nonphysicalism

Nonphysicalism is the view that not all facts or properties are physical in nature. In philosophy of mind, nonphysicalists contend that there exist mental phenomena—such as subjective experience or qualia—that cannot be fully reduced to or exhaustively explained by physical descriptions. It stands in opposition to physicalism, the view that all facts are physical or supervene on the physical.

Major variants fall under the broad umbrella of nonphysicalism. Substantive dualism holds that mind or mental conscious substance is nonphysical and distinct from the physical body. Property dualism maintains that physical systems can instantiate nonphysical mental properties; the physical world is not fully captured by physical properties alone. Emergent nonphysicalism posits higher-level properties that arise from physical substrates and are nonphysical in a robust sense, while still depending on the physical for their basis. Some nonphysicalist positions are nonreductive and argue that, while mental states depend on the physical, they possess autonomous, nonphysical characteristics or causal powers.

Arguments commonly cited in favor of nonphysicalism emphasize the phenomenology of consciousness, such as the subjective access to quale experience, and thought experiments like conceivability or knowledge arguments that claim there can be truths about experience not captured by physical knowledge. Critics challenge the coherence of nonphysical properties, the possibility of causal interaction between physical and nonphysical realms, and the explanatory power of nonphysical explanations.

Nonphysicalism thereby forms a major family of responses to the mind–body problem, with ongoing debate about its coherence, implications, and compatibility with science.