The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a guest lecture with Erica Shumener, Pittsburgh, "Physicalism as a Nomic Thesis".
Abstract:
If we were to learn that we live in a nonphysicalist universe, we would expect to be surrounded by some of the spooky usual suspects, such as ghosts, abstracta, fundamental qualia, or primitive normative facts. I argue that—given parallels between the physicalism debate and debates about laws of nature—we can abandon this expectation. There may be nonphysicalist universes containing neither fundamental nonphysical phenomena nor primitive nonphysical facts. I argue that such possibilities pose a problem for certain characterizations of physicalism. One solution is to develop an account of physicalism that treats the statement of physicalism as expressing a type of law itself.
All interested are welcome to participate in this seminar.
