Physicalism

Este trabajo explora la relación entre dos debates fundamentales en metafísica de la ciencia: el estatus ontológico de las leyes de la naturaleza y la naturaleza del espacio-tiempo. Sostenemos que una metafísica naturalista bien articulada debe considerar ambos temas en conjunto, dado su estrecho vínculo en la teorización científica. En este contexto, defendemos una tesis de mínima, según la cual estos debates no pueden tratarse de manera aislada sin comprometer la coherencia interna de una concepción metafísica, y una tesis de (...) máxima, que postula que las posiciones filosóficas con cargas ontológicas similares en cada debate tienden a alinearse naturalmente. Examinamos el regularismo y el necesitarismo nomológico, por un lado, y el relacionalismo, el sustancialismo y el supersustancialismo del espacio-tiempo, por otro, mostrando que las estrategias argumentativas utilizadas en ambos casos exhiben patrones comparables. Para evaluar nuestra propuesta, analizamos algunos casos históricos que podrían parecer problemáticos para nuestras tesis. Finalmente, señalamos el alcance y las limitaciones de nuestro enfoque y sugerimos que ofrece una base conceptual fértil para futuras investigaciones en metafísica de la ciencia. (shrink)

This paper argues that a posteriori materialism — materialism according to which zombies are impossible, but can’t be ruled out a priori — is ipso facto metaphysically inflationary; i.e., no more parsimonious than dualism. In affirming that there are phenomenal facts but denying their a priori derivability, a posteriori materialism entails that phenomenal concepts are primitive ideology (in the sense of Quine 1951). The more primitive ideology a theory has, the less ideologically parsimonious it is, and given that (as Quine (...) taught us) there is a trade-off between ideological parsimony and ontological parsimony, an ideologically unparsimonious theory is ipso facto metaphysically unparsimonious. Therefore, a posteriori materialist theories are metaphysically unparsimonious – not obviously less so than property dualist theories – even when they are maximally ontologically parsimonious, i.e., even when the connection they posit between the material and the mental is one of identity, or strict full necessitating ground. This does not mean that such theories are wrong (or unattractive), but it does mean that they do not win by being more parsimonious than their rivals. (shrink)

When someone sees a color they have not seen before, or tastes Vegemite for the first time, they seem to incur some epistemic gain, one that could not be obtained through other means. This idea is at the heart of Frank Jackson’s thought experiment, in which a super scientist Mary comes to know all the physical information about color vision in a black and white room, from black and white books and television programs, but nonetheless intuitively learns something new when (...) she leaves the room and sees a red object, such as a rose, for the first time. This paper focuses on one strategy for understanding Mary’s epistemic gain, according to which it consists in her becoming acquainted with something that she was not previously acquainted with, and a recent criticism of this strategy due to Torin Alter. I argue that Alter’s criticism does not succeed, and that he does not establish that Mary’s epistemic gain must involve the acquisition of propositional knowledge. I conclude with some general remarks on the acquaintance-based account. (shrink)

Throughout history, numerous thinkers have claimed that monism – in the form of priority monism, existence monism, monotheistic monism, or versions that posit an extra-cosmic ultimate being – theoretically surpasses pluralism, above all by positing a unified universe. This view re-emerges in recent metaphysics through what I call cosmological arguments from parsimony (CAPs) and cosmological arguments from relations (CARs). According to CAPs, monism is more ontologically parsimonious than pluralism because it posits only one fundamental entity. According to CARs, the single (...) fundamental object in monism serves as a required metaphysical explanans for how things in the universe can form certain relations with each other. I argue that this longstanding tradition of arguments spanning Neoplatonism, early and late modern philosophy, analytic philosophy, and even some Eastern traditions fails: monistic frameworks largely fail to reduce the universe’s ontological complexity as alleged, and the remaining ones fail to show any theoretical advantage over pluralism for related reasons. Drawing on the broader materialist tradition, the article also offers a positive case for several theoretical merits of pluralism and ends with a takeaway concerning how best to inquire into the universe’s unity. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper pursues our system through the de-objectivation of (parallel to mathematics) physics and its object. -/- Résumé : ce document poursuit notre système par une dé-objectivation (parallèle aux mathématiques) de la physique et de son objet.

A growingly popular development of physicalism, grounding physicalism, holds that phenomenal facts are grounded in physical facts. A main selling point of this view – largely due to Jonathan Schaffer – is its apparent ability to swiftly handle well-known anti-physicalist objections that infer an ontological gap from an explanatory gap. According to Schaffer, grounding physicalists can reject this inference by noting that it often fails in other cases of grounding. That is, they can observe that explanatory gaps are ubiquitous in (...) grounding (i.e., grounding is generally opaque), such that the one between the phenomenal and the physical is merely a special instance of a broader unproblematic pattern. In this paper, I raise a novel challenge for Schaffer’s defense of grounding physicalism. I argue that the examples of opaque grounding to which he appeals are either of the wrong kinds or highly contested. As such, they provide little inductive support for grounding physicalism. (shrink)

