From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 05 2003 - 22:18:23 BST
David,
David said:
So what is physicalism when it is anti-reductionist?
Does anyone hold this view other than you?
Does Rorty talk about it anywhere?
Post quantum theory what is a non-reductionist physicalist?
I thought physicalsim depended on the ontological concept of matter.
Matt:
Pretend there are numbers in front of each of those lines.
1. When physicalism is anti-reductionist, it is a language game. It is simply a way of speaking. It makes no pretensions about how the way the world really is. It simply says some things about what works, about how it helps to think about things when trying to predict and control, say, chairs and rocks.
2. and 3. You know, flattery will get you no where with me (or everywhere, I keep forgetting which). I'm not so intelligent as to come up with non-reductionist physicalism. The genesis of the idea of non-reductive physicalism began in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature with Rorty's discussion of the Anitpodeans (don't have the book, can't remember where). It became an official, titled position with Rorty's essay, "Non-Reductive Physicalism" in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. I think it is safe to say that there are at least two avowed non-reductive physicalists: Rorty and Donald Davidson. The aforementioned paper is one of a series of essays in which Rorty draws out consequences of Davidson's work that Davidson either hasn't yet done or doesn't do for his own reasons. But, unlike some of Rorty's other interpretations of Davidson, I haven't read anything about Davidson not being comfortable with non-reductive physicalism, so I think it is safe to say that they agr
ee.
As for people other than me, Rorty, and Davidson, I'm sure there are a growing number of neopragmatists out there. I'm not positive, but I don't think non-reductive physicalism is one of his more controversial positions, so I imagine it is more congenial to his readers. But, I could be wrong. I haven't done any surveys.
4. I imagine that physicalism after quantum theory looks a lot like Newton after Einstein and then after Heisenberg. In other words, its fine for some things (like predicting the movement of a rock), but not for others (like predicting where an electron is going to land).
5. Nope. No position requires an ontological commitment unless you want it to. And if you want it to, then you are begging the question over me, just as I am to you.
Matt
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