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What Is Token Physicalism? |
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Συγγραφέας: Noa Latham Noa Latham: What Is Token Physicalism? (doc, 16 pages) The distinction between token and type physicalism is a familiar feature of discussion of psychophysical relations. Token physicalism, or ontological physicalism, is the view that every token, or particular, in the spatiotemporal world is a physical particular. It is contrasted with type physicalism, or property physicalism -- the view that every first-order type, or property, instantiated in the spatiotemporal world is a physical property. Token physicalism is commonly viewed as a clear thesis, strictly weaker than property physicalism, strictly stronger than substance physicalism, and as a good statement on its own or in conjunction with other theses of minimal physicalism.[i] It is also generally simply assumed to be true, though Davidson has offered a famous argument for its truth, and some have argued against it. Many of those arguing against it are substance physicalists, indicating that they believe token physicalism to be a strictly stronger view.[ii] In this paper I argue that token physicalism is not a clear, univocal, thesis, and hence does not have any useful role to play in the philosophy of mind, such as in characterising minimal physicalism. In order to interpret and assess it, it is necessary to specify the notion of particular under consideration and what it is for such a particular to be physical. The kinds of particulars concerning which token physicalism has been debated are substances, objects, events, states, and processes. In this paper I take objects to be a special case of substances, and in the interest of greater generality I talk mainly of substances. I do not offer here any further characterisation of the notion of a substance or of the thesis of token physicalism for substances, which I refer to as substance physicalism, but have done so elsewhere.[iii] This paper is concerned, rather, with what other token physicalism theses there might be. To this end I focus on events, which I take to be spatiotemporal particulars, i.e... |
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