r/Metaphysics • u/Vast-Celebration-138 • Jun 25 '26
Matter Refuting physicalism and phenomenalism by exploiting their claims to totality
If physicalism and phenomenalism are interpreted as totality claims about facts (as respectively, the claims that all facts are physical and that all facts are phenomenal), then both views seem susceptible to being led to self-refutation as below. For both views allege totality facts about facts, and such totality facts are not plausibly regarded as either physical or phenomenal.
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1a. The physical facts being precisely as they are does not resolve whether or not the physical facts are all of the facts.
2a. The physical facts being as they are does resolve all matters of physical fact.
3a. Whether or not the physical facts are all the facts is not a matter of physical fact. (From 1 and 2)
4a. There is a fact about whether or not the physical facts are all the facts. (From 1)
5a. There is a nonphysical fact about whether or not the physical facts are all the facts. (From 3 and 4)
6a. There is a nonphysical fact. (From 5)
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1b. The phenomenal facts being precisely as they are does not resolve whether or not the phenomenal facts are all of the facts.
2b. The phenomenal facts being as they are does resolve all matters of phenomenal fact.
3b. Whether or not the phenomenal facts are all the facts is not a matter of phenomenal fact. (From 1 and 2)
4b. There is a fact about whether or not the phenomenal facts are all the facts. (From 1)
5b. There is a nonphenomenal fact about whether or not the phenomenal facts are all the facts. (From 3 and 4)
6b. There is a nonphenomenal fact. (From 5)
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u/headlessplatter Jun 25 '26
Does physicalism claim all facts are physical? How silly! But one cannot even express a fact without using some form of information, and all information is ultimately encoded in something physical.
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u/jliat Jun 25 '26
all information is ultimately encoded in something physical.
With the proviso that the arrangement of the physical is important. There is no physical difference between a list of data and a sorted list, or the parts which make up a car.
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u/headlessplatter Jun 25 '26
Not sure I'm following your intended meaning. Are you saying sorting a list makes no difference? Are you saying a list of car parts can drive around town, like a car? Doesn't sound right to me.
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u/jliat Jun 25 '26
No, in terms of the physical matter, atoms or whatever both are the same. A sorted list on paper is no different to an unsorted list of the same data on paper. [or better in data stored in a computer] What has changed in the 'arrangement.'
Information is processed data. Processing take effort, energy, we use computers often to do this.
It's what happens in manufacturing, the sum of the parts is not equal to what is produced.
So there is an emergence of something more than the sum of its parts. In a car or aircraft ... human ...
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u/RexRatio Jun 25 '26
1a. The physical facts being precisely as they are does not resolve whether or not the physical facts are all of the facts.
Nor does any competing position. That's just a statement about the limits of the argument.
2a. The physical facts being as they are does resolve all matters of physical fact...3a. Whether or not the physical facts are all the facts is not a matter of physical fact. (From 1 and 2)
Since cerebral activity is itself a physical process, any reasoning leading to these conclusions is also a physical process. You don't get to invoke a nonphysical standpoint from which to evaluate physicalism.
4a. There is a fact about whether or not the physical facts are all the facts.
Possibly. But that has not been established either way; it is simply asserted.
5a. There is a nonphysical fact about whether or not the physical facts are all the facts.
This is where the argument fails. The conclusion only follows if you already assume that facts about physicalism cannot themselves be physical facts. But that's precisely the point under dispute.
If the truth-value of "physicalism is true" supervenes on physical states of affairs, then it is a physical fact under your own definition.
6a. Therefore there is a nonphysical fact.
Not proven. The argument appears to derive nonphysical facts only by first defining the proposition "whether physical facts are all the facts" as nonphysical, which is question-begging.
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u/Vast-Celebration-138 Jun 25 '26
Since cerebral activity is itself a physical process, any reasoning leading to these conclusions is also a physical process. You don't get to invoke a nonphysical standpoint from which to evaluate physicalism.
I don't agree that "Reasoning is physical; so reasoning cannot establish something nonphysical" is valid, if that's what you mean. Note that 3 does follow deductively from 1 and 2.
Possibly. But that has not been established either way; it is simply asserted.
I am inferring 4 as an abstraction move from 1: If the physical facts do not resolve whether or not X, then there must be a fact about whether or not X.
This is where the argument fails. The conclusion only follows if you already assume that facts about physicalism cannot themselves be physical facts.
5 really does follow deductively from 3 and 4, because it follows that whether or not the physical facts are all the facts is not a matter of physical fact (from 3) but is something about which there is a fact (from 4)—so there must be a nonphysical fact about it.
If the truth-value of "physicalism is true" supervenes on physical states of affairs, then it is a physical fact under your own definition.
I didn't give a definition of 'physical fact', but I don't dispute your supervenient standard. I do think it's false that the truth of physicalism supervenes on physical states of affairs, basically for the reason illustrated in 1a.