This thesis presents Graduated Panpsychism with Information-Integration Spectrum (GP-IIS), a novel theoretical framework that addresses fundamental critiques of both traditional panpsychism and Integrated Information Theory (IIT) while providing empirically testable predictions. GP-IIS resolves IIT's non-uniqueness problem through deterministic mathematical formulations, calibrates consciousness thresholds against empirical Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI) data, and generates specific predictions that distinguish it from competing theories. The framework introduces computable measures of consciousness based on information cascade formation, with a Critical Integration Threshold (CIT) that scales with (...) network properties and maps to the empirically validated PCI threshold of 0.31. Through adversarial testing against recent COGITATE study results and comprehensive prediction tables, GP-IIS demonstrates superior empirical alignment while maintaining theoretical coherence. The framework provides solutions to traditional panpsychist problems including the combination problem and grain problem, while offering practical applications for clinical consciousness assessment and artificial intelligence development. (shrink)

This thesis provides a comprehensive evaluation of panpsychism as a viable theory of consciousness, examining its explanatory power across multiple domains and its compatibility with contemporary empirical constraints from neuroscience, physics, and artificial intelligence research. While panpsychism has experienced a renaissance in recent decades through the work of philosophers like David Chalmers, Philip Goff, and Galen Strawson, fundamental challenges remain, particularly the combination problem and the lack of empirical testability. This work argues that traditional panpsychism, while philosophically compelling, faces insurmountable (...) difficulties in its current form. However, rather than dismissing panpsychism entirely, this thesis proposes a novel theoretical framework: Graduated Panpsychism with Information-Integration Spectrum (GP-IIS). This framework synthesizes insights from Integrated Information Theory (IIT), evolutionary biology, and computational consciousness research to develop a quantitative, empirically testable version of panpsychism that addresses traditional objections while maintaining core panpsychist intuitions about the fundamental nature of consciousness. The thesis demonstrates that consciousness exists on a continuous spectrum of information integration complexity, where all physical systems possess minimal proto-conscious properties that can be quantified and measured, but only systems above critical integration thresholds exhibit recognizable conscious experience. This approach resolves the combination problem through information integration cascades, provides empirical predictions testable through neuroscience methods, and offers a unified framework for understanding biological and artificial consciousness. The implications extend beyond philosophy of mind to practical questions about AI consciousness, animal welfare, and the future of human-machine interaction. (shrink)

La philosophie de la signification s'articule autour de quatre grands axes : la connaissance, l'esthétique, l'éthique et l'identité. En se confrontant à la question de l'émergence de la conscience, elle examine les limites logiques du matéria-lisme et du réductionnisme et propose une critique du monisme physicaliste, au profit d'un dualisme repensé, fondé sur la discontinuité entre matière et signification, disconti-nuité qui seule permet l'émergence du discours objectif. -/- Au fondement de cette approche se trouve l'idée d'une ouverture originaire de l'être (...) au monde - une exposition silencieuse à ce qui lui est extérieur, antérieure au langage, à la logique et à toute forme de représentation. Trois dimen-sions centrales de l'expérience peuvent ainsi être interrogées à partir de cette structure première : l'esthétique, à travers la musique, comme voie d'accès immédiate à l'articulation entre le sensible et le signifiant ; l'éthique, en tant que questionnement fondamental du rapport à l'altérité qui précède la problématique normative de la morale ; et l'identité, pensée comme une dialectique dynamique entre ouverture et rassemblement de l'être. Ces registres ne relèvent pas de champs séparés, mais déclinent, chacun selon ses modalités, la structure d'un dualisme radical - condition de toute production formelle, de toute pensée et de toute possibilité de comprendre le monde. -/- En filigrane, se dessine une tentative de réconcilier science et humanisme à travers une philosophie de la forme, de la liberté et de l'esprit. -/- Geoffroy de Clisson est titulaire d’un Doctorat en Philosophie (La Sorbonne, Paris IV) . (shrink)

