Thinking on Sunday: Is Physicalism the correct world view?

The GREAT debate: Is Physicalism the correct world view?

Ian Buxton will argue that Physicalism, the thesis that nothing other than physical laws are needed to account for everything in the universe, is the only game in town. All physical laws can be discovered by scientific means.

Raymond Tallis will challenge this claim – irrespective of whether this is understood narrowly as the world according to physics or more broadly as a materialist metaphysics. His central argument is that if physics were the whole truth about reality, physics would not be possible.

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Ian Buxton is highly unconventional, with an early interest in all the physical sciences, but jack-of-all-trades rather than a specialist. He studied 2 years of an Zoology undergraduate course but failed to complete. He developed an early teenage interest in epistemology and logical positivism.  He admits to manufacturing amphetamine during his early ’20s and in the attempt to “go commercial” until he came across the Home Office spy network, an organisation that has intrigued him to the present day!

Raymond Tallis is a much more conventional high achiever – a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic, and a retired physician and clinical neuroscientist. He has published fiction, poetry, and 25 books on the philosophy of mind, philosophical anthropology, literary and cultural criticism.  Aping Mankind (2010) was reissued in 2016 as a Routledge Classic. His latest book – Of Time and Lamentation. Reflections on Transience (2017)– is an inquiry into the nature of time. 

He has been a member of the Council of Royal College of Physicians since June 2016, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and has been awarded several honorary degrees  (1997 – 2017) for his contributions to the humanities and medical research.