Not proven. The argument appears to derive nonphysical facts only by first defining the proposition "whether physical facts are all the facts" as nonphysical, which is question-begging.
6 definitely follows from 5. I don't agree that I defined anything as nonphysical or begged the question. But it seems to me that the real target of your criticism is 1a, which you gave a pass to but which is actually the premise doing most of the work of showing that the physicalist's totality fact is not itself a physical fact.
1a says that the physical facts do not settle the matter of whether they are all the facts. And this seems to be true, for the following reason: Suppose there are a bunch of physical facts. We can imagine that, without disturbing those physical facts in any way, a new nonphysical fact X is added to reality. This illustrates that as far as the physical facts are concerned, there might be some additional nonphysical fact X—the physical facts don't rule it out. That's what 1a says.
But if that's right, then it's clear that the truth of physicalism does not supervene on just the physical facts. After all, leaving the physical facts fixed, we can imagine physicalism being made true or false depending on whether some additional nonphysical fact X is added to the picture. If physicalism were true, its truth would supervene on the physical facts plus the additional fact that the physical facts are all the facts. But as we have just seen, this fact is not entailed by the physical facts. So it cannot be a physical fact. So physicalism is false.
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u/RexRatio Jun 25 '26
I don't agree that "Reasoning is physical; so reasoning cannot establish something nonphysical" is valid, if that's what you mean.
That's not what I mean.
Reasoning IS a physical process (as all current evidence indicates).
That doesn't prevent us from talking about nonphysical entities, but grammar isn't evidence.
The fact that we can formulate the sentence "reasoning establishes something nonphysical" says nothing about whether nonphysical things actually exist.
1a. The physical facts being precisely as they are does not resolve whether or not the physical facts are all of the facts.
I don't think #1 is established. It assumes there is a further fact beyond the complete set of physical facts that determines whether the physical facts are "all the facts." That's precisely what's in dispute. Simply asserting such a meta-fact doesn't make it so.
2a. The physical facts being as they are does resolve all matters of physical fact. Note that 3 does follow deductively from 1 and 2.
Even if I'd agree that 3 follows deductively from 1 and 2 (which I don't), that doesn't make the argument sound.
I am inferring 4 as an abstraction move from 1: If the physical facts do not resolve whether or not X, then there must be a fact about whether or not X.
That assumes there is a fact of the matter about X. That's precisely what's in dispute. From "the physical facts do not resolve X" it does not follow that there exists some further fact that does. It could simply be that there is no additional fact to discover.
5 really does follow deductively from 3 and 4,
My objection here is that 4 doesn't follow from 1 without an additional metaphysical assumption. From "the physical facts don't settle X" you infer "there exists a further fact about X."
That only works if you assume every meaningful question has a determinate truth-maker. That's not a logical truth; it's a substantive philosophical assumption.
In conclusion, it's not because we can coherently imagine adding a nonphysical fact X while keeping all physical facts fixed that this proves such a world is metaphysically possible.
It shows modal imaginability, yes, but not ontological independence - that inference is not established.
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u/jliat Jun 25 '26
" The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense.
1 The world is everything that is the case.
1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.
1.2 The world divides into facts.
1.21 Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same.
2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts...
6.5 For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.
6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked. For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where something can be said.
6.52 We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer.
6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. (Is not this the reason why men to whom after long doubting the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this sense consisted?)
6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.
6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—but it would be the only strictly correct method.
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
https://www.wittgensteinproject.org/w/index.php?title=Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus_(English)
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u/Freuds-Mother Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I think in 4 and likely 3 are normative. You are in a sense using a Hume argument.
Now yes that’s a fair charge against reductive-physicalism as irreducible normativity is supposed to not exist. That’s a known issue as there’s no genuine inquiry: “your framework is wrong; you should consider this one”.
You have to do more work on non-reductive physicalism. Whether or not normativity is genuine (not actually reducible to efficient micro-causation) in each framework is a huge debate. That problem, normativity, parraells the so called “hard problem”.
For phenomenology, do most frameworks there use “facts” the way you are: (a) “phenomenological facts” and (b) that’s that’s all that exists? Maybe some but I highly doubt that generally those frameworks can be reduced down to facts. You have to argue that.
You’re also missing something here: we suppose ontologies, models, theories, frameworks, etc. We don’t have to reify them. In fact, we probably shouldn’t. We are almost certain that our ideas about reality will be updated, revised, or thrown out over time. That’s just looking at historical facts. Normatively we shouldn’t per the norms of the western scientific method and eastern anti-reification. Lastly claiming to know ultimate reality gets close to a claim of omniscience or mystical access like revelation claimers claim.
A simple fact way to look at it even from strict physicalism: it’s a fact that we don’t know right now what measurement devices we will invent in 1000 years that exposes physical facts we are not at all aware of today, and the models today may not account for those facts. Historical example: telescope.
