Alternatives to Theory-Based Conceptions of the Physical. While Xxxxxx’x dilemma affects theory-based conceptions of the physical, it does not affect object-based conceptions, according to which a physical property is a property which either is the sort of property required by a complete account of the intrinsic nature of paradigmatic physical objects and their constituents or else is a property which logically (or a priori) supervenes on the sort of property required by a complete account of the intrinsic nature of paradigmatic physical objects and their constituents (Stoljar 2001a: 395–6). According to the object-based conception, if rocks are paradigmatic physical objects, then ‘being a rock’ is a physical property and, also, if mass is a property of paradigmatic physical objects, then mass itself is a physical property (Stoljar 2001a: 396). Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx (2001a: 396–7) traces this distinction back to Kantian physicalism, which distinguishes between two classes of properties: a) the causal cum relational properties that physical theory describes, and b) the properties that duplicate physical objects will share. The former class corresponds to theory-based or t-physical properties, while the latter class corresponds to object-based or o-physical properties (Stoljar 2001a: 397). As Xxxxxxx argues, if Xxxxxx’x dilemma shows something, it shows that a particular proposal about how to analyse the concept of ‘physical’, in terms of reference to a particular stage of the development of physics, is mistaken – however, it does not necessarily show that there is no clear concept of ‘physical’ whatsoever (Stoljar 2001a: 395). A further option that potentially avoids the dilemma centres on construing the physical in terms of what it is not. Proponents of the via negativa view offer the following definition (Stoljar 2021): F is a physical property if and only if F is a non-mental property. The aim is to equate ‘physical’ with ‘non-mental’ and consequently end up with a definition of physicalism with reference to a complete account of the non-mental (Spurrett & Xxxxxxxx 1999). Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx define ‘non-mental’ causally, via reference to physiology: “It seems highly plausible that the non-mental is in fact complete [...] To deny this is to suppose that some non-mental effects are due to irreducibly mental causes. [...] But we take it that the empirical evidence, especially in the form of nineteenth- and twentieth-century physiological research, now weighs strongly against such irreducible mental causes.”...
