A defense of panpyschism based on Ockham's Razor, arguing against the materialistic identity thesis, e.g., J J C Smart.

A defense of panpyschism based on Ockham's Razor, arguing against the materialistic identity thesis, e.g., J J C Smart.

A slew of conceivability arguments have been given against physicalism. Many physicalists try to undermine these arguments by offering accounts of phenomenal concepts that explain how there can be an epistemic gap, but not an ontological gap, between the phenomenal and the physical. Some complain, however, that such accounts fail to do justice to the nature of our introspective grasp of phenomenal properties. A particularly influential version of this complaint comes from David Chalmers (1996; 2003), who claims, in opposition to (...) the accounts of phenomenal concepts described above, that phenomenal concepts have primary and secondary intensions that coincide in all worlds. In this paper, I construct an argument that casts doubt upon Chalmers' claim. At the heart of this argument is an idea that Chalmers shows some affinity for: namely, that introspection doesn't reveal whether phenomenal properties are fundamental properties or whether they are derived from more basic protophenomenal properties. I argue that this claim implies that the primary and secondary intensions of our phenomenal concepts do not coincide in all worlds. In this way, I show that a plausible idea about the powers of introspection – an idea that Chalmers himself is drawn to – is a reason for rejecting the claim that phenomenal concepts have primary and secondary intensions that coincide in all worlds. (shrink)

Standard physicalism is repudiated by Susan Schneider on the grounds that the science of physics at physicalism's foundation is individuated by mathematics, revealing that science is abstract rather than concrete. She seeks to remedy the situation for physics, though not for physicalism, with a panprotopsychist variant of panpyschism. Her approach is clever and well-developed, but I believe it suffers from at least two flaws. First, with few exceptions individuation is the wrong tool for the discovery of a thing's nature; (...) second, panpsychism and its proto variant have problems no less worrisome than those attributed to standard physicalism. Moreover, once developed it is questionable whether a surviving panpsychism is distinct from a less troubled emergentism. (shrink)

Sewall Wright first encountered the complex systems characteristic of gene combinations while a graduate student at Harvard's Bussey Institute from 1912 to 1915. In Mendelian breeding experiments, Wright observed a hierarchical dependence of the organism's phenotype on dynamic networks of genetic interaction and organization. An animal's physical traits, and thus its autonomy from surrounding environmental constraints, depended greatly on how genes behaved in certain combinations. Wright recognized that while genes are the material determinants of the animal phenotype, operating with great (...) regularity, the special nature of genetic systems contributes to the animal phenotype a degree of spontaneity and novelty, creating unpredictable trait variations by virtue of gene interactions. As a result of his experimentation, as well as his keen interest in the philosophical literature of his day, Wright was inspired to see genetic systems as conscious, living organisms in their own right. Moreover, he decided that since genetic systems maintain ordered stability and cause unpredictable novelty in their organic wholes (the animal phenotype), it would be necessary for biologists to integrate techniques for studying causally ordered phenomena (experimental method) and chance phenomena (correlation method). From 1914 to 1921 Wright developed his "method of path coefficient" (or "path analysis"), a new procedure drawing from both laboratory experimentation and statistical correlation in order to analyze the relative influence of specific genetic interactions on phenotype variation. In this paper I aim to show how Wright's philosophy for understanding complex genetic systems (panpsychic organicism) logically motivated his 1914-1921 design of path analysis. (shrink)