The Hope and Horror of Physicalism

This book assesses the existentially relevant consequences of physicalism. It argues that accepting physicalism is the the healthiest stance we can take in the face of an account of the self and world which offers no metaphysical assurances.

Autorentext

Christopher Devlin Brown is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China. He has publications on physicalism and consciousness in journals such as Analysis, Synthese, Erkenntnis, Journal of Consciousness Studies and elsewhere. In his free time, he enjoys playing abrasive noise music.

Inhalt

Introduction Part 1: The hope and the horror 1. Historical preliminaries 2. Two notions of the physical 3. Free will 4. God 5. Immortal soul 6. Ultimate purpose 7. Karma 8. Epicurean freedom and scientific imperialism Part 2: Confronting the horror 9. Anti-Anti-Natalism 10. Mental health and physicalism 11. Mechanistic forces of darkness, the self, and rationality Part 3: The mental and the physical 12. The Hard Problem of Consciousness 13. Mental Causation: Causal Closure of the Physical and the Exclusion Problem 14. Multiple Realizability 15. Conclusion