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William Seager [69]William E. Seager [39]William Edward Seager [1]William S. Seager [1]
  1. The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism.William Seager (ed.) - 2019 - Routledge.
    Panpsychism is the view that consciousness a sh the most puzzling and strangest phenomenon in the entire universe a sh is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the.
     
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  2. Consciousness, information, and panpsychism.William Seager - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):272-88.
    The generation problem is to explain how material configurations or processes can produce conscious experience. David Chalmers urges that this is what makes the problem of consciousness really difficult. He proposes to side-step the generation problem by proposing that consciousness is an absolutely fundamental feature of the world. I am inclined to agree that the generation problem is real and believe that taking consciousness to be fundamental is promising. But I take issue with Chalmers about what it is to be (...)
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  3. Panpsychism, aggregation and combinatorial infusion.William Seager - 2010 - Mind and Matter 8 (2):167-184.
    Deferential Monadic Panpsychism is a view that accepts that physical science is capable of discovering the basic structure of reality. However, it denies that reality is fully and exhaustively de- scribed purely in terms of physical science. Consciousness is missing from the physical description and cannot be reduced to it. DMP explores the idea that the physically fundamental features of the world possess some intrinsic mental aspect. It thereby faces a se- vere problem of understanding how more complex mental states (...)
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  4. Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction.William Seager - 1999 - New York: Routledge.
    The most remarkable fact about the universe is that certain parts of it are conscious. Somehow nature has managed to pull the rabbit of experience out of a hat made of mere matter. Making its own contribution to the current, lively debate about the nature of consciousness, Theories of Consciousness introduces variety of approaches to consciousness and explores to what extent scientific understanding of consciousness is possible. Including discussion of key figures, such as Descartes, Foder, Dennett and Chalmers, the book (...)
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  5. (1 other version)Representationalism about consciousness.William E. Seager & David Bourget - 2007 - In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 261-276.
    A representationalist-friendly introduction to representationalism which covers a number of central problems and objections.
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  6. The 'intrinsic nature' argument for panpsychism.William E. Seager - 2006 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11):129-145.
    Strawson’s case in favor of panpsychism is at heart an updated version of a venerable form of argument I’ll call the ‘intrinsic nature’ argument. It is an extremely interesting argument which deploys all sorts of high caliber metaphysical weaponry (despite the ‘down home’ appeals to common sense which Strawson frequently makes). The argument is also subtle and intricate. So let’s spend some time trying to articulate its general form.
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  7. (1 other version)Panpsychism.William Seager - 2007 - In Brian McLaughlin, Ansgar Beckermann & Sven Walter (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
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  8.  92
    Metaphysics of Consciousness.William Seager - 1991 - London ;: Routledge.
    _Metaphysics of Consciousness_ opens with a development of the physicalist outlook that denies the need for any explanation of the mental. This "inexplicability" is demonstrated not to be sufficient as refutation of physicalism. However, the inescapable particularity of modes of consciousness appears to overpower this minimal physicalism. This book proposes that such an inference requires either a wholly new conception of how consciousness is physical or a deep and disturbing new kind of physical inexplicability.
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  9. Emotional introspection.William E. Seager - 2002 - Consciousness and Cognition 11 (4):666-687.
    One of the most vivid aspects of consciousness is the experience of emotion, yet this topic is given relatively little attention within consciousness studies. Emotions are crucial, for they provide quick and motivating assessments of value, without which action would be misdirected or absent. Emotions also involve linkages between phenomenal and intentional consciousness. This paper examines emotional consciousness from the standpoint of the representational theory of consciousness . Two interesting developments spring from this. The first is the need for the (...)
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  10.  41
    (1 other version)Metaphysics of Consciousness.John Heil & William Seager - 1993 - Philosophical Review 102 (4):612.
  11. Representational theories of consciousness, parts I and II.William E. Seager - 1999 - In William Seager (ed.), Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction. New York: Routledge.
     
