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Physicalism UnBlocked

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2020

D. Gene Witmer [Opens in a new window]
D. Gene Witmer
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
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gwitmer@ufl.edu
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Abstract

What has become known as the blockers problem is an alleged difficulty facing attempts to formulate physicalism as a supervenience thesis. A blocker is an entity, itself contrary to physicalism, with the power to disrupt an otherwise necessary connection between physical and nonphysical conditions. I argue that there is no distinct blockers problem. Insofar as a problem can be identified, it turns out to be just a rather baroque version of a distinct and familiar objection to supervenience formulations and to be of no independent interest. Work on the formulation of physicalism can thus proceed without worrying about blockers.

Keywords

Blockers grounding metaphysics necessity physicalism supervenience
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 7 , October 2020 , pp. 890 - 904
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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