Explanation and Two Conceptions of the Physical

Any position that promises genuine progress on the mind-bodyproblem deserves attention. Recently, Daniel Stoljar has identified a physicalistversion of Russells notion of neutral monism; he elegantly argues that with thistype of physicalism it is possible to disambiguate on the notion of physicalism insuch a way that the problem is resolved. The further issue then arises of whetherwe have reason to believe that this type of physicalism is in fact true. Ultimately,one needs to argue for this position by inference to the best explanation, and Ishow that this new type of physicalism does not hold promise of more explanatoryprowess than its relevant rivals, and that, whether it is better than its rivals or not,it is doubtful whether it would furnish us with genuine explanations of the phenomenalat all.