•  23
    Unconscious transformative experience
    Synthese 202 (4): 1-26. 2023.
    According to L.A. Paul, conscious experiences can be transformative. But can unconscious experiences also be transformative? After a preliminary clarification of what it means to have an unconscious experience, we marshal three cases of unconscious experiences to support the idea that unconscious experiences can be transformative: one inspired by Anna Karenina, another by a case of Freud’s, and a third by the medical condition hemispatial neglect. Such examples, we argue, suggest not only that y…Read more
  •  2
    Reviews (review)
    Philosophical Psychology 20 (6): 815-833. 2007.
  •  53
    Preamble
    Philosophical Psychology 20 (6). 2007.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  547
    Taking their motivation from the perceived failure of the reductive physicalist project concerning consciousness, panpsychists ascribe subjectivity to fundamental material entities in order to account for macro-consciousness. But there exists an unresolved tension within the mainstream panpsychist position, the seriousness of which has yet to be appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer advice to panpsychists on how to resolve it. The dilemma is as follows: Panpsychists take th…Read more
  •  26
    The Evolution of Nagel's Panpsychism
    Klesis Review 41 (2018): 180-202. 2018.
    In this paper I will trace the path of Nagel’s thought, from the reasons that led him to ambivalent embrace of panpsychism, to his present view. Having arrived at his present position I will consider how to make best sense of it. Is it panpsychism, or not? And were the seeds of that view present all along?
  •  9
    Natural Acquaintance
    In Thomas Raleigh & Jonathan Knowles (eds.), Acquaintance: New Essays. pp. 49-74. 2019.
    Notwithstanding its phenomenological appeal, physicalists have tended to shun the notion that we are ‘acquainted’ with our mental states in consciousness, due to the fact that the acquaintance relation seems mysterious, irreducible, and consequently unnatural. I propose a model of conscious experience based on the idea of ‘mental quotation’, and argue that this captures what we want from acquaintance but without any threat to naturalism. More generally the chapter embodies a complaint that reduc…Read more
  •  40
    Intentionality, Qualia, and the Stream of Unconsciousness
    Phenomenology and Mind 22 (22): 42. 2022.
    According to Brentano, mentality is essentially intentional in nature. Other philosophers have emphasized the phenomenal-qualitative aspect of conscious experiences as core to the mind. A recent philosophical wave – the ‘phenomenal intentionality programme’ – seeks to unite these conceptions in the idea that mental content is grounded in phenomenal qualities. However, a philosophical and scientific current, which includes Freud and contemporary cognitive science, makes widespread use of the posi…Read more
  •  64
    The ins and outs of conscious belief
    Philosophical Studies 179 (2): 517-548. 2022.
    What should advocates of phenomenal intentionality say about unconscious intentional states? I approach this question by focusing on a recent debate between Tim Crane and David Pitt, about the nature of belief. Crane argues that beliefs are never conscious. Pitt, concerned that the phenomenal intentionality thesis coupled with a commitment to beliefs as essentially unconscious embroils Crane in positing unconscious phenomenology, counter-argues that beliefs are essentially conscious. I examine a…Read more
  •  84
    How could physicalism be true of a world in which there are no fundamental physical phenomena? A familiar answer, due to Barbara Gail Montero and others, is that physicalism could be true of such a world if that world does not contain an infinite descent of mentality. Christopher Devlin Brown has produced a counterexample to that solution. We show how to modify the solution to accommodate Brown’s example: physicalism could be true of a world without fundamental physical phenomena if that world d…Read more
  •  54
    Frank Jackson's case of Mary the colour scientist, and the knowledge argument against physicalism built upon it, are well known. This paper starts from Jackson's other, more neglected, thought experiment, about Fred, who sees a unique shade of red. It explores two senses in which properties are said to be 'objective', roughly corresponding to the ideas of a property's being intersubjectively accessible, on the one hand, and its being knowable without the need for special experiences, on the othe…Read more
  • Panpsychism and Neutral Monism}: How to Make Up One}’s Mind
    In Godehard Brüntrup & Ludwig Jaskolla (eds.), Panpsychism: Contemporary Perspectives, Oxford University Press. pp. 249--282. 2016.
  •  98
    Russellian physicalism and protophenomenal properties
    Analysis 80 (3): 409-417. 2020.
