D. Gene Witmer

In his 'The Disorder of Things' John Dupré presents an objection to reductionism which I call the 'anti-essentialist objection': it is that reductionism requires essentialism, and essentialism is false. I unpack the objection and assess its cogency. Once the objection is clearly in view, it is likely to appeal to those who think conceptual analysis a bankrupt project. I offer on behalf of the reductionist two strategies for responding, one which seeks to rehabilitate conceptual analysis and one (more concessive) which avoids commitment to any such analysis

How should the “physical” in “physicalism” be understood? I here set out systematic criteria of adequacy, propose an account, and show how the account meets those criteria. The criteria of adequacy focus on the idea of rational management: to vindicate philosophical practice, the account must make it plausible that we can assess various questions about physicalism. The account on offer is dubbed the “Ideal Naturalist Physics” account, according to which the physical is that which appears in an ideal theory that both meets the explanatory goals of physics and is naturalist in a sense to be explained. The combination of these two provides a satisfying account of the physical that meets the criteria of adequacy and can be used to predict puzzle cases as well.

Charles Siewert has given us an ingenious thought experiment involving a limited lack of conscious experience. The possibility of the described case is incompatible with a number of popular theories of consciousness. Siewert acknowledges, however, that this possibility is not a direct threat to "hidden feature" theories. I aim to do two things: first, strengthen his defense of the claim that the case is genuinely possible by considering and rejecting some further attempts to explain away our temptation to believe it possible; and second, to explore how a hidden feature approach could be developed and made plausible