Physicalist, as opposed to dualist, accounts of human nature have become widely accepted. However, reductionism is generally emphatically rejected in favor of non-reductionist versions of physicalism. Defending a "Christian materialism," Arthur Peacocke asserted, "believers, affirming as they do the reality, dignity, and value of the human mind, are opposed to reductionism." Non-reductive physicalism is often perceived as avoiding the difficulties for traditional views of human nature posed by the reduction of the mental to the physical. For instance, Nancey Murphy seeks in non-reductive physicalism a strategy for safeguarding libertarian freedom without denying that we are material beings. This essay presents reasons to doubt that the advent of non-reductive versions of physicalism renders it innocuous. I survey popular objections to reductionist physicalism: that it denies the reality of the mind, that it offers a simplistic account of human nature, that it regards the mind as "merely the sum of its parts," that it engages in facile "nothing-buttery," and that it seeks to "explain away" what needs to be explained, and conclude that insofar as these express reasonable objections, they apply to all varieties of physicalism, whether reductionist or non-reductionist. Turning to the technical criticisms of reductionism that led to its being abandoned among philosophers, viz. the multiple realizability of mental kinds and the unavailability of bridge laws, I point out that while these difficulties beset classical, linguiform reductionism and the type-type reductions it advocated, they do not undermine the token identity of mental and physical particulars. Yet it is the token-identity of mind and brain, irrespective of any type-identities, that poses profound problems for our traditional self-conception. Further, the difficulties that a generation ago led to the demise of classical reductionism have little applicability to contemporary "new wave" reductionism. I conclude that non-reductive physicalism does nothing to blunt the challenge that physicalism poses to our self-image.
Donald H. Wacome
Northwestern College
Orange City, Iowa