[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

DMB,

DMB said:
Gents, it seems to me that you still haven't even yet agreed on what it
means to be a physicalist or an essentialist. Working with serveral
definitions at once makes it tough to follow, you know? I mean, is a
physicalist one who believes all of reality can be explained in
microstructural terms or is she merely one who is willing to say that
science works and sometimes we should use it? Huge difference?

Scott:
Umm, what do you think these posts are about? Yes, we have not agreed, and 
therefore these are precisely the questions we are trying to work out. Matt 
is arguing for the "willing to say that science works" definition and me for 
the "all of reality can be explained in microstructural terms" definition. 
Our respective views about consciousness are just there to provide data for 
the arguments over the usefulness of the word 'physicalist'.  I am arguing 
that my definition of "physicalist" serves to distinguish between Matt's 
view of consciousness and mine -- his is physicalist and mine is not. If you 
don't like either view of consciousness, ignore them (though, as usual, you 
have misread my view, and I think Matt's too, but let him worry about that. 
I said "rocks are, maybe, comparable to a letter of an alphabet of a grammar 
used in some non-human language game...". You said "Rocks playing language 
games?" Well, I don't think that the letter 'a' is playing a language game, 
so I wouldn't say that a rock is playing a language game. But, yes, I 
maintain that our relation to physical reality is better thought of in 
semiotic terms than in subject/object terms. So I guess I should have said 
'human/non-human' language game, not just 'non-human'.)

DMB continued:
The second
kind of physicalist hasn't even entered a metaphysical conversation and her
assertions should be greated with an enthusiastic yawn.

Scott:
Right, which is why Matt would like to see the word 'physicalist' disappear 
from philosophical conversation.

DMB continued:
 The first is the
worst kind of nihilist, essentialist and reductionist, no?

Scott:
Not if one accepts Rorty's (or is it Davidson's) distinction between 
reductionist and nonreductionist physicalists. This, though, means that the 
word "explained" in the definition should be replaced. That's why I used the 
word 'component': so rather than saying every event is explainable in 
physical terms, to say that every event has a physical component. Hence the 
nonreductionist physicalist might say that there is no consciousness without 
a brain, but would not say that it is possible or necessary to reduce 
consciousness talk to neural event talk.

- Scott