What physicalism could be

Abstract

The physicalist credo is that the world is physical. But some phenomena, such as minds, morals, and mathematics, appear to be nonphysical. While an uncompromising physicalism would reject these, a conciliatory physicalism need not if it can account for them in terms of an underlying physical basis. Any such account must refer to the nonphysical. But will not this unavoidable reference to the nonphysical conflict with the physicalist credo? This essay aims to clarify this problem and introduce a novel solution that relies on a distinction between “circumstantial” facts that are based in the circumstances and “acircumstantial” facts that are not. This is used in two ways. First, physicalism is restricted to circumstantial facts: Only they must have a physical basis that does not refer to the nonphysical. Second, facts accounting for the nonphysical are not restricted to the circumstantial: They may refer to the nonphysical if they are acircumstantial. Facts about how the physical accounts for the nonphysical therefore do not conflict with the physicalist's credo. This provides a credible answer to what physicalism could be.