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  12.  91
    A cold look at HOT theory.William E. Seager - 2004 - In Rocco J. Gennaro (ed.), Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: An Anthology. John Benjamins.
  13. Disjunctive laws and supervenience.William E. Seager - 1991 - Analysis 51 (2):93-98.
  14. Weak supervenience and materialism.William E. Seager - 1988 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48 (June):697-709.
    THIS ARTICLE ARGUES THAT WEAK SUPERVENIENCE IS\nSUFFICIENTLY STRONG TO ESTABLISH A REASONABLE AND PLAUSIBLE\nMATERIALISM. SUPERVENIENCE IS A RELATION BETWEEN FAMILIES\nOF PROPERTIES, SUCH THAT, ROUGHLY SPEAKING, FAMILY A\nSUPERVENES ON FAMILY B IF ANY OBJECTS WHICH ARE\nINDISCERNIBLE WITH RESPECT TO B ARE THEREBY INDISCERNIBLE\nWITH RESPECT TO A. WEAK SUPERVENIENCE IS SUPERVENIENCE\nRESTRICTED TO ONE POSSIBLE WORLD; STRONG SUPERVENIENCE IS A\n"NECESSARY" SUPERVENIENCE EXTENDING ACROSS SOME PRINCIPLED\nSET OF POSSIBLE WORLDS. THESE NOTIONS ARE MADE SOMEWHAT\nMORE RIGOROUS FOLLOWING JAEGWON KIM'S DEVELOPMENT OF THEM.\nKIM HAS ARGUED THAT ONLY (...)
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  15. Ground truth and virtual reality: Hacking vs. Van Fraassen.William Seager - 1995 - Philosophy of Science 62 (3):459-478.
    Hacking argues against van Fraassen's constructive empiricism by appeal to features of microscopic imaging. Hacking relies on both our practices involving imaging instruments and the structure of the images produced by these micropractices. Van Fraassen's reply is formally correct yet fundamentally unsatisfying. I aim to strengthen van Fraassen's reply, but must then extend constructive empiricism, specifically the central notion of "theoretical immersion." I argue that immersion is more analogous to entering a virtual reality than to learning a language. This metaphor (...)
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  16. Emergentist panpsychism.William Seager - 2012 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 19 (9-10):9-10.
    There are many possible forms of panpsychism. In this paper, I discuss a type of panpsychism in which the complex mental states of higher-level entities emerge from a system, or organization, of fundamental entities which possess extremely simple forms of mentality. I argue that this sort of panpsychism is surprisingly plausible, especially in light of the notorious difficulties raised by consciousness. Emergentist panpsychism faces a distinctive challenge, however. In so far as panpsychism embraces emergentism of the mental, a purely physicalist (...)
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  17. Dennett, part I and II.William E. Seager - 1999 - In William Seager (ed.), Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction. New York: Routledge.
     
