Abstract

Physicalist Theories as Science and Physicalist Theories as Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Portosa Stevens

Physicists and philosophers sometimes claim that all of the phenomena of the universe, as in "theories of everything" are or should be explainable in terms of the elementary constituents of matter or elementary particles; I seek to show that physicalist theories that attempt to reduce "higher order" phenomena in chemistry, bio-chemistry, biology, and the neuroscience of mind, brain, and consciousness to explanations involving elementary particles are either untestable or not empirically valid; moreover, I seek to show that there are successful cases of reduction in science, such as in chemistry, bio-chemistry, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology including Darwinism, that do not necessarily involve or imply "physicalism" or the tenets of physicalist theories; I also seek to show that physicalist theories undermine and do not address the empirical and theoretical content of successful discoveries and theories at different levels of reality, and within and across different branches of science.