Three Strategies for Physicalism: toward an Anti-Representational Account of Mind
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: One of the major challenges physicalists face is explaining the mind. Physicalists must show how the mind can be located within a purely physical world, which requires that psychological sentences be entailed by physical sentences. I summarize three lines of argument showing that the entailment relation cannot be satisfied. These arguments share a common assumption: that psychological sentences are representational. There are two alternative approaches. The first holds that psychological sentences are only indirectly representational; the second claims that they are not representational at all. In this paper, I argue that the first approach still faces a hidden entailment problem that is difficult to resolve, leaving the second approach as the only viable path. I then outline a defense of this non-representational view. The broader lesson is that physicalists should not seek to explain the mind or solve its location problem but rather to dissolve the problem altogether.
Author: Rusong Huang
Institution: University of Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7223336324