Two Incompatible Models of Persons
Edgar Wilson · 2018
The orthodox-animistic (OA) model of human persons is the one most manifest to common sense. The process of de-animising man&s;s view of the world has been achieved largely through an exercise of scientific inquiry within the OA world view, and so Wilfred Sellars has rightly stressed that the OA or &s;manifest image&s; of man is not a pre-scientific one. Again, paradoxically, it is orthodox philosophers who most often argue against a physical-objective model, rather than the members of the ordinary language community whose corporate authority is obliquely appealed to in such matters. Philosophical and lay physicalism therefore is as much a matter of the perspicuity of the physicalist model as it is a deliberate attempt to build on a common denominator, or to provide a coherent objective account of human experience. One physicalist purpose can therefore be regarded as an attempt to render a coherent account of experience in terms of basic physical concepts which everyone already understands and accepts.