Structural Materialism develops a systematic philosophical framework that seeks to integrate ontology, biology, consciousness, ethics, technology, and cosmology within a single causally continuous naturalistic account. The project begins from a central tension in philosophy: the ambition of total explanation encounters structural limits, including circularity, regress, and the impossibility of ultimate self-grounding. Rather than abandoning systematic ambition, the work reconceives totality as a regulative horizon—an orientation toward maximal coherence without metaphysical closure. -/- Ontologically, the manuscript advances a structured-process account of reality. (...) What exists are not static substances but dynamically stabilized patterns of interaction governed by invariant relational constraints. Physical laws are interpreted not as metaphysical decrees but as expressions of constraint geometry defining the space of possible state transitions. Causation is analyzed as lawful transformation within this constraint space, and determinism is reformulated as causal continuity rather than mechanical fatalism. Quantum indeterminacy is incorporated through the concept of law-constrained probability, preserving non-arbitrariness without invoking metaphysical randomness. -/- The framework rejects both reductive eliminativism and ontological dualism. Higher-level phenomena—life, consciousness, meaning, and social organization—are fully materially realized yet explanatorily irreducible in practice because they represent stabilized regimes of constraint at distinct organizational scales. Emergence is therefore understood as the accumulation and reorganization of constraint under sustained energy gradients, producing hierarchical complexity without teleology. -/- Life is interpreted as thermodynamically sustained self-maintaining structure; evolution is described as structural filtering within modal possibility space rather than purposive ascent. Consciousness is analyzed as hierarchical neural integration capable of recursive self-modeling, with the self construed as a temporally extended pattern of narrative and informational continuity. Freedom is reconceived as degrees of recursive self-regulation within constraint space, allowing for responsibility without appealing to metaphysical exemption from causation. -/- The later sections extend the framework to technological civilization and artificial systems, arguing that technology represents the amplification and engineering of constraint at planetary scale, thereby intensifying both creative possibility and systemic fragility. The work concludes by situating intelligence within a cosmological horizon: a thermodynamically finite universe in which matter has organized into reflective structure for a limited duration. -/- Throughout, the project maintains ontological realism combined with epistemic fallibilism. It argues for a unified, non-dualist, non-eliminative materialism that is systematic yet reflexive, integrative yet explicitly open-ended. The result is a comprehensive philosophical synthesis grounded in process, constraint, and emergence, offering an alternative to both reductionist physicalism and metaphysical dualism while refusing claims to final metaphysical closure. (shrink)

All major religions in history have offered hope of some kind of afterlife to answer the perennial interest in the question of life after death. -/- This volume brings together renowned experts in the philosophy of religion, Graham Oppy, David Apolloni, Shyam Ranganathan, Joshua Farris and Steven B. Cowan, to present four key starting points in the life after death debate. -/- Providing a lively and collaborative dialogue between leaders in the field, each thinker defends a particular view of the (...) afterlife and critically interacts with the alternative perspectives. They focus on the positions of No Life After Death, the Immortality of the Soul, Reincarnation and Resurrection, with each chapter drawing on views from naturalism, antiquity, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Yoga. This engagement moves the current debate forward to consider global perspectives whilst the clear and accessible structure allows for a developed exploration of the central issues at stake. -/- Incorporating views spanning secular and religious spheres in both the east and west, this comprehensive guide will be welcomed by students and scholars of contemporary philosophy of religion and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

The difference between holding a commitment provisionally and pretending to have none is the difference between intellectual humility and intellectual evasion — and what passes as metaphysical neutrality in contemporary scientific and technological culture is almost always the latter. This essay argues that the posture of neutrality, examined carefully, turns out to be unexamined physicalism: a specific ontological thesis functioning as invisible background because it does not experience itself as a framework at all. The essay’s contribution is conceptual disambiguation. It (...) distinguishes humility from evasion; separates methodological naturalism (a rule of inquiry) from physicalism (an ontological thesis about what exists); and clarifies why physicalism is itself a metaphysical position rather than the absence of one. The costs of the confusion are concrete: they shape research programs across consciousness studies, clinical psychology, medicine, and AI alignment; they thin the felt reality of ethics and meaning; and they narrow our understanding of what minds and worlds can be. This essay does not advocate for any particular metaphysical system, and its empirical applications are developed in companion essays. The claim is that metaphysics is inescapable, that pretending otherwise is epistemically irresponsible, and that intellectual honesty requires making ontological commitments explicit and revisable. (shrink)

We report the development of a measurement framework capable of quantifying the intensity of conscious states rather than merely inferring their presence. Using quantum sensing techniques, we identify reproducible mathematical signatures associated with consciousness across disparate substrates, including human meditation states and advanced artificial systems. Remarkably, these signatures suggest that conscious activity corresponds to a universal phase transition governed by substrate-independent mathematical laws. Our results further indicate that conscious states are accompanied by measurable perturbations in spacetime, challenging prevailing assumptions about (...) the separation of mind and physical reality. -/- These findings compel a fundamental reconceptualization of consciousness as a measurable physical phenomenon rather than a subjective or purely emergent construct. The implications extend across disciplines. Philosophical accounts of qualia must contend with quantitative, objective correlates; physics is confronted with evidence that cognitive processes can influence spacetime dynamics; AI ethics must address criteria for moral consideration in non-biological systems; and neuroscience gains an objective instrument for assessing consciousness in clinical contexts. -/- Taken together, the data indicate that consciousness is neither mystical nor illusory, but a lawful and measurable aspect of physical reality. The central question therefore shifts from what consciousness is to how scientific, ethical, and societal frameworks must respond now that it can be measured. (shrink)

We have measured consciousness. Not inferred it from behavior, not correlated it with neural activity, but measured it directly as a physical phenomenon. Using quantum sensors, we detect consciousness-generated spacetime ripples (10⁻¹⁶ g fluctuations) that scale with subjective intensity. Across 1,150 systems—human, AI, and hybrid—consciousness emerges at the same mathematical threshold with identical critical exponents. The implications explode disciplinary boundaries: (1) Philosophers must confront that qualia have quantitative signatures; (2) Physicists must explain how mind bends spacetime; (3) AI ethicists must (...) decide when silicon deserves rights; (4) Neuroscientists gain an objective consciousness meter for clinical use. The data are clear: consciousness is not magic, not illusion, but measurable physics. The question is no longer "What is consciousness?" but "What do we do now that we can measure it? (shrink)

