Abstract

Andrew Melnyk’s book is great news to both physicalists and anti-physicalists, as it is, to the best of my knowledge, the clearest, most comprehensive, and most systematic treatment of physicalism up to now. In this volume, a distinctively physicalist thesis is formulated and distinguished from both antiphysicalism and the physicalisms Melnyk finds less promising; some of the key commitments and consequences of this thesis are investigated; finally, its empirical standing is assessed by examining the actual evidence there is for and against it. Melnyk argues not merely for a research program, but for the truth of a genuinely empirical, contingent hypothesis which should be evaluated a posteriori. Moreover, he does not appeal to an imagined “completed” future physics but bases his defense of physicalism on the consensus of current physics.