Russellian physicalism and its dilemma

Abstract

Russellian monism—an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (The analysis of matter, Routledge, London, 1927/1992)—is roughly the view that the natural sciences can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not about their categorical properties, and, moreover, that our qualia are constituted by categorical properties. Recently, Stoljar (Philos Phenomenol Res 62:253–281, 2001a), Stoljar (Philos Perspect 15:393–413, 2001b), Strawson (Real materialism: and other essays, Oxford, New York, 2008), Montero (J Conscious Stud 17:70–83, 2010), Montero (in: Alter and Nagasawa (eds) Consciousness in the physical world: perspectives on Russellian monism, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015), Alter and Nagasawa (J Conscious Stud 19:67–95, 2012), and Chalmers (in: Alter and Nagasawa (eds) Consciousness in the physical world: perspectives on Russellian monism, Oxford University Press, New York, 2015) have attempted to develop this doctrine into a version of physicalism. Russellian monism faces the so-called combination problem, according to which it is difficult to see how categorical properties could collectively constitute qualia. In this paper, I suggest that there is an insufficiently discussed aspect of the combination problem which I call the difference-maker problem. Taking the difference-maker problem into account, I argue that the combination problem—whether or not it can be solved—results in a dilemma for the project of developing Russellian physicalism. That is, Russellian monism is either physicalistically unacceptable or it is implausible; hence, Russellian monism and physicalism are incompatible.