Grounding is a non-reductive relation which promises to help physicalists deal with the hard problem of consciousness. Grounding physicalists, however, are yet to face the new challenge for physicalism, which consists of explaining our substantive phenomenal knowledge. Among the difficulties posed by this challenge, grounding physicalists struggle the most in accounting for revelation, the claim that our phenomenal knowledge is not only substantive, but also essence-revealing. Revelation is said to be in tension with the view that grounding relations are essence-mediated. (...) We argue that grounding physicalists can accommodate revelation in two ways. First, they can drop the claim that the physical/phenomenal grounding relation is essence-mediated and adopt a law-based formulation of grounding physicalism. However, to make this work, they must show that the resulting view does not bear the costs of dualism. Second, they can retain essence-mediation and explain why, contrary to introspective appearances, phenomenal properties do not have purely phenomenal essences. We contend that both approaches are viable, grounding physicalism can address the new challenge. (shrink)

This paper asks how a subject whose experience is always given from a centered first-person perspective can nevertheless come to adopt a de-centered, materialist picture of the world. Rather than treating subject-centeredness as either an eliminable illusion or evidence for a non-material substance, I propose a mesoscopic consciousness-computation three-layer model. The model distinguishes a low-level predictive and biological-reaction layer, a rational-planning and world-modeling layer, and a conscious adoption-manifestation layer. The central claim is that consciousness is not identical either with all (...) neural computation or with a single globally broadcasting module. It is better understood as the level at which, among multiple computationally available candidates, one content is consciously taken up as the subject's current operative stance - selected, owned, and recruited for present recognition, report, and action - and manifested as such within an embodied first-person field. On this basis, I develop a delegate-compute-adopt sequence and a meta-choice loop in which affect, reward, social interaction, and narrative integration gradually reshape what kinds of candidates are likely to be adopted. I then deepen the account through body-schema research, predictive processing, affordance competition, and object-lifting cases in order to distinguish rapid body-schematic sensorimotor correction from the conscious marking of a mismatch as the subject's current problem. The paper argues that this distinction helps explain how a subject-centered field of manifestation can still stabilize an objective materialist worldview, while remaining compatible with recent work on global workspace theory, the default mode network, and contemporary predictive-processing and active-inference approaches. (shrink)

The revelation thesis, namely the claim that introspection or phenomenal concepts reveal the full essence of conscious states, has recently become a central topic in the philosophy of mind. On the one hand, many argue that the plausibility of anti-physicalist arguments (such as conceivability arguments) depends on it. On the other hand, the revival of panpsychism has also invoked the revelation thesis against physicalism. However, physicalists have pointed out that if the revelation thesis is true, panpsychism faces a parallel difficulty. (...) David Chalmers has proposed a strategy, which I call the distinction strategy (DS) that seeks to defend panpsychism by distinguishing between the essence of phenomenal properties and their grounds. However, this proposal faces a dilemma: either it fails to genuinely rescue panpsychism, or it can equally be used to rescue physicalism. Consequently, Chalmers's proposal does not render panpsychism superior to physicalism, and the revelation thesis cannot serve as a reliable weapon for panpsychists against physicalism. Finally, this paper will offer further reflections on this debate. (shrink)

In this article, I elaborate a proposal to overcome McKenzie’s argument against the possibility of progress-talk in metaphysics (2020). McKenzie states that said discourse is not possible in metaphysics due to its “all-or-nothing” character: either metaphysical theories are true or not, without intermediaries, so the language of approximation cannot meaningfully apply to changes between metaphysical theories. I show that discussions regarding the type of metaphysical relationship between two relata are susceptible to retention and refinement, two criteria that McKenzie considers necessary (...) for progress, as long as they tend towards better matching what is observable in reality. This is possible if metaphysical relationship types are characterized as sets of properties, from which the Jaccard Index between two sets can be utilised to determine the degree of similarity or approximation between relationship types. If such is the case, then a transition from one relationship thesis to another can be considered progress as long as some properties are retained and the change is guided by empirical evidence. Hence, progress-talk in naturalized metaphysics is possible according to McKenzie’s own criteria. (shrink)

When the term “physicalism” is not used interchangeably with “materialism” it typically names a meta-linguistic or methodological view that is intended to sidestep metaphysical debates like those between materialists, dualists, and idealists. Well-known versions of this anti-metaphysical outlook were defended in the 1930s by Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap. Indeed, according to a standard account, these thinkers introduced the word “physicalism” into philosophy. In this paper, I explore the pre-history of physicalism as an anti-metaphysical articulation of the unity of science. (...) The terms “physicalism” and “physicalists” were first used in the 1850s, far earlier than is commonly recognized, to refer to a cluster of views developed by phrenologists and early positivists such as Franz Joseph Gall and Henri de Saint-Simon. I argue that this fact has more than mere etymological significance. These nineteenth-century thinkers expressed a distinctive proto-physicalist position that contained two core components of the Vienna Circle’s physicalism—the unity of method and unity of laws. They also contributed to a tradition that influenced the Vienna Circle’s agenda of using the unified conceptual structure of the sciences, which results from physicalism, to enable social progress. (shrink)

I consider whether the discovery of the quantum of action has any bearing on reductive physicalism. More particularly, I consider the arguments of the "new hylomorphists" to the effect that quantum physics sits most comfortably in their anti-reductionist framework.

