In a recent paper, Firt, Hemmo and Shenker argue that Hempel’s dilemma, typically thought to primarily undermine physicalism, is generalizable and impacts mind-body dualism and many other theories equally. I challenge this view and argue that Hempel’s dilemma admits of at least two distinct construals: a general-skeptical construal, underpinned by historically driven arguments such as the pessimistic induction, and a non-skeptical construal, driven by the specific puzzles and volatility of current physics. While the general-skeptical construal applies to all changeable deep-structure theories, the non-skeptical construal primarily targets volatile theories which harbor exclusionary ambitions. As a result, dualism largely evades both construals due to the stability of theories of the mental and their lack of exclusionary ambitions. Conversely, physicalism is uniquely susceptible to both construals due to its strong commitment to deep-structure realism, inherent exclusionary ambitions, and the volatility of certain branches of fundamental physics. The paper ultimately concludes that Hempel’s dilemma is not universally problematic, but presents a unique challenge to physicalism while being relatively congenial to dualism.

在最近的一篇论文中，菲尔特、赫莫和申克认为，亨佩尔的困境通常被认为主要破坏物理主义，但它是可以普遍化的，并且同样影响心身二元论和许多其他理论。我对这种观点提出质疑，并认为亨佩尔的困境至少承认两种不同的解释：一种是普遍怀疑论的解释，其基础是历史驱动的论点，例如悲观归纳法；另一种是非怀疑论的解释，其驱动力是当前的具体谜题和波动性。物理。虽然一般怀疑论解释适用于所有可变的深层结构理论，但非怀疑论解释主要针对那些怀有排他性野心的不稳定理论。结果，由于心理理论的稳定性和缺乏排他性的野心，二元论在很大程度上回避了这两种解释。相反，物理主义由于其对深层结构实在论的坚定承诺、固有的排他性野心以及基础物理学某些分支的波动性而特别容易受到这两种解释的影响。该论文最终得出的结论是，亨佩尔的困境并不是普遍存在的问题，而是对物理主义提出了独特的挑战，同时又相对适合二元论。