A core philosophical project is the attempt to uncover the fundamental nature of reality, the limited set of facts upon which all other facts depend. Perhaps the most popular theory of fundamental reality in contemporary analytic philosophy is physicalism, the view that the world isfundamentally physical in nature. The first half of this book argues that physicalist views cannot account for the evident reality of conscious experience, and hence that physicalism cannot be true. Unusually for an opponent of physicalism, Goff argues that there are big problems with the mostwell-known arguments against physicalism―Chalmers' zombie conceivability argument and Jackson's knowledge argument―and proposes significant modifications. The second half of the book explores and defends a recently rediscovered theory of fundamental reality―or perhaps rather a grouping of such theories―known as 'Russellian monism.' Russellian monists draw inspiration from a couple of theses defended by Bertrand Russell in The Analysis of Matter in1927. Russell argued that physics, for all its virtues, gives us a radically incomplete picture of the world. It tells us only about the extrinsic, mathematical features of material entities, and leaves us in the dark about their intrinsic nature, about how they are in and of themselves. FollowingRussell, Russellian monists suppose that it is this 'hidden' intrinsic nature of matter that explains human and animal consciousness. Some Russellian monists adopt panpsychism, the view that the intrinsic natures of basic material entities involve consciousness; others hold that basic material entities are proto-conscious rather than conscious. Throughout the second half of the book various forms of Russellian monism are surveyed,and the key challenges facing it are discussed. The penultimate chapter defends a cosmopsychist form of Russellian monism, according to which all facts are grounded in facts about the conscious universe.
...MoreReview Pierre Saint-Germier (2019) Review of "Consciousness and Fundamental Reality". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 37-40).
Book
Richard Grusin;
(2015)
The Nonhuman Turn
(/isis/citation/CBB220454611/)
Book
Link, Godehard;
(2004)
One Hundred Years of Russell's Paradox: Mathematics, Logic, Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001212888/)
Book
Karen Bennett;
(2017)
Making Things Up
(/isis/citation/CBB739865359/)
Article
Ohad Nachtomy;
(2018)
Monads at the Bottom, Monads at the Top, Monads All Over
(/isis/citation/CBB302983768/)
Book
Joel Katzav;
Krist Vaesen;
Dorothy Rogers;
(2023)
Knowledge, Mind and Reality: An Introduction by Early Twentieth-Century American Women Philosophers
(/isis/citation/CBB854657107/)
Book
José L. Zalabardo;
(2015)
Representation and Reality in Wittgenstein's Tractatus
(/isis/citation/CBB726782024/)
Book
Kevin B Kee;
Timothy Compeau;
(2019)
Seeing the Past with Computers: Experiments with Augmented Reality and Computer Vision for History
(/isis/citation/CBB976351061/)
Article
Sara Magrin;
(2015)
Plotinus on the Inner Sense
(/isis/citation/CBB600937203/)
Article
Jorgensena, Larry M.;
(2011)
Leibniz on Memory and Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB001211007/)
Article
Hennig, Boris;
(2010)
Science, Conscience, Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB001035616/)
Article
Nyvlt, Mark J.;
(2009)
Plotinus on Phantasia: Phantasia as the Home of Self-Consciousness within the Soul
(/isis/citation/CBB001211439/)
Article
Sturm, Thomas;
Wunderlich, Falk;
(2010)
Kant and the Scientific Study of Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB001035618/)
Book
Shanks, Niall;
(2002)
Animals and Science: A Guide to the Debates
(/isis/citation/CBB000201547/)
Book
Perry, John;
(2001)
Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB000631011/)
Book
Peter Godfrey-Smith;
(2016)
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB398937862/)
Article
Schönfeld, Martin;
(2006)
Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB000720088/)
Book
Miah, Sajahan;
(2006)
Russell's Theory of Perception
(/isis/citation/CBB000741558/)
Article
Godden, David M.;
Griffin, Nicholas;
(2009)
Psychologism and the Development of Russell's Account of Propositions
(/isis/citation/CBB001211038/)
Book
Elsner, Norbert;
Lüer, Gerd;
(2000)
Das Gehirn und sein Geist
(/isis/citation/CBB000503045/)
Article
Kathryn Tabb;
(2018)
Madness as Method: On Locke’s Thought Experiments About Personal Identity
(/isis/citation/CBB500354678/)
Be the first to comment!