Why is type-type physicalism so focused on the identifying mental states with brain states?

Of course the brain states will be part of the picture, but if one of the many kinds of externalism or disjunctivism is correct, the bounds of the mental will extend far beyond the bounds of the brain.

And this shouldn’t be scary or worrying for physicalism, because physics is most likely blind to the boundaries of human bodies. If say, knowing that p has different causal efficacy than mere believing that p, then we should expect that the underlying causal story is not going to be merely a story of impingements on and effects of the brain. The type-type physicalist project should be updated to include these insights.

L. Miracchi

I’ve been saying for a while that we (grad students in philosophy at Rutgers) should have a blog. So here it is. You should all by now have had an email giving you the username and password (ask me if not) so you can start posting at once!

Here’s what I think the blog might be used for:

• People might want to blog about half-formed philosophical ideas, which they want comments on.
• People giving grad talks might want to post abstracts in advance, to get everyone interested.
• We could use the blog to have follow-up discussions on grad talks, colloquia etc..
• People could post questions (“Which logic textbook is best?”, “Where can I find this paper?” and so on).
• Social events could be announced on the blog, as well as details of the successes of the departmental sports teams.
• People who run reading groups could post reminders and links to readings on the blog.

Tom