University of Isfahan Metaphysics 2476-3276 13 32 2021 09 23 Physicalism, Fundamentality and Modern Physics Physicalism, Fundamentality and Modern Physics 75 88 26485 10.22108/mph.2022.131184.1355 FA Aboutorab Yaghmaie Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Science The Institute for Science and Technology Studies (ISTS) Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Journal Article 2021 10 26 Broadly speaking, physicalism says the world consists of just the two types of entities: those posited by physics and those related, in some sense, to them. This relation is not symmetric in such a way that the former class has some sort of ontological priority to the latter. This article aims to show physicalism defined in terms of this relation, which I call the “fundamentality relation”, is not tenable if the picture of the world depicted by modern physics is taken seriously. Particularly, it will be argued that the dualities involved in quantum field theory imply the fundamentality relation to be a relative notion. Physicalism also becomes incoherent when the fundamentality relation is defined on symmetry structures of quantum theory. These among other arguments show that an alternative formulation of physicalism is needed to be articulated. Toward the end of the paper, I shall discuss some of these alternatives. Broadly speaking, physicalism says the world consists of just the two types of entities: those posited by physics and those related, in some sense, to them. This relation is not symmetric in such a way that the former class has some sort of ontological priority to the latter. This article aims to show physicalism defined in terms of this relation, which I call the “fundamentality relation”, is not tenable if the picture of the world depicted by modern physics is taken seriously. Particularly, it will be argued that the dualities involved in quantum field theory imply the fundamentality relation to be a relative notion. Physicalism also becomes incoherent when the fundamentality relation is defined on symmetry structures of quantum theory. These among other arguments show that an alternative formulation of physicalism is needed to be articulated. Toward the end of the paper, I shall discuss some of these alternatives. https://mph.ui.ac.ir/article_26485_1e780dfa2bd037effa923f7b47cffc6e.pdf