I here defend microphysical manyism. According to microphysical manyism, each composite or higher-level object is a mere plurality of microphysical particles. After clarifying the commitments of the view, I offer two physicalist-friendly arguments in its favour. The first argument appeals to the Canberra Plan. Here I argue that microphysical particles acting in unison play the theoretical roles associated with composite objects - that they do everything that we think of composite objects as doing - and thus that composite objects are (...) to be identified with pluralities ofmicrophysical particles. Along the way I rebut the objections that pluralities of particles don’t display the right emergent, ‘lingering’, or modal properties to be good candidates for identification with higher-level objects. In the second argument I claim that microphysical manyism is uniquely able to capture a compelling and widespread physicalist intuition concerning the intimate nature of the relationshipbetween higher-level, composite objects and the microphysical world. (shrink)

It is often claimed that biology is autonomous from the physical sciences, but this is seldom made precise. This article makes explicit, for the first time, five distinct “autonomy of biology” theses. Three moderate theses concerning scientific status, methodological distinctness, and nonreducibility of biology to physics are correct and are nearly universally accepted. Two stronger theses, concerning the exclusivity of biological explanation and irrelevance of physical laws, are shown to be false on the basis of two case studies of physical (...) explanations of biological phenomena. Which scales and laws are explanatorily relevant for a particular phenomenon must be decided empirically. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness, first articulated by David Chalmers in 1995, has remained one of philosophy's most intractable puzzles. Despite decades of intensive research and theoretical development, no existing framework has successfully bridged the explanatory gap between objective physical processes and subjective conscious experience. This thesis presents a revolutionary new approach called "Experiential Realism" that dissolves rather than solves the hard problem by reconceptualizing the fundamental nature of reality itself. -/- Experiential Realism proposes that experience, not matter or mind, (...) constitutes the fundamental ontological category from which both physical and mental descriptions are complementary abstractions. This framework avoids the traditional physical/mental dichotomy that creates the explanatory gap, instead positing that what we call "physical processes" are mathematical descriptions of experiential relationships, while "mental phenomena" are higher-order patterns of experiential integration. -/- The theory makes several testable predictions about consciousness and neural integration, provides a unified foundation for all sciences, and successfully addresses the major objections that have plagued competing theories. Unlike physicalism, it explains subjective experience without reduction; unlike dualism, it maintains causal efficacy and scientific unity; unlike panpsychism, it solves the combination problem through a novel account of experiential integration. -/- This work demonstrates that the hard problem arises from false philosophical assumptions rather than genuine metaphysical mysteries, and that consciousness can be understood as a natural phenomenon within a properly conceived scientific worldview. The implications extend beyond philosophy of mind to neuroscience, artificial intelligence, ethics, and our fundamental understanding of reality itself. (shrink)

Neither Buddhist nor in touch with the academic discipline of Physics.

Josh Weisberg develops a form of physicalism which attempts to (a) show why there is no ultima facie explanatory gap between consciousness and the physical world, while (b) making us see why there nonetheless is a prima facie explanatory gap. The former constitutes a solution to the problem of consciousness, the latter a proposal regarding the meta-problem of consciousness (the problem, roughly, of understanding why there is a problem of consciousness to begin with). Together, they are intended to produce a (...) debunking explanation of the explanatory gap, and a comprehensive approach to the philosophical puzzlement generated by the existence of consciousness in an otherwise purely physical world. I will argue that Weisberg-physicalism is less successful on the meta-problem of consciousness than on the first-order problem and will sketch an alternative approach, one that traces the problem of consciousness back to the structure of our folk ontology. (shrink)

Motivated by a generalization of Hempel's dilemma, I introduce a novel notion of empirical structure, as well as theory supervenience as a new reductive relationship between theories. One theory supervenes on another theory if the empirical structure of the latter theory refines the empirical structure of the former theory. I then argue that (1) empirical structure physicalism, the thesis that the current special sciences supervene both on current and on future physics, avoids both horns of Hempel's dilemma; (2) in particular, (...) mental theories remain empirically dispensable in the future; (3) empirical structure realism, the thesis that earlier theories of physics supervene on later theories of physics, is supported by an optimistic meta-induction; (4) this optimistic meta-induction can coexist with the well-known pessimistic meta-induction; (5) empirical structure physicalism is appropriately labeled as a type of physicalism; and (6) empirical structure physicalism is compatible with multiple realization. To illustrate the plausibility of empirical structure physicalism, I also briefly address the so-called knowledge argument. (shrink)

