The uncritical, unquestioning acceptance of physicalism as simply “how
reality works,” without awareness that physicalism is a philosophical position with significant challenges. The physicalist dogmatist treats mental states as unproblematically physical, dismisses the explanatory gap as
irrelevant, and refuses to engage with arguments from
anti‑reductionist philosophers. Their dogmatism prevents them from seeing the limits of their own worldview.
Example: “She
said ‘of course the mind is the brain’ and changed the subject when asked about qualia—physicalist dogmatism, treating a contested claim as settled.”
Physicalist Orthodoxy
The dominant, institutionalized set of physicalist beliefs and practices within mainstream neuroscience,
philosophy of mind, and cognitive science, enforced through funding priorities, journal standards, and professional advancement. Physicalist orthodoxy determines what research programs are considered serious, what hypotheses are testable, and who gets to be called a “mind scientist.” It often marginalizes
non‑physicalist approaches (
e.g., property dualism, panpsychism) as unscientific,
even when they are empirically equivalent. It shapes the very boundaries of acceptable inquiry.
Example: “The journal rejected her
paper on integrated information theory as ‘not physicalist enough’—physicalist orthodoxy, using metaphysical criteria to judge empirical
work.”