Physicalism and Its Discontents

Physicalism is the philosophical view that everything in the space-time world is ultimately physical. This collection of new essays offers a series of state-of-the-art perspectives on this important doctrine and brings new depth and breadth to the philosophical debate. A group of distinguished philosophers comprising both physicalists and their critics consider a wide range of issues including the historical genesis and present justification of physicalism its metaphysical presuppositions and methodological role its implications for mental causation and the account it provides of consciousness.