physical mind that a physical brain is not already doing.
The pressure comes from consciousness. Even granting that the physical story accounts for every movement and every report, critics argue that it leaves out what the experience is like from the inside — the gap pressed by asking what someone who knew every physical fact about colour would still learn on first seeing red.
Position on
Broader position
Incompatible positions
- Substance Dualism
Question scope: The Mind–Body Problem