PHL201H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Western Philosophy, Materialism, Physicalism
Document Summary
Materialism everything that exists is materials, there are no non-material things. Physicalism everything that exists is physical, there are no non-physical things. If the only material things are physical things then materialism=physicalism. Traditionally the mind has been thought to be non-material (at least in western philosophy) Physicalism is often the default assumption of most people studying the mind. Dualism there is more than one kind of substance : material and non-material. Everything that exists has causal power (if something didn"t have causal powers how could we ever find evidence that is exists?) Only physical things have causal powers (causation is a physical relation) Goal is to show that dualism is plausible and that dualism is naturalistically respectable it does not conflict with our best scientific theories. Naturalism - our theories about ourselves and our place in the world should respect our best scientific theories. Philosophy that contradicts science is no good.
