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Article: Physicalism, Reductive and Nonreductive
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Science and Religion
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Physicalism, Reductive and Nonreductive
Physicalism is a doctrine that asserts that ultimately only physical particulars exist. While physicalism and materialism are sometimes considered equivalent, the former is more ontologically open, for while materialism claims that everything is composed of matter, physicalism holds that everything is comprised ultimately of those entities assumed in the basic statements of fundamental physical theory (fields, particles, strings, or whatever). The thesis that only these physical entities exist is often termed
ontological physicalism.
While ontological physicalism is often presupposed in the philosophical discussion, controversy arises about ...