
R. RESTREPO
ceptual apparatus” (2002: p. 41). Since conscious properties of
the world can be identified in this way, there is no problem with
them being physical and causal. The apparent gap is merely a
conceptual one because we can refer to everything going on
when a bat has experiences characteristic of echolocation and in
experiences of seeing red with physical concepts; it is just that
experiences can be referred to with mental concepts also. In one
stroke Papineau provides solutions to Kim’s (2005) two “world-
knots” about the mind-body: how conscious properties can be
accommodated within a purely physical world and how mental
properties can be causal. To put it in terms of Jackson’s formula,
Papineau’s (2002) physicalism is the thesis that any minimal
duplicate of the non-mentally-and-non-biologically identifiable
entities of our world is a duplicate simpliciter.
The problem with this thesis is that it fails to differentiate the
metaphysics of physicalism from the metaphysics of relevant
contenders. If our world is a world containing anti-physical
entities, our world would be, by the standards of the considered
conception of physicalism, a physicalist world.
Were platonic entities to exist, they would exist outside space
and time (Balaguer, 2009). These objects are taken to exist even
if the physical world did not, and are non-physical if anything
could be. A world where platonic entities exist, is a world where
anti-physical entities exist. Consider the platonic number 5. It
can be identified without specifically mental or biological con-
cepts. In fact, 5 is not a specifically mental or biological con-
cept. Alternatively, it can be identified as the result of 3 plus 2,
for example. Notice that there is a sense in which the concept of
the number 5 is mental, just like the concept of an electron; but
5 and electrons are not mental concepts in the sense relevant
here. Mental concepts here are solely those concepts which
operate in psychological terms, like belief, sight, and under-
standing. Because platonic numbers can be identified non-
mentally-and-non-biologically, Papineau would say that there is
a minimal physical duplicate of a world, which would have
platonic entities. Were platonic entities to exist in our world,
Papineau would have to say that physicalism is still tru e.
Secondly, emergent mental and vital properties are anti-
physical properties constituting an alternative metaphysics to
physicalism (McLaughlin, 1992). Papineau describes them as
constituting “non-physical causes of motion” (Papineau, 2002:
p. 25). One way of identifying emergent mental properties is as
a species of causes which are “not the vectorial ‘resultants’ of
basic physical forces like gravity and impact, but which ‘emerged’
when matter arranged itself in special ways” (Papineau, 2002: p.
252). But now notice that this way of identifying emergent
mental and vital properties does not make use of specifically
mental concepts; so by Papineau’s standards they would be
bona fide physical properties of the world, and there is a mini-
mal physical duplicate of a world which would contain them.
As Papineau (2002) agrees however, physicalism, a thesis he
endorses, is supposed to be incompatible with emergentism, a
thesis he rejects.
Thirdly, consider the possibility that angels exist. Suppose
that people, whilst alive, are completely identifiable as the re-
sult of certain aggregations of molecules. What happens to
people when they physically die is that they become angels, no
longer coincident with such aggregations of molecules, but
nevertheless up to all sorts of things between Heaven, Hell, and
Earth. Then, those angels can be identified non-mentally-and-
non-biologically as the continuants of the results of certain
aggregations of molecules. This non-mental-and-non-biological
identification opens the possibility, by the applied standards,
for angels to be physical, resulting in the thesis that the exis-
tence of angels is compatible with physicalism, and that there is
a minimal physical duplicate of a world containing angels. But
as everyone knows, if physicalism is a significant metaphysical
thesis, it is incompatible with the existence of angels (Chalmers,
1996).
Fourthly, suppose for a moment that Cartesian souls exist.
The Cartesian soul is an entity outside of space which is intrin-
sically ungoverned by the laws of physics and which interacts
causally with certain physical particles (coincident with the
pineal gland).1 Then, the Cartesian soul is non-mentally-
and-non-biologically identifiable as one of the things that in-
teract causally with certain physical particles. Consequently,
by Papineau’s standards, Cartesian souls would be physical if
they existed, and any minimal physical duplicate of that world
would have to contain Cartesian souls in order to be a duplicate
simpliciter. But Cartesian dualism is precisely a core meta-
physical position against which physicalism is defined in the
relevant debate. It should never be the case that a completely
physical world contains Cartesian souls.
Lastly, suppose God sparked the natural universe into exis-
tence 15 billion years ago wi th the Big Bang. The n God would
be non-mentally-and-non-biologically identifiable as the thing
that created the natural world 15 billion years ago. Again, by
Papineau’s standards, God would be physical, and a minimal
physical duplicate of a theist world w ou l d c o nta i n G o d, wh i c h i s
false (Chalmers, 1996).
No minimal physical duplicate of a world could contain pla-
tonic entities, emergent mental and biological properties, angels,
Cartesian souls, or God. If our world contained such things,
physicalism would be false. But Papineau’s theory would fail to
make this judgment. Papineau’s theory of physicalism wrongly
implies that even if platonic entities, emergent mental and bio-
logical properties, angels, Cartesian souls, and God existed in
our world, physicalism would be true.
A possible reply argues that the mentioned anti -physical things
do not exist, and consequently that no identification of them is
truly successful because our concepts of these things do not
pick anything out. So these things are not identifiable in the
first place and are therefore not non-mentally-and-non-bio-
logically identifiable, not physical, and not compatible with
physicalism. Things that do exist, however, are identifiable non-
mentally-and-non-biologically.
This idea, however, gets matters confused. The concept of
the physical plays a distinctively important role in physicalist
theory, a theory whose success can be measured by how it in-
teracts with relevant contenders. The concept of the physical is
what gives physicalist doctrine its distinctive ontology. If the
conception of the physical advocated is one that applies to
relevant, possible anti-physical things, even if they do not actu-
1As with platonism, I mean to eschew debate here about Descartes’, as well
as Plato’s,historically accurate metaphysical views. There is debate about
whether these philoso phers corres
ondingly held what goes by the name o
“Cartesian dualism” and “platonism”. For example, Yablo (1990)argues
that Descartes’ relevant conclusions never go beyond asserting non-identity,
and this claim is insufficient for the rejection of physicalism, since someone
who argues that an aggregate of particles at a particular time constitutes but
is not identical with the statue with which it coincides at that time is not
committed to the rejection of physicalism. For a modern version of this
approach see Pereboom (2002), for example. Rather, I mean to refer to the
respective theories “Cartesian dualism” and “Platonism” are typically used
to refer to and which I otherwise specify.
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