In this thesis I explore and defend physicalism—the view that there is ‘nothing over and above’ the physical. Part of the challenge for physicalists is to make this slogan precise. They should provide a plausible account of the relation that everything must stand in to the physical in order for nothing to be ‘over and above’ it, as well as a reasonable characterization of ‘the physical’ itself. I elaborate and defend a common physicalist understanding of the ‘nothing over and above’ relation in terms of ‘global metaphysical supervenience,’ and introduce a novel strategy for characterizing the physical that sidesteps the most powerful objection to a ‘future physics’ definition of the physical—what Jessica Wilson (2006) has dubbed ‘the inappropriate extension worry.’ I then explore and respond to David Chalmers’ (1996) ‘zombie argument’ against physicalism, and Ned Block’s (2007) ‘overflow’ argument against the physicalist view of consciousness which I favour.

I defend physicalism about phenomenal consciousness against recent epistemic arguments for dualism. First I argue (as against Kripke) that psychophysical identities can be a posteriori (and apparently contingent, and conceivably false). Their epistemic status is due to the analytic independence of phenomenal and physical-functional terms. Unlike Kripke's own explanation of a posteriori necessity, analytic independence is consistent with - indeed explained by - the direct reference of phenomenal terms, so Kripke's argument against psychophysical identities fails. I then argue (as against White and Chalmers) that direct reference does not itself make identities a priori. Next I endorse the 'a priori entailment thesis': if physicalism is true, phenomenal truths follow a priori from a complete statement of the facts of physics. I argue that physicalists must accept a priori entailment if we are to avoid brute or 'strong' a posteriori necessities. I show that a priori entailment is consistent with analytic independence, and so make room for what Chalmers calls 'type-C' physicalism. Jackson's 'Mary', who knows all the physical facts, would be able to deduce the physical-functional reference of phenomenal terms, and so the truth of psychophysical identities, without appealing to analytic connections. The 'knowledge' argument for dualism therefore fails. The lack of such connections does, however, help explain why Mary's deduction seems intuitively impossible. A priori entailment makes zombie scenarios inconceivable, so Chalmers's 'conceivability' argument fails. It also closes Levine's 'explanatory gap' between physical and phenomenal truths. Though it may not satisfy all demands for explanation, any remainder poses no threat to physicalism. I then defend type-C physicalism against some recent objections to the 'phenomenal-concept strategy'. I close by observing that while the view I defend can rebut epistemic arguments for dualism, it leaves the question of whether consciousness has a physical basis as a matter for empirical investigation.

Jakub Mihálik: Consciousness in Nature. A Russellian Approach Abstract: This thesis attempts to provide a philosophical answer to the question of how phenomenal consciousness, or experience, can exist in the physical world, i.e. in the world as it is described by science. The thesis has three parts: In the first part (chapter 1) I explicate the concept of phenomenal consciousness and contrast it with other concepts of consciousness common in the literature. Moreover, I suggest that the project pursued in this thesis can be naturally viewed as a part of the more general project of trying to find a stereoscopic view of man, taken by Wilfrid Sellars to be a crucial task for contemporary philosophy. In the second part of the thesis (chapters 2 to 4) I offer a detailed evaluation of the attempts at a materialist reduction of consciousness. While in chapter 2 I explore and critique the approach of apriori physicalism (Dennett, Lewis, Rey, etc.), in chapters 3 and 4, I focus on the more recent doctrine of a posteriori physicalism and especially its most prominent variety called the phenomenal concept strategy (Loar, Papineau, Levin, Schroer, etc.). One problem with a posteriori physicalism is that, as Nida-Rümelin, Goff and others argue, the view cannot make sense of the plausible thesis that our phenomenal...