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  18. Introspection and the Elementary Acts of Mind.William Seager - 2000 - Dialogue 39 (1):53-76.
    RésuméFred Dretske a développé, à titre de composante de sa théorie de la conscience, une théorie de I'introspection. Celle-ciprésente une plausibilityé indépendante, elle résiste à des objections qui affectent nombre d'autres théories et elle suggère des liens très féconds dans plusieurs domaines de la science cognitive. La version qu'en donne Dretske est restreinte à la connaissance introspective des états perceptuels. Mon objectif ici est d'étendre la théorie à tous les états mentaux. Le mécanisme qui est fondamental dans cette approche est (...)
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  19.  96
    Consciousness, value and functionalism.William E. Seager - 2001 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 7.
    Charles Siewert presents a series of thought experiment based arguments against a wide range of current theories of phenomenal consciousness which I believe achieves a considerable measure of success. One topic which I think gets insufficient attention is the discussion of functionalism and I address this here. Before that I consider the intriguing issue, which is seldom considered but figures prominently at the close of Siewert's book, of the value of consciousness. In particular, I broach the question of whether the (...)
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  20.  83
    Externalism and token identity.William E. Seager - 1992 - Philosophical Quarterly 42 (169):439-48.
    Donald Davidson espouses two fundamental theses about the individuation of mental events. The thesis of causal individuation asserts that sameness of cause and effect is sufficient and necessary for event identity. The thesis of content individuation gives only a sufficient condition for difference of mental events: if e and f have different contents then they are different mental events. I argue that given these theses, psychological externalism--the view that mental content is determined by factors external to the subject of the (...)
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  21. A brief history of the philosophical problem of consciousness.William E. Seager - 2007 - In Morris Moscovitch, Philip Zelazo & Evan Thompson (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 9--33.
  22. Classical Levels, Russellian Monism and the Implicate Order.William Seager - 2013 - Foundations of Physics 43 (4):548-567.
    Reception of the Bohm-Hiley interpretation of quantum mechanics has a curiously Janus faced quality. On the one hand, it is frequently derided as a conservative throwback to outdated classical patterns of thought. On the other hand, it is equally often taken to task for encouraging a wild quantum mysticism, often regarded as anti-scientific. I will argue that there are reasons for this reception, but that a proper appreciation of the dual scientific and philosophical aspects of the view reveals a powerful (...)
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  23.  56
    Descartes on the Union of Mind and Body.William E. Seager - 1988 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 5 (2):119 - 132.
  24. Real patterns and surface metaphysics.William E. Seager - 2000 - In Don Ross, Andrew Brook & David Thompson (eds.), Dennett’s Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 95--129.
    Naturalism is supposed to be a Good Thing. So good in fact that everybody wants to be a naturalist, no matter what their views might be1. Thus there is some confusion about what, exactly, naturalism is. In what follows, I am going to be pretty much, though not exclusively, concerned with the topics of intentionality and consciousness, which only deepens the confusion for these are two areas.
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  25.  78
    The Discreet Charm of Counterpart Theory.Graeme Hunter & William Seager - 1980 - Analysis 41 (2):73 - 76.
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  26. Dretske on HOT theories of consciousness.William E. Seager - 1994 - Analysis 54 (4):270-76.
  27. The elimination of experience.William Seager - 1993 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (2):345-65.
  28. Functionalism, qualia and causation.William E. Seager - 1983 - Mind 92 (April):174-88.
  29.  50
    The logic of lost lingens.William Seager - 1990 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 19 (4):407 - 428.
  30. The Worm in the Cheese Leibniz, Consciousness and Matter.William Seager - 1991 - Studia Leibnitiana 23 (1):79-91.
    Leibniz argumentiert in der Monadologie, daß das Bewußtsein nicht auf rein mechanische und materielle Prozesse reduziert werden kann. Diesem wohlbekannten Argument wird bisweilen ein elementarer Trugschluß der Zusammensetzung vorgeworfen. Meiner Meinung nach hingegen weist dieses Argument eher auf ein grundlegendes Problem in unserem physikalischen Verständnis des menschlichen Geistes hin, einem Verständnis, das auch heute noch akzeptiert wird. Ich zeige jedoch weiterhin, daß Leibniz nicht erkannt hat, daß sein Argument die Möglichkeit offen läßt, daß es unsere begrifflichen Grenzen sind, die uns (...)
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  31. The constructed and the secret self.William E. Seager - 2001 - In Andrew Brook & Richard Devidi (eds.), Self-Reference Amd Self-Awareness, Advances in Consciousness Research Volume 11. John Benjamins.
     
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  32. Rosenberg, reducibility and consciousness.William E. Seager - 2006 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12.
    Rosenberg’s general argumentative strategy in favour of panpsychism is an extension of a traditional pattern. Although his argument is complex and intricate, I think a model that is historically significant and fundamentally similar to the position Rosenberg advances might help us understand the case for panpsychism. Thus I want to begin by considering a Leibnizian argument for panpsychism.
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  33.  57
    Supervenience and Mind. [REVIEW]William Seager - 1996 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 56 (3):730-733.
  34. Emergence and supervenience.William E. Seager - manuscript
    The metaphysical relation of supervenience has seen most of its service in the fields of the philosophy of mind and ethics. Although not repaying all of the hopes some initially invested in it – the mind-body problem remains stubbornly unsolved, ethics not satisfactorily naturalized – the use of the notion of supervenience has certainly clarified the nature and the commitments of so- called non-reductive materialism, especially with regard to the questions of whether explanations of supervenience relations are required and whether (...)
     
