[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

Larz,

Larz asked:
What's the definition of "physicalism"?

Scott:
Rorty defines a 'physicalist' as "someone who is prepared to say that every 
event can be described in micro-structural terms, a description which 
mentions only elementary particles, and can be explained be reference to 
other events of this type."

Wikipedia defines it thusly: "Physicalism is the metaphysical position 
(associated particularly with Quine) that everything is physical; that is, 
that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. Likewise, 
physicalism about the mental is a position in philosophy of mind which holds 
that the mind is a physical thing in some sense. This position is also 
called "materialism", but the term "physicalism" is preferable because it 
does not have any misleading ethical connotations, and because it carries an 
emphasis on the physical, meaning whatever is described ultimately by 
physics -- not just matter but energy and whatever else our best physical 
theories might talk about."

- Scott