Friday, March 11, 2011

Eleven Questions and One Question

1) What is it for something to be physical?

2) What is it for something to be a part of nature?

3) What is it for something to be a mental state?

4) What is it for something to be dependent upon something else?

5) What is it for something to be a cause of something else?

6) What is it for something to be a known fact?

7) What is it for something to be an empirical question / an empirical fact?

8) What is it for something to be scientifically established / scientifically explained?

9) Is there just one rationally acceptable answer to each one of the preceding questions?

10) Is there just one possibility to answer all of the questions 1) - 8) in a rationally coherent way?

11) Is there a single best possibility to answer all of the questions 1) - 8) in a rationally coherent way?

If you have done your best to answer these eleven questions, does materialism (or physicalism) seem inevitable to you?

2 comments:

  1. Those are tough questions! Is the idea that reflection on these questions should help us realize that materialism is not 'inevitable'?

    And by 'materialism is inevitable' here do you mean something like 'we are rationally required to believe materialism' or 'dualism is not rationally acceptable' or 'one cannot in full epistemic propriety be a dualist' or something like that?

    But does anyone really believe that? I'm neck deep in physicalists, but I don't think any one of them believes that. :-/

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  2. My impression has been that most physicalists/materialists (Dennett, the Churchlands, etc.) do believe that their position is the only rational position, and that dualism (like theism) is not acceptable for any rational person, and that it violates epistemic propriety. And, yes, reflection on the "tough questions" is meant to help put physicalism into the properly philosophical perspective, from which it will no longer seem inevitable (to those to whom it seemed inevitable). However, this intention may be a bit optimistic.

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