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  35.  35
    The Problem of Consciousness by Colin McGinn. [REVIEW]William Seager - 1994 - Journal of Philosophy 91 (6):327-330.
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  36. (1 other version)Is self-representation necessary for consciousness?William Seager - 2006 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 12.
    Brook and Raymont do not assert that self-representing representations are sufficient to generate consciousness, but they do assert that they are necessary, at least in the sense that self-representation provides the most plausible mechanism for generating conscious mental states. I argue that a first-order approach to consciousness is equally capable of accounting for the putative features of consciousness which are supposed to favor the self-representational account. If nothing is gained the simplicity of the first-order theory counts in its favor. I (...)
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  37. Credibility, confirmation and explanation.William Seager - 1987 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (3):301-317.
  38. (2 other versions)Emergence and efficacy.William Seager - 2004 - In Christina E. Erneling (ed.), The Mind As a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture. Oxford University Press.
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  39.  76
    The anomalousness of the mental.William E. Seager - 1981 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 19 (3):389-401.
  40. (1 other version)Fodor's theory of content: Problems and objections.William E. Seager - 1993 - Phiosophy of Science 60 (2):262-77.
    Jerry Fodor has recently proposed a new entry into the list of information based approaches to semantic content aimed at explicating the general notion of representation for both mental states and linguistic tokens. The basic idea is that a token means what causes its production. The burden of the theory is to select the proper cause from the sea of causal influences which aid in generating any token while at the same time avoiding the absurdity of everything's being literally meaningful (...)
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  41. A New Idea Of Reality: Pauli on the Unity of Mind and Matter.William Seager - 2011 - Mind and Matter 9 (1):37-52.
    In his extraphysical speculations around the mid 20th century, the physicist Wolfgang Pauli proposed, together with the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, a kind of 'dual-aspect monism' as a framework for conceiving of the mind-matter problem. It is discussed how this framework can be related to more recent developments in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind.
     
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  42. Yesterday’s Algorithm: Penrose and the Gödel Argument.William Seager - 2003 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 3 (9):265-273.
    Roger Penrose is justly famous for his work in physics and mathematics but he is _notorious_ for his endorsement of the Gödel argument (see his 1989, 1994, 1997). This argument, first advanced by J. R. Lucas (in 1961), attempts to show that Gödel’s (first) incompleteness theorem can be seen to reveal that the human mind transcends all algorithmic models of it1. Penrose's version of the argument has been seen to fall victim to the original objections raised against Lucas (see Boolos (...)
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  43. Science and the Riddle of Consciousness: A Solution.William Seager - 2002 - Mind 111 (442):406-410.
  44. (1 other version)Thought and syntax.William E. Seager - 1992 - Philosophy of Science Association 1992:481-491.
    It has been argued that Psychological Externalism is irrelevant to psychology. The grounds for this are that PE fails to individuate intentional states in accord with causal power, and that psychology is primarily interested in the causal roles of psychological states. It is also claimed that one can individuate psychological states via their syntactic structure in some internal "language of thought". This syntactic structure is an internal feature of psychological states and thus provides a key to their causal powers. I (...)
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  45. (1 other version)Are zombies logically possible? -- And why it matters.William E. Seager - manuscript
    A philosophical zombie is a being physically indistinguishable from an actual or possible human being, inhabiting a possible world where the _physical_ laws are identical to the laws of the actual world, but which completely lacks consciousness. For zombies, all is dark within, and hence they are, at the most fundamental level, utterly different from us. But, given their definition, this singular fact has no direct implications about the kind of motion, or other physical processes, the zombie will undergo within (...)
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  46. Reply to Forbes.William Seager & Alonso Church - 1982 - Analysis 42 (4):224-226.
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  47. Concessionary Dualism and Physicalism.William Seager - 2010 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 67:217-237.
    The doctrine of physicalism can be roughly spelled out simply as the claim that the physical state of the world determines the total state of the world. However, since there are many forms of determination, a somewhat more precise characterization is needed. One obvious problem with the simple formulation is that the traditional doctrine of epiphenomenalism holds that the mental is determined by the physical (and epiphenomenalists need not assert that there are any properties except mental and physical ones, so (...)
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  48. William S. Robinson, Brains and People: An Essay on Mentality and Its Causal Conditions Reviewed by.William Seager - 1990 - Philosophy in Review 10 (6):252-255.
     
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  49. Leibniz Lexicon.Reinhard Finster, Graeme Hunter, Robert F. Mcrae, Murray Miles & William E. Seager - 1990 - Springer.
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  50.  80
    A note on the 'quantum eraser'.William Seager - 1996 - Philosophy of Science 63 (1):81-90.
    This note aims to make more familiar to philosophers yet another bizarre quantum mechanical effect with disturbing metaphysical implications. It is possible to modify the classic double-slit experiment so that one can register the path of a particle to determine which slit it passes through, and then erase this registered information so that the interference effects which would normally disappear upon registration of the "which path" information are reconstituted. Thus the "trajectory" of particles can be effected by temporally and spatially (...)
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