Antimaterialism about the Mind
A two-part argument that physicalism cannot survive qualia — and a tour of the most extreme antiphysicalist alternative: idealism.
The chapter in one breath
Westphal opens by skewering Jaegwon Kim's famous "physicalism is the truth near enough" line. Kim concedes that qualia — colors, sounds, smells, every "what it's like" — cannot be reduced or defined. Westphal: a worldview with infinitely many counterexamples cannot be "near enough" to true. It is simply false.
Three antimaterialist arguments are then promised. But before reaching them, Westphal first considers idealism: the radical view that nothing is physical at all. Idealism elegantly dissolves the mind–body problem by denying proposition (1) — that the body is physical. Phenomenalism (Berkeley, Hume) tries to make this work by translating physical-body talk into talk of experiences. The biggest problem: why do those experiences come in the sequences they do?
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Flashcards
35 flip cards across all six topic areas. Click the card to reveal. Filter by topic, shuffle the deck, or reset to start over.
Multiple-Choice Questions
20 exam-style questions covering Kim's argument, idealism, phenomenalism, and the interaction problem. Immediate feedback with explanations.