Beyond Physicalism Supplement

Beyond Physicalism is the product of an unusual fellowship of scientists and humanities scholars who dispute the view that reality is at bottom purely physical, and that human beings are nothing more than extremely complicated biological machines.

In their previous publication, Irreducible Mind, they argued that physicalism cannot accommodate various well-evidenced empirical phenomena including paranormal or psi phenomena, postmortem survival, and mystical experiences. In this new theory-oriented companion volume they go further by attempting to understand how the world must be constituted in order that these “rogue” phenomena can occur. Drawing upon empirical science, metaphysical philosophy, and the mystical traditions, the authors work toward an improved “big picture” of the general character of reality, one which strongly overlaps territory traditionally occupied by the world’s institutional religions, and which attempts to reconcile science and spirituality by finding a middle path between the polarized fundamentalisms, religious and scientific, that have dominated recent public discourse.

The materials linked here supplement the printed volume, providing background and detail for those of you whose appetites have been whetted by the book — or whetting the appetite of anyone who might have stumbled here fortuitously.

— The Editors