A Physicalist Manifesto

This work is the fullest treatment yet of the comprehensive physicalist view that, in some important sense, everything is physical. Andrew Melnyk argues that the view is best formulated by appeal to a carefully worked-out notion of realization, rather than supervenience. According to Melnyk, physicalism must be importantly reductionist; it need not repudiate causal and explanatory claims framed in non-physical language; and it has the a posteriori epistemic status of a broad-scope scientific hypothesis. In the two concluding chapters he asserts in unprecedented detail that contemporary science provides no significant empirical evidence against physicalism and some considerable evidence for it. Written in an exceptionally clear style, this book will appeal to professionals and students in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of science.