19. Sydney S. Shoemaker, Philosophy (emeritus)
Sydney Shoemaker
Physical Realization (Oxford University Press, 2007). Shoemaker questions how physicalism can be true: How can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be constituted by facts about distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism requires that the mental properties of a person are realized in the physical properties of that person and that all instantiations of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical states of affairs. Shoemaker provides an account of both types of realization, one that allows the realized properties to be causally effective. He also explores the implications of this account for a wide range of metaphysical issues, including the nature of persistence through time, the problem of material constitution, the possibility of emergent properties, and the nature of phenomenal consciousness.