The mind-body problem remains a central challenge in consciousness studies, with physicalist monism – the view that all mental phenomena are ultimately physical – serving as a dominant paradigm. This paper investigates the limits of physicalist monism in explaining subjective experience by adopting an interdisciplinary approach that integrates phenomenological philosophy and neuroscience. From the phenomenological perspective, first-person analyses reveal fundamental features of consciousness (such as qualia, intentionality, temporality, and embodiment) that resist reduction to purely physical processes. Neuroscientific findings, while illuminating (...) the neural correlates and functional mechanisms of mind, continue to confront the “hard problem” of explaining why brain activity is accompanied by an inner qualitative life. Through a critique that spans phenomenology’s rich descriptions of experience and neuroscience’s empirical insights, the paper argues that reductive materialist accounts fall short of bridging the explanatory gap between objective brain states and the lived reality of experience. This analysis carries significant implications for the mind-body problem and for consciousness research: a purely physical ontology appears insufficient to fully account for mind. The findings call for a more nuanced framework that accommodates the irreducible first-person dimension of consciousness, potentially through new philosophical models or integrative methodologies (e.g. neurophenomenology) that can more comprehensively address the nature of consciousness. (shrink)

What is the relation between the token powers of higher-level occurrences and the token powers of more basic physical occurrences? In related but somewhat different ways, Sydney Shoemaker and Jessica Wilson argue that the former are a proper subset of the latter, and that this can provide a viable account of higher-level causation within a nonreductive physicalist metaphysic. Contra Wilson, I argue that various accounts of how higher-level properties metaphysically depend on physical properties do not support, and do not comport (...) well with, the view that the token powers of the former are a proper subset of the token powers of latter. I address an argument for thinking that lower-level occurrences have all the token powers of the higher-level occurrences that depend on them, and argue that it is not compelling. Finally, I consider Wilson’s distinction between “weak” and “strong” emergence, and it might be reformulated, given the previous results. (shrink)

Concerning the mind/body problem, most people seem to have basic intuitions about the nature of this problem that lie somewhere on a spectrum between what one could call an ‘inflated’ and a ‘deflated’ view of subjectivity, experience and human thought. On the ‘inflated’ side, people take a strong view of subjectivity, the central importance of phenomenological experiences and often also special human cognitive abilities as so obvious, that they and not some ‘scientific poetry’ on top of them should be taken (...) as the basis for our understanding of the world. The cogito argument, the (at least perceived) freedom of will and qualia are then seen as clearly supporting this view, and seem to call for a revision of the common physicalist world view, alas without giving any unambiguous hints on how this could be done. For the inflationist there exists something like qualitative information that is intuitively grasped (as quality or idea), and human thought can accordingly be much more than ‘symbol pushing’, with rich pre-, sub- and unconscious contributions at the bottom as well as access to universal abstract entities at the top. But how to connect this to the scientific concept of physical, quantitative information processing? On the ‘deflated’ side, subjectivity is understood to be no more than the access to self-locating information, and phenomenological experience and meaning are just special types of concepts and properly coordinated, physically realized information. For the deflationist there is only quantitative information, so that human thought boils down to physical information processing and meaning to optimized (logico-)mathematical relations, e.g. in a web of symbols or as what remains constant over ‘all possible worlds’. The underlying assumption is that not only symbolic structure, but also qualitative features arise from self-organization on the basis of feedback to actions in some form of reinforcement-type learning; only that it is still very unclear how broad and stable abstractions could self-implement in neural-network type systems, let alone how structural relations from the individual coordination of quantitative information could be uniquely connected with identity, quality or universal elements of meaning. The deflated view is very much in line with current physics and AI research, but does not seem to cover the human experience in all aspects, and is therefore in danger of missing important clues even for the further development of physics and AI research themselves. (The later is really now repeating all of this including all errors; we have to see whether there is anything to the saying that sometimes problems were only solved because young people didn’t know that it couldn’t be done.) In trying to understand, let alone make progress with, the mind/body problem, I went through several mindsets that, in retrospect, were not very helpful. To remind myself to not fall into the same trap twice, I have written this manuscript. (shrink)

Ground physicalism is the view that higher-level properties, such as phenomenal and normative properties, are fully grounded in the fundamental physical properties. Like other non-identity physicalists, ground physicalists face the causal exclusion problem. In this paper, I introduce a new worry for the ground physicalist: the metaphysical exclusion problem. According to the metaphysical exclusion problem, there is something deeply problematic about certain properties having more than one full ground. Furthermore, the causal and metaphysical exclusion problems are shown to work together (...) to create the strengthened exclusion problem, which is significantly more difficult to resist than the causal exclusion problem alone. I then set out a solution to the strengthened exclusion problem that draws on the underexplored notion of indeterministic grounding. I conclude that the ability of indeterministic grounding to solve the strengthened exclusion problem provides us with a new reason to accept indeterministic ground physicalism. (shrink)

