Chalmers' Latest Exploration of Panprotopsychism

Regular readers of this blog may have surmised that I'm somewhat inclined toward Russellian monism about the nature of consciousness. I'm also inclined to think that the mere epistemic possibility of such a version of liberal naturalism functions as an undercutting defeater for both substance dualism in particular and classical theism in general. David Chalmers is of course a leading philosopher of mind with similar sympathies about the nature of consciousness. Here's his latest exploration and defense of a view in this vicinity.

1 comment:

Rayndeon said...

Galen Strawson is another ardent defender of panpsychism. Have you read his book on it?

It seems to me that some version of panpsychism or panprotopsychism has to be true - it seems like the only viable route to considering the nature of consciousness as far as I'm concerned. A very serious problem remains for panpsychists, like Chalmers points out, which is a version of the composition / combination problem, but it seems to me that other views face a problem similar to it (e.g. why does THIS conglomeration of physical arrangements give rise to consciousness?) and additional problems besides. So overall, it seems that panpsychism should be considered more plausible than its competitors, despite there existing unresolved problems in the view.

Ricki Bliss's Cambridge Element on Grounding, Fundamentality, and Ultimate Explanations

 ...is now out , and available for free download for a limited time. Required reading.