Examples Of The Inductive Argument For Physicalism

Physicalism is true. Physicalism claims that everything is physical, and that everything can be exhaustively described and explained by physics. Physicalism implied that it is possible to describe and explain every feature of, for example, a human being and every type of behavior a human engages in using only the conceptual resources of physics. An argument for physicalism derives from the success of scientific endeavor. The inductive argument for physicalism is as follows:

(1) If nonphysical explanations have always failed and been replaced by physical explanations that succeeded, then we have good reason to think that nonphysical explanations will always fail, and physical explanations will always succeed.

(2) We have good reason to think

that nothing is nonphysical and that on the contrary everything is physical – that everything can be physically described and explained.
Therefore, we have good reason to think that physicalism is true.
An inductive generalization claims that every case observed so far has feature F, so thus gives us good reason to think that all cases have feature F. This argument for physicalism is merely inductive. Its premises give us some reason to think that physicalism is true – a characteristic of all inductive arguments – but those reasons are not decisive. Even if the premises of the argument are true, its conclusion could still be false. For example, at one time, Europeans argued inductively as follows: All swans observed so far are white; therefore, all swans are white. This is an instance of an inductive argument with a true premise but a false conclusion. Although the observation of so many white swans provided some reason to think all swans were white, these reasons were not decisive, and the discovery of black swans in Australia showed that the conclusion was false.
Premise (1) states that in the past nonphysical explanations have always failed and been replaced by physical explanations that succeeded.

There are many examples in the history of science that support this premise. For instance, nonphysical explanations of magnetism, where at one time, people tried to explain then phenomenon of magnetism by appeal to the presence of nonphysical spirits which they claimed inhabited magnetized rocks or pieces of metal. This explanation turned out to be false, and was replaced by a physical explanation in terms of electromagnetic force. Likewise, nonphysical explanations of planetary motion tried to clarify the movements of the planets by appeal t nonphysical intelligences that were responsible for producing the orbital movements of the planets. This explanation also turned out to be false, and was replaced by a physical explanation in terms of the curvature of spacetime: the planets move in orbit because spacetime is warped by massive objects such as the Sun. In both of these cases, people tried to explain something by appeal to nonphysical entities, but in each of these cases the nonphysical explanations were falsified and replaced by physical ones. Since these cases have always been the norm in the past, physicalists say that we have every reason to expect they will remain the norm in the future, or that we have every reason to expect that every attempt to explain phenomena by appeal to nonphysical entities will fail, and every attempt to

explain those same phenomena by appeal to physical entities will succeed. There is a pattern that shows that nonphysical explanations always seem to fail while physical explanations always seem to succeed. Thus, this suggests that everything is physical and nothing is nonphysical.
Premise (2) claims that everything can be physically described and explained, thus we have good reason to think that nothing is nonphysical and that on the contrary everything is physical. Because the previous cases of nonphysical explanations were falsified and replaced by physical explanations, we have good reason to expect that nothing will be explainable nonphysically, but instead, everything will be explainable physically. We thus have good reson to think that the physical sciences are capable in principle of explaining everything, but to say that the physical sciences can explain everything is to say that everything is physical. According to physicalists, the history of science gives us good reason to think that physicalism is true.
Premise (1) states that if nonphysical explanations have always failed and been replaced by physical explanations that succeeded, then we have good reason to think that nonphysical explanations will always fail, and physical explanations will always succeed.

Premise (2) states we have good reason to think that nothing is nonphysical and that on the contrary everything is physical – that everything can be physically described and explained. All the cases in the history of science in which nonphysical explanations failed and physical explanations succeeded provide some reason – perhaps very strong reason – to think all future cases will follow the same pattern, but these reasons are not decisive. Therefore, we have good reason to think that physicalism is

true.