An Argument for Micropsychism: If There is a Conscious Whole, There Must be Conscious Parts

Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy 38 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Many philosophers today accept that phenomenal truths cannot be explained in terms of ordinary physical truths. Two possible routes to accounting for consciousness have received much attention: the emergentist route is to accept that ordinary experience is inexplicable in physical terms but that microscopic entities as described in physics nonetheless bring about conscious experience. The second route is to argue that microscopic entities have features not described in physics which can fully explain conscious experience. The view associated with panprotopsychism is that microscopic entities have no phenomenal properties. The view associated with panpsychism is that microscopic entities do have phenomenal properties. In this paper it is argued that if consciousness is extended in space only the latter view is possible. According to this argument for micropsychism, if phenomenal truths are not merely structural, all truths about a whole are truths about its parts plus structural relational truths. If there are phenomenal truths about the whole, this must be because there are phenomenal truths about its parts. It wouldn’t follow that panpsychism is true, since it does not follow that consciousness exists outside the wholes we know to be conscious, but it does follow that emergentism and protopanpsychism are false.

Similar books and articles

How many explanatory gaps are there?E. Diaz-Leon - 2009 - APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers 8 (2):33-35.
Conceptual mastery and the knowledge argument.Gabriel Rabin - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 154 (1):125-147.
Epistemic Gaps and the Mind-Body Problem.Thomas Foerster - 2019 - Dissertation, Cornell University
How to be a type-C physicalist.Adrian Boutel - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (2):301-320.
Against phenomenal bonding.S. Siddharth - 2021 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 17 (1):(D1)5-16.
Reductive explanation, concepts, and a priori entailment.E. Diaz-Leon - 2011 - Philosophical Studies 155 (1):99-116.
The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgement and the Case Against Illusionism.Hane Htut Maung - 2023 - Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences 16 (1):1-13.

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-04-24

Downloads
127 (#37,695)

6 months
127 (#141,279)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Arjen Rookmaaker
University of Nijmegen

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

A Materialist Theory of the Mind.D. M. Armstrong - 1968 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Ted Honderich.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.
The Combination Problem for Panpsychism.David Chalmers - 2017 - In Brüntrup Godehard & Jaskolla Ludwig (eds.), Panpsychism. Oxford University Press.

View all 70 references / Add more references