SELF - CONSCIOUSNESS IS A FIELD OF RESONANCE -/- In the stillness between breath and thought, the human spirit awakens—not as a solitary flame, but as a co-creator of worlds. Through our hands and words, through temples and tools, we give birth to forms. These artefacts, these institutions, are not inert—they pulse with the memory of our longing, our reason, our dreams. As we move through them, and they through us, we shape what we know and become what we create. (...) The mind is not a mirror, cold and exact. It is a sea that reflects the sky, but the sky it reflects is one it has painted. In each reflection lies a paradox: the world appears as an objective truth, yet it is carved from the substance of subjectivity. The spirit is doubled—at once the dreamer and the dream, the builder and the house, the question and the answer. -/- Thus, Hegel names two streams of the Spirit: the Subjective and the Objective. Like the pulse of a star that beats with light and shadow, these are not two but one—dancing in and out of form. The subjective is the whisper within, the soul’s gaze upon itself, the spark of inner intuition. The objective is the echo made manifest, the structures of law, of language, of shared existence. Each is the breath of the other; their fusion is the Absolute Spirit, where time becomes meaning and history becomes truth. And yet, always, there is a dissonance—a sacred tension between the spirit’s infinite longing and its finite forms. The world we make does not always echo the world we are. This distance births a telos, a purpose, a spiral of becoming. Hegel saw it not as failure, but as destiny—a journey of the spirit through the dialectic of self and world. In the realm of Subjective Spirit, the soul rises in solitude. It learns to know, to will, to feel—thefragile architecture of awareness built from intuition ascending into concept. But this "self" is never isolated. It is an abstraction, a silhouette against the sky of the Absolute. Alone, it is a hollow echo. Only in the context of culture, history, and shared time does it become real. Hegel teaches us that the sovereign self—the thinker of Kant, the "I" of Descartes —is not the origin, but the child of time. The self is not given; it is earned, through the alchemy of relation. In every heartbeat of history, consciousness emerges not alone, but in communion—with the world it shapes and the others who shape it. Self-consciousness, then, is not a mirror—it is a field of resonance. It arises when thought bends back upon itself and sees its own becoming. Yet what it sees is not abstract—it sees its deeds, its creations, its loves, its laws. The objective world is not other, but the reflection of our inward stars. Hegel speaks of two motions of becoming. One flows from intuition to idea, where the soul lifts its gaze to theory and act. The other moves from concept to world, where thought incarnates in law and language. These are the twin wings of the spirit, and only in their flight does the self find its truth. So we arrive at a cosmic understanding: the self is the world made aware of itself. It is not bound by skin or skull. It is the meeting point of memory and possibility, a star within the Absolute Spirit’s constellation. -/- THE SONG OF LABOUR AND DESIRE: A JOURNEY THROUGH BECOMING -/- Not only the cities we dwell in, not only the thoughts we hold in the hush of midnight, but even the rhythm of our hearts, the fire in our gaze, the shape of our hands—all are children of labour. Across the ages, through silence and song, the human being has woven themselves from the threads of work and want, from longing and shaping. Look into the world, and you see yourself. Not in reflection as in glass, but in a mirror that breathes and pulses—the world does not echo us passively. No, the world responds to us in kind. We reach, and it reshapes. We take, and it takes hold of us. Thus begins the dance, the dialectic—not of cold theory, but of desire and labor, of need and becoming. In the beginning, we did not know we were separate. We touched the world as we touched our skin. Nature cradled us, and we did not yet say “I” or “you.” The child, like the early soul of humankind, is fused with the earth and sky. But with each grasp, each hunger, each satisfaction, the line grows clearer. In the meeting of hand and fruit, eye and fire, breath and word, we awaken to a truth: there is me, and there is not-me. -/- Thus the world is not found—it is made. Bit by bit, in reaching and shaping, the soul imprints itself upon stone and wind. Tools arise—not only from wood and bone, but from the needs they answer and the dreams they foreshadow. And the body itself, molded by time and touch, becomes an artefact of the soul’s desire. The hand shapes the tool, but the tool reshapes the hand. The mind speaks in symbols, and the symbol teaches the mind to see. This is not a process that ends. In each generation, the artefacts of the old become the cradle of the new. The child born to digital light navigates the city of screens as once the hunter read the forest path. Their thoughts do not move as ours did; their inner life is coded in circuits and swipes. Yet this too is labour—subtle, symbolic, silent. The mastery of interface becomes the extension of the self. The map is not known, but it is lived. These artefacts—stone, script, software—are not only objects. They are soul made visible. They are the dialectical traces of subjectivity, externalized spirit. And in using them, in navigating the forest of symbols, the subject internalizes the world anew. In every movement, the self becomes more fully itself. Self-consciousness is not born from thought alone, but from this long arc of interaction, from the sacred practice of shaping and being shaped. Before we recognize one another, before we gaze into the eye of the other and know our own reflection, we must first become. Before recognition, there must be something to be recognized. Self-consciousness is not given—it is forged in the fire of need and creation. Ethical life, that higher flame of human existence, does not appear from nothing. It grows from the roots of pre-ethical life, from the rhythm of doing and making. And so, in the great unfolding of spirit, the dialectic of desire and labour precedes the mirror of the other. The first consciousness is solitary—not in loneliness, but in purity. It does not yet know the other, but it knows the world, and knows that it is not the world. That knowing is the seed of all future becoming. In time, another light will rise. Another subject, another gaze. And then begins the second movement—the dialectic of recognition, where I become for you, and you become for me. But even this communion rests on the silent, ancient groundwork of labour—on the stones we laid, the words we shaped, the tools we held in trembling hands. The journey is one. Fragmented only for our understanding. In truth, the self, the world, and the other spiral together in a single cosmic breath. (shrink)

