What we’re about
P&G is more than just a group of people. It is a community. A community of philosophers, thinkers, book readers, paper readers, and folks that ask the foundational questions. What is the meaning of life? How do we know what we know? What makes us human? These are some of the questions that P&G members explore together through lively discussions and debates. But P&G is not only about intellectual pursuits. It is also a community of thoughtful people coming together to hike, and hangout. Whether it's enjoying the beauty of nature, sharing a meal, or playing games, P&G members bond over their common interests and values. P&G is a community where you can find friends who challenge you to grow and support you along the way.
Upcoming events
284
•OnlineShort Meditation then Chat
OnlineWe do a short meditation via Buddhist Monk Professor B Alan Wallace or Sam Harris podcast, then casually discuss our experience (optional)
ADDITIONALLY
Excellent Mindfulness resources here with weekly group discussion run by Corey Jackson Phd Psychology
https://member.coreyjackson.com.au/share/ZYZLarLoPH8Fu3Ak?utm_source=manual
OTHER RESOURCES All Free
BUDDHIST MONK 44 x 24 Min meditations
https://soundcloud.com/emotionalbalance/sets/alan-wallace-guided-practices
https://dynamic.wakingup.com/shareOpenAccess/SC3D92926?share_id=440D041D
https://beherenownetwork.com/joseph-goldstein-insight-hour-ep-216-satipatthana-sutta-series-pt-13-mindfulness-of-mind/4 attendees
•OnlineGalen Strawson's Realistic Monism Part 4
Online## Details
A live, text-driven seminar on major works in philosophy (mostly analytic). We read the paper together, slowly—stopping to clarify terms, reconstruct arguments, and stress-test claims. You can find the next week's reading here
WARNING
Browse the current and upcoming papers along with past Readings and meetings. Expect highly technical material, dense terminology, and high abstraction. It is full of philosophical jargon and complex technical terms. Your expectation should be to treat it as a graduate seminar in philosophy. We don't assume you have a degree in philosophy, but we do assume philosophical maturity and/or a crazy level of passion for deductive reasoning. If you are into that sort of thing, be my guest. We will start reviewing the paper, and start reading from page 12 of the PDF. You can take a look at my review of Strawson here.
DETAILS
Galen Strawson’s “Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism” is one of the most forceful—and controversial—arguments in contemporary philosophy of mind. What makes the paper significant is not that it defends panpsychism per se; panpsychism has been around for centuries. The shock comes from who is making the argument and how he makes it: Strawson insists that panpsychism is the only coherent version of physicalism left standing once you take consciousness seriously.
The core claim can be stated crisply:
If physicalism is true and consciousness is real, then consciousness must be a fundamental feature of the physical world—not an inexplicable emergent add-on.
Therefore, physicalism → panpsychism.
Strawson accuses mainstream physicalists of intellectual double-dealing. They profess allegiance to physicalism, yet treat consciousness as an anomalous latecomer—an emergent property that magically arises from non-experiential matter. For Strawson, this “emergentist physicalism” is not just incomplete; it is metaphysically incoherent. If consciousness is genuinely real, and if everything real is physical, then the denial that matter has an experiential aspect is simply a disguised form of dualism.
What the paper does—and does ruthlessly—is collapse the standard physicalist taxonomy. Strawson argues that there are not many versions of physicalism; there is only one coherent version:
a monistic ontology in which the intrinsic nature of the physical includes experiential properties.
In this sense, the paper is not an argument for panpsychism from scratch. It is a reductio of the alternatives:
- Eliminativism is untenable because consciousness is the one thing we cannot coherently deny.
- Dualism violates physicalism by definition.
- Emergentism violates the causal closure and metaphysical unity physicalists claim to defend.
- Non-experiential monism is just dualism wearing a physicalist mask.
Strawson’s argumentative strategy is elegantly simple:
Start with premises every physicalist claims to believe, and follow them to their conclusion. The physicalists blink first.
Conclusions
Strawson takes physicalism more seriously than most physicalists do. He reads “everything is physical” literally. And once you do that, the ontological space tightens: the only way to avoid inexplicable metaphysical gaps is to attribute experiential properties to matter at the most fundamental level.
The paper is therefore best understood as a challenge:
Either bite the panpsychist bullet, or admit you were never a physicalist in the first place.
Whether one finds the argument compelling or infuriating, it is undeniably foundational. It forces a re-examination of what “physical” actually means—a question analytic philosophy has been able to postpone but not avoid. For that reason, Strawson’s paper remains essential reading.12 attendees
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