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From phenomenal selves to hyperselvesIn Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Mind, Self and Person, Cambridge University Press. 2015.
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Time and Temporal ExperienceIn Adrian Bardon (ed.), The Future of the Philosophy of Time, Routledge. pp. 123-48. 2012.
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19The Perception of TimeIn Heather Dyke & Adrian Bardon (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, Wiley. 2013.The James‐Husserl thesis is potentially of great importance for the understanding of consciousness. While there may be a good deal of agreement on the need to posit a specious present in some form or other, there is profound disagreement over the correct way of conceiving of it. This chapter surveys some of the more important landmarks in this contentious territory. An account of what is the specious present was elaborated by Brentano in lectures in the 1860s. Brentano fully appreciated the impo…Read more
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163The Silence of PhysicsErkenntnis 88 (5): 2207-2241. 2021.Although many find it hard to believe that every physical thing—no matter how simple or small—involves some form of consciousness, panpsychists offer the reassurance that their claims are perfectly compatible with everything physics has to say about the physical world. This is because although physics has a lot to say about causal and structural properties it has nothing to say about the intrinsic natures of physical things, and if physics is silent in this regard it is perfectly possible that e…Read more
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1694Minding the Future: Artificial Intelligence, Philosophical Visions and Science Fiction (edited book)Springer. 2021.Bringing together literary scholars, computer scientists, ethicists, philosophers of mind, and scholars from affiliated disciplines, this collection of essays offers important and timely insights into the pasts, presents, and, above all, possible futures of Artificial Intelligence. This book covers topics such as ethics and morality, identity and selfhood, and broader issues about AI, addressing questions about the individual, social, and existential impacts of such technologies. Through the wo…Read more
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18Force in Physics and in Metaphysics: A Brief HistoryIn Wuppuluri Shyam & Francisco Antonio Dorio (eds.), The Map and the Territory: Exploring the Foundations of Science, Thought and Reality, Springer. pp. 199-231. 2018.The concept of force can seem comparatively unproblematic—forces are responsible for making things move. However, the history of both physics and metaphysics reveals considerable controversy concerning both the nature of forces, and their very existence. My survey takes in the Greek atomists, Aristotelian physics, the “mechanical” philosophy of the scientific revolution, the innovations of Descartes and Newton, Hume-inspired skepticism, the dynamism of Leibniz, Kant and Boscovich, the field theo…Read more
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34Brentano on Phenomenal Unity and HolismRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 142 (4): 513. 2017.
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110I—The Sense of SelfAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (1): 113-143. 2016.Different conceptions of the nature of subjects of experience have very different implications for the sort of relationship which exists between subjects and their experiences. On my preferred view, since subjects consist of nothing but capacities for experience, the ‘having’ of an experience amounts to a subject’s producing it. This relationship may look to be problematic, but I argue that here at least appearances are deceptive. I then move on to consider some of the ways in which experiences …Read more
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Brentano on the Unity of ConsciousnessIn Uriah Kriegel (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, Routledge. pp. 61-74. 2017.
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629Those who believe suitably programmed computers could enjoy conscious experience of the sort we enjoy must accept the possibility that their own experience is being generated as part of a computerized simulation. It would be a mistake to dismiss this is just one more radical sceptical possibility: for as Bostrom has recently noted, if advances in computer technology were to continue at close to present rates, there would be a strong probability that we are each living in a computer simulation. T…Read more
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96Survival and ExperienceProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96 (1). 1996.(Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1996: 17-36) I If I am to survive until some later date, what must happen, and what must not happen, over the intervening period? I am talking here about survival in the strict sense. Take an earlier and a later person, if they are one and the same, what is it about them that makes this so? In addressing this question the preferred tool has long been the exploitation of imaginary or science fiction cases. We are asked to reflect on scenarios in which an …Read more
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183Phenomenal HolismRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 67 113-139. 2010.According to proponents of ‘phenomenal holism’, the intrinsic characteristics of the parts of unified conscious states are dependent to some degree on the characteristics of the wholes to which they belong. Although the doctrine can easily seem obscure or implausible, there are eminent philosophers who have defended it, amongst them Timothy Sprigge. In Stream of Consciousness (2000) I found Sprigge’s case for phenomenal holism problematic on several counts; in this paper I re-assess some of thes…Read more
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84Coming TogetherIn Susan Schneider & Max Velmans (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, Wiley. 2017.The notion of “phenomenal field” often occurs when philosophers attempt to characterize the unity of consciousness. The phenomenal unity relationship is distinct from the coinstantiation relation. There are grounds for supposing that experiences can be phenomenally unified in the absence of any higher‐order conscious state, and in the absence of any spatial relations of a phenomenal kind. There is a way in which phenomenal unity can be construed as a primitive feature of experience. Rather than …Read more
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211The self and the phenomenalRatio 17 (4): 365-89. 2004.As is widely appreciated and easily demonstrated, the notion that we are essentially experiential (or conscious) beings has a good deal of appeal; what is less obvious, and more controversial, is whether it is possible to devise a viable account of the self along such lines within the confines of a broadly naturalistic metaphysical framework. There are many avenues to explore, but here I confine myself to outlining the case for one particular approach. I suggest that we should think of ourselves…Read more
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225Time, Passage and Immediate ExperienceIn Craig Callender (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, Oxford University Press. pp. 382. 2011.