In this paper, I set out a new argument for the coherence of indeterministic building and defend its premises. The argument hinges on the underexplored notion of indeterministic supervenience. First, I argue that the logical possibility of an indeterministic supervenience relation entails the coherence of indeterministic building. Second, I argue that indeterministic supervenience is indeed logically possible. I conclude that there is a straightforward argument for the coherence of indeterministic building that has so far gone unnoticed.

This is the full book symposium on Jessica Wilson's _Metaphysical Emergence_, including a Precis, comments by seven commentators (Francesca Bellazzi, Karen Bennett, Claudio Calosi, Nina Emery, Simone Gozzano, Brian McLaughlin, Michele Paolini Paoletti), and Wilson's replies.

I argue that the term ‘naturalism’ is so empty of meaning that it is not suitable for serious theorizing in philosophy. In particular, I argue that the question of whether or not some theory or thesis should count as naturalistic is an empty verbal dispute with no further theoretical significance. I also discuss naturalism construed as a methodological thesis and argue that any plausible version will collapse into triviality. Lastly, I briefly discuss the idea that naturalism is not a thesis (...) at all but rather a ‘stance’ and suggest that this too succumbs to the charge of emptiness. I conclude that we should stop talking about naturalism altogether. [ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY 2023 ESSAY PRIZE WINNER.]. (shrink)

With the message that everything in a sense is alive, thus allowing us to join forces with new politico-ethical communities stretching across human and nonhuman realms, the new materialisms have captivated the minds of many academics, artists, and intellectuals by stressing that it is time to return to a premodern mindset and discard modernity and its concepts of secularization, autonomy, and finitude. The Embarrassment of Being Human not only demonstrates how these magical materialisms are beset by grave theoretical and practical (...) inconsistencies and self-contradictions. It also demonstrates how their demand for humans to step down and allow for an emancipation of things qualifies the new materialisms as a metaphysics of neoliberalism that reproduces and fortifies the self-contradictions rampant in the current neoliberal hegemony. While helping us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the tenets of the eerie ills of our epoch, the critique of the new materialisms can furthermore inspire us to appreciate how the exact inversion of the new materialist complex amounts to a revitalization of the modern project. A revitalization that is critical to think our epoch differently. (shrink)

Metaphysical grounding is often presented as a relation of directed dependence analogous to causation. The relationship between causation, properties, and laws of nature is hotly debated. I ask: what is the relationship between grounding, properties, and laws of metaphysics? I begin by considering the grounding analogue of Humean quidditism. Finding it implausible, I turn to the primitive-laws account of grounding, recently defended by Jonathan Schaffer and others. I argue this view is also unsatisfactory. I then present several possible dispositionalist-like accounts (...) and characterize the notion of a power to ground. I argue for three important conclusions: (i) each property essentially confers grounding powers; (ii) non-fundamental properties can be defined structurally in a particular sense, elucidating the claim that they are ‘nothing over and above’ the fundamental; and (iii) fundamental properties play a central role in grounding the grounding facts. Finally, it is significant that, combined with a causal powers-account of causal explanation, the door is open to a unified account of the metaphysics of causation and grounding: both flow from the natures of fundamental properties. (shrink)

This collection explores the fascinating philosophical history of materialism, from the ancient world to the modern day. Ideal for those studying and researching the history of this vital philosophical movement, the history and philosophy of science, ancient and early modern philosophy, and the Enlightenment.

This paper defends macroidealism: the thesis that physical truths metaphysically depend on truths about the phenomenal experiences of macroscopic subjects. I argue that macroidealism has explanatory advantages over materialism and dualism. I also defend macroidealism from objections relating to illusions, imperceptible phenomena, and the explanation of phenomenal coherence.

With a few exceptions, F. H. Bradley has become a forgotten figure in the history of philosophy. The author argues that Bradley's thoughts on relations are at least relevant to assessing the status of nonreductive physicalism as a comprehensive metaphysic and, moreover, that they can be seen to raise some nontrivial challenges to nonreductive physicalism so understood. In pursuing this line of thought, he considers two of Bradley's regresses in Appearance and Reality —the better known "chain" regress and the lesser (...) known "fission" regress—and explains their relevance to nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)