Abstract
One of the most pressing challenges that occupy the Russellian panpsychist’s agenda is to come up with a way to reconcile the traditional argument from categorical properties (Seager Journal of Consciousness Studies, 13(10–11), 129–145, 2006; Alter & Nagasawa, 2015) with H. H. Mørch’s dispositionalism-friendly argument from the experience of causation (2014, Topoi, 39, 1073–1088, 2018, 2020) — on the way to a unitary, all-encompassing case for the view. In this regard, Mørch claims that, via the commitment to the Identity theory of properties, one can consistently hold both panpsychist arguments without contradiction (2020: 281) — I shall refer to such proposal as Reconciliation. In my paper, I shall argue that this is not the case. To this extent, I will first consider H. Taylor’s argument that the Identity theorists have the exact same resources as the dispositionalists (as, after careful enquiry, their views on the metaphysics of properties turn out to coincide (Philosophical Studies, 175, 1423–1440, 2018: 1438)), and thus contend that Reconciliation fails to obtain. Then, I will suggest that one can avoid the problem and reconcile the arguments by adopting a different version of the powerful qualities view, namely the Compound view — and thus advance a reformulated version of the claim, i.e. Reconciliation*. Finally, even though pursuing my proposed solution might expose Russellian panpsychism to the risk of epiphenomenalism, I shall conclude that such specific form of epiphenomenalism is a rather benign one, and thus that, via Reconciliation*, the constitution of a unitary case for panpsychism as a positive proposal (and not as a mere alternative to dualism and physicalism) can be achieved.
Highlights
There has been much debate in contemporary philosophy of mind on whether Russellian panpsychism, a newlydiscovered position of Russellian heritage, is tenable and can be successful in providing a convincing account of mind within a unified conception of nature (Chalmers, 2015; Alter & Nagasawa, 2015) — proving better than its more traditional and established competitors
If Taylor is right about the Identity view’s and the pure powers view’s shared understanding of the metaphysics of properties (i.e. Taylorian metaphysics of properties (TMP)), Reconciliation is false — as the adoption of the Identity view is incompatible with the traditional case for Russellian panpsychism
The main objective of this paper has been to question Mørch’s claim that the Identity theory allows us to subscribe both to the traditional argument for panpsychism and to her own argument from causation — which I referred to as Reconciliation
Summary
There has been much debate in contemporary philosophy of mind on whether Russellian panpsychism, a newly (re-)discovered position of Russellian heritage, is tenable and can be successful in providing a convincing account of mind within a unified conception of nature (Chalmers, 2015; Alter & Nagasawa, 2015) — proving better than its more traditional and established competitors (namely, dualism and physicalism above all) (cf. Goff, 2017). As their view relies on the postulation of (phenomenal) categorical properties as the ground of physical reality, one of the major challenges that panpsychists have been presented with in recent years is advanced by dispositionalists — that is, those who believe that (at least some) properties are essentially dispositional and do not need any categories to ground them (Mumford, 2006; Bird, 2007; Ellis, 2013). My proposed version of Reconciliation* (based on the Compound view of properties) will contribute to equip the Russellian panpsychist with an all-encompassing, unitary metaphysical apparatus — which will sustain the view as a positive proposal (and not as a mere alternative to its more established competitors, i.e. dualism and physicalism)
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