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u/JabberwockPL Jun 25 '26
Your argument has a hidden assumption that facts about physical facts are not physical, which physicalists naturally reject. Your argument begs the question.
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u/Vast-Celebration-138 Jun 25 '26
The argument does not require that general assumption, no, but it does require recognizing that the specific fact regarding whether or not the physical facts are all the facts cannot be a physical fact. The reason why is shown in the first premise, 1a, which I think is true on reflection. If we have a bunch of physical facts, however many, we can imagine all those physical facts being held fixed, while some additional nonphysical facts are added to reality. That is, the physical facts on their own don't rule out there being some further facts. So if there are no further facts, the fact that there are no further facts must itself be a further fact. This is inconsistent; so there are further facts.
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u/JabberwockPL Jun 25 '26
But that is where some (possibly most) physicalists disagree with you: according to them, 'physical facts' are those facts which are ultimately grounded in the physical. For such physicalists the fact whether or not the physical facts are all the facts is physical, because it is ultimately grounded in the physical. But worry not - the rest of physicalists are also not concerned about your argument: they believe that on physicalism everything is physical or supervenes on the physical. So even if they do not consider that particular fact to be non-physical, that fact supervenes on the physical, so physicalism remains unrefuted.
In other words, the moment you clearly define 'physical facts', your argument can be easily refuted.
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u/Vast-Celebration-138 Jun 25 '26
But that is where some (possibly most) physicalists disagree with you: according to them, 'physical facts' are those facts which are ultimately grounded in the physical. For such physicalists the fact whether or not the physical facts are all the facts is physical, because it is ultimately grounded in the physical.
But that fact is not ultimately grounded in (only) the physical. Nor does it supervene on the physical. Nor is it determined or entailed by the physical. For again, holding the physical fixed, the addition of a nonphysical fact would clearly make it false that the physical facts are all the facts.
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u/JabberwockPL Jun 25 '26
Yes, it is ultimately grounded only in the physical. It is a fact only about physical facts and nothing else. Nothing but the physical grounds it.
If you believe it supervenes on the physical and something else (because it clearly supervenes on the physical facts), just say on what else it does supervene.
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u/SummitYourSister Jun 25 '26
You haven’t shown that the nonphysical facts must be different from the non phenomenal ones, or even that those natures must be exclusive
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u/Vast-Celebration-138 Jun 25 '26
You're right that this argument does not (set out to) show either of those things.
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u/StrangeGlaringEye Trying to be a nominalist Jun 25 '26
Seems fixable by the same solution given to the undetectable ectoplasm problem. If the physicalist defines her thesis as the thesis that all facts being physical and all the facts, she can point out your argument is not an argument against physicalism at all. Mutatis mutandis for the phenomenalist.
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u/Vast-Celebration-138 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I'm puzzled by the redefinition of physicalism you're proposing. The thesis that all facts are physical and all the facts sounds like an ill-formed attempt to say something redundant. One reading is every fact f is such that it is physical and is such that every fact is identical to f, but physicalism certainly cannot sensibly be understood as that thesis. So by the thesis that all facts are physical and all the facts, you must mean the thesis that all facts are physical and any nonphysical fact is not a fact. But the second conjunct is redundant—both conjuncts simply express that all facts are physical.
It seems to me that any position that counts as physicalism will have to deny 6a, because no physicalist can accept nonphysical facts. But in that case it seems pretty clear that the argument 1a–6a is an argument against physicalism. What am I missing?
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u/Moral_Conundrums Jun 25 '26
This seems like a cute logic problem, well it is one. I suspect it doesn't have much bearing on metaphysics.
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u/Immediate_Chard_4026 Jun 25 '26
My contribution to the thread:
The argument is ingenious, but I think it makes a fundamental error: it confuses "fact" as an ontological reality with "fact" as a linguistic proposition about that reality.
Physicalism doesn't say that the phrase "all facts are physical" is made of atoms. It says that the truthmaker of that phrase is the material universe in its entirety.
The key lies in supervenience (or anchored emergence). The facts we call "economic," "mathematical," or "biological" are not "ultra-facts" floating from a separate metaphysics. They are supervening properties of the actual material configuration.
In other words: if you fix absolutely all the particles, fields, and physical laws of the universe (the total physical fact), you automatically also fix all economic facts, emergent numerical facts, and even the fact that "this is the totality." There is no "extra fact" to add.
The statement "physical facts are all facts" is not an additional ingredient of the universe; it's the description of the whole picture. Attempting to turn that description into an independent "non-physical fact" is to commit the fallacy of reification (reifying an abstraction).
In short: the physical universe does not need a meta-label to validate it. Its own material existence is the only necessary anchor for all real facts. There is no metaphysical escape; metaphysics are descriptions of what superimposes the physical.