Will Moorfoot

In this paper, I set out a new argument for the coherence of indeterministic building and defend its premises. The argument hinges on the underexplored notion of indeterministic supervenience. First, I argue that the logical possibility of an indeterministic supervenience relation entails the coherence of indeterministic building. Second, I argue that indeterministic supervenience is indeed logically possible. I conclude that there is a straightforward argument for the coherence of indeterministic building that has so far gone unnoticed.

Ground physicalism is the view that higher-level properties, such as phenomenal and normative properties, are fully grounded in the fundamental physical properties. Like other non-identity physicalists, ground physicalists face the causal exclusion problem. In this paper, I introduce a new worry for the ground physicalist: the metaphysical exclusion problem. According to the metaphysical exclusion problem, there is something deeply problematic about certain properties having more than one full ground. Furthermore, the causal and metaphysical exclusion problems are shown to work together to create the strengthened exclusion problem, which is significantly more difficult to resist than the causal exclusion problem alone. I then set out a solution to the strengthened exclusion problem that draws on the underexplored notion of indeterministic grounding. I conclude that the ability of indeterministic grounding to solve the strengthened exclusion problem provides us with a new reason to accept indeterministic ground physicalism.

In this paper, I argue for an often-neglected solution to the conceivability argument: the reconciliatory response. Its advocates state that, even if zombies are metaphysically possible, it does not follow that all versions of physicalism are false. To make the reconciliatory response, we must construct a theory that counts as a version of physicalism (because it makes higher-level facts count as physical) but also allows for the metaphysical possibility of zombies. Call any physicalist theory that can make the reconciliatory response type-R physicalism. In this paper, I discuss one version of type-R physicalism: stochastic ground physicalism (SGP). First, I argue that type-R physicalism, construed as SGP, offers physicalists an attractive rationalist package that no other version of physicalism can provide. Second, I address two concerns that have been underexplored in the literature. First, the charge that SGP is incoherent because it fails to provide metaphysical explanations. Second, the charge that type-R physicalism is not a genuine form of physicalism because the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical is a necessary condition for any formulation of physicalism. I argue that both concerns are ill-founded.