Organon F

Volume 28, November 2021, Issue 4, Pages 867–895

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one—viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory—is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. The purpose of this essay is to argue that attempts to characterize the mental encounter a similar dilemma: currentism with respect to the mental is likely to be inadequate or contain falsehoods and futurism leaves too many significant questions about the nature of mentality unanswered. This new dilemma, we show, threatens both sides of the current debate surrounding the metaphysical status of the mind.

Consciousness; materialism; mental; metaphysics; mind; physical; physicalism; reduction; theory.

Author

Guy Dove

Affiliation

University of Louisville

Address

Department of Philosophy, University of Louisville, 313 Bingham Humanities Building, Louisville, Kentucky 40292 USA

E-mail

guy.dove@louisville.edu 

Author

Andreas Elpidorou

Affiliation

University of Louisville

Address

Department of Philosophy, University of Louisville, 313 Bingham Humanities Building, Louisville, Kentucky 40292 USA

E-mail

andreas.elpidorou@louisville.edu 

Received

24 April 2019

Revised

8 June 2020

Accepted

28 September 2020

Published online

10 March 2020

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Dove, G. – Elpidorou, A. (2021). A Dilemma about the Mental. Organon F, 28(4), 867–895. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28406

Chicago

Dove, Guy – Elpidorou, Andreas. 2021. "A Dilemma about the Mental." Organon F 28 (4): 867–895. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28406

Harvard

Dove, G. – Elpidorou, A. (2021). A Dilemma about the Mental. Organon F, 28(4), pp. 867–895. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28406

© Guy Dove – Andreas Elpidorou

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