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148Time and SpaceMcgill-Queen's University Press. 2001.These are just some of the fundamental questions addressed in Time and Space. Writing for a primary readership of advanced undergraduate and graduate philosophy students, Barry Dainton introduces the central ideas and arguments that make space and time such philosophically challenging topics. Although recognising that many issues in the philosophy of time and space involve technical features of physics, Dainton has been careful to keep the conceptual issues accessible to students with little sci…Read more
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35Reviews - Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics. By Galen Strawson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.448Philosophy 86 (1): 127-134. 2011.
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985Higher-order consciousness and phenomenal space: Reply to MeehanPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 10. 2004.Meehan finds fault with a number of my arguments, and proposes that better solutions to the problems I was addressing are available if we adopt a higher-order theory of consciousness. I start with some general remarks on theories of this sort. I connect what I had to say about the A-thesis with different forms of higher-order sense theories, and explain why I ignored higher-order thought theories altogether: there are compelling grounds for thinking they cannot provide a viable account of phenom…Read more
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88Causation and laws of natureIn John Shand (ed.), Central Issues in Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.
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1064Time in experience: Reply to GallagherPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 9. 2003.Consciousness exists in time, but time is also to be found within consciousness: we are directly aware of both persistence and change, at least over short intervals. On reflection this can seem baffling. How is it possible for us to be immediately aware of phenomena which are not (strictly speaking) present? What must consciousness be like for this to be possible? In "Stream of Consciousness" I argued that influential accounts of phenomenal temporality along the lines developed by Broad and Huss…Read more
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209Sensing changePhilosophical Issues 18 (1): 362-384. 2008.We can anticipate what is yet to happen, remember what has already happened, but our immediate experience is confined to the present, the here and now. So much seems common sense. So much so that it is no surprise to see Thomas Reid, that pre-eminent champion of common sense in philosophy, advocating precisely this position
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662Precis: Stream of ConsciousnessPSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 10. 2004.That our ordinary everyday experience exhibits both unity and continuity is uncontroversial, and on the face of it utterly unmysterious. At any moment we have some conscious awareness of both the world about us, as revealed through our perceptual experiences, and our own inner states – our bodily sensations, thoughts, mental images and so on. Since once wakened we tend to stay awake for several hours, tracing out continuous routes through whatever environment we happen to find ourselves in, it i…Read more
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71From Phenomenal Selves to HyperselvesRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 76 161-197. 2015.The claim that we are subjects of experience, i.e. beings whose nature is intimately bound up with consciousness, is in many ways a plausible one. There is, however, more than one way of developing a metaphysical account of the nature of subjects. The view that subjects are essentially conscious has the unfortunate consequence that subjects cannot survive periods of unconsciousness. A more appealing alternative is to hold that subjects are beings with the capacity to be conscious, a capacity whi…Read more
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964Unity and introspectibility: Reply to GilmorePSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 10. 2004.Gilmore concentrates on two arguments which I took to undermine the claim that introspectibility is necessary for co-consciousness: the.
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320In ordinary conscious experience, consciousness of time seems to be ubiquitous. For example, we seem to be directly aware of change, movement, and succession across brief temporal intervals. How is this possible? Many different models of temporal consciousness have been proposed. Some philosophers have argued that consciousness is confined to a momentary interval and that we are not in fact directly aware of change. Others have argued that although consciousness itself is momentary, we are never…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
20th Century Philosophy |
Philosophy of Physical Science |