Philosophy of Mind Series (Sess 4) Galen Strawson: Real Materialism

This Meetup is the fourth is our series on philosophy of mind and will explore the work of Galen Strawson focused on panpsychism.

Galen John Strawson (1952 - present) is a British analytic philosopher and literary critic who works primarily on philosophy of mind, metaphysics, including free will, panpsychism, the mind-body problem, and the self. In philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that the mind or consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality; the mind as a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe. It is one of the oldest philosophical theories and has been ascribed in some form to philosophers including Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, William James, Whitehead, and Russell. Recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness and developments in the fields of neuroscience and psychology have revived interest in panpsychism in the 21st century because it addresses the hard problem directly.
Here, we will be discussing Strawson’s essay, Real Materialism, which directly challenges Dennett’s view as well as Chalmer’s dualism. Strawson central claim is if you are a materialist, you must accept that consciousness is a physical phenomenon – even if it entails radically revisiting your concept of the physical. In the essay He lays out the following ideas;

• First, consciousness is real and irreducible.
• Second, establishes an argument against standard physicalism.
• Third, insists that consciousness is a fundamental part of the physical world and we must revise our concept of the physical to include experiential properties.

Strawson’s viewpoint challenges both traditional physicalism and dualism and promises to offer some opportunities for debate.
I will be using the work in the collection of essays, Real Materialism and Other Essays, published in 2008 by Oxford Press. The individual essay, Real Materialism, is ~40 pages. You may be able to find a copy online as well.
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Hope to see you at the session.