    According to Russellian monism, phenomenal consciousness is constituted by inscrutables: intrinsic properties that categorically ground dispositional properties described by fundamental physics. On Russellian physicalism, those inscrutables are construed as protophenomenal properties: non-structural properties that both categorically ground dispositional properties and, perhaps when appropriately structured, collectively constitute phenomenal properties. Morris and Brown argue that protophenomen…Read more
  •  241
    Russellian monism and mental causation
    Noûs 55 (2): 409-425. 2021.
    According to Russellian monism, consciousness is constituted at least partly by quiddities: intrinsic properties that categorically ground dispositional properties described by fundamental physics. If the theory is true, then consciousness and such dispositional properties are closely connected. But how closely? The contingency thesis says that the connection is contingent. For example, on this thesis the dispositional property associated with negative charge might have been categorically ground…Read more
  •  33
    The merits of higher-order thought theories
    Trans/Form/Ação 41 (s1): 31-48. 2018.
    Over many years and in many publications David Rosenthal has developed, defended and applied his justly well-known higher-order thought theory of consciousness.2 In this paper I explain the theory, then provide a brief history of a major objection to it. I suggest that this objection is ultimately ineffectual, but that behind it lies a reason to look beyond Rosenthal's theory to another sort of HOT theory. I then offer my own HOT theory as a suitable alternative, before concluding in a final sec…Read more
  •  77
    Personhood, consciousness, and god: how to be a proper pantheist
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 85 (1): 77-98. 2019.
    In this paper I develop a theory of personhood which leaves open the possibility of construing the universe as a person. If successful, it removes one bar to endorsing pantheism. I do this by examining a rising school of thought on personhood, on which persons, or selves, are understood as identical to episodes of consciousness. Through a critique of this experiential approach to personhood, I develop a theory of self as constituted of qualitative mental contents, but where these contents are al…Read more
  •  108
    The Knowledge Argument (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2019.
    Frank Jackson's knowledge argument imagines a super-smart scientist, Mary, forced to investigate the mysteries of human colour vision using only black and white resources. Can she work out what it is like to see red from brain-science and physics alone? The argument says no: Mary will only really learn what red looks like when she actually sees it. Something is therefore missing from the science of the mind, and from the 'physicalist' picture of the world based on science. This powerful and cont…Read more
  •  40
    Neutral Monism
    Philosophy Now 121 9-11. 2017.
  •  277
    Mental Chemistry1: Combination for Panpsychists
    Dialectica 66 (1): 137-166. 2012.
    Panpsychism, an increasingly popular competitor to physicalism as a theory of mind, faces a famous difficulty, the ‘combination problem’. This is the difficulty of understanding the composition of a conscious mind by parts which are themselves taken to be phenomenally qualitied. I examine the combination problem, and I attempt to solve it. There are a few distinct difficulties under the banner of ‘the combination problem’, and not all of them need worry panpsychists. After homing in on the genui…Read more
  •  3
    Reviews: Reviews (review)
    Philosophy 85 (3): 413-418. 2010.
  •  101
    Consciousness and The Prospects of Physicalism. By Derk Pereboom
    Philosophical Quarterly 63 (253): 824-827. 2013.
    © 2013 The Editors of The Philosophical QuarterlyThis is a very good, very helpful book. In describing two possible outgrowths of contemporary physicalism, Pereboom performs a feat of time‐travel: he takes us forward to see the fruits ultimately to be produced by current seeds of thought. One of these branches—based on the ‘qualitative inaccuracy’ thesis—almost represents a parody of prevailing physicalist epistemic treatments of consciousness, to the extent that I can't shake the feeling that t…Read more
  •  360
    Reading Tye’s new book reminded me of slowly sipping a good specimen of a dry vodka Martini. In both cases much is accomplished by the skilful assembly of only a few key ingredients. I don’t really like dry vodka Martinis, though, and similarly I found many of the thoughts offered by Consciousness Revisited to be too bitter to swallow. A sophisticated piece of work, however, it certainly is
  •  118
    Quotational higher-order thought theory
    Philosophical Studies 172 (10): 2705-2733. 2015.
    Due to their reliance on constitutive higher-order representing to generate the qualities of which the subject is consciously aware, I argue that the major existing higher-order representational theories of consciousness insulate us from our first-order sensory states. In fact on these views we are never properly conscious of our sensory states at all. In their place I offer a new higher-order theory of consciousness, with a view to making us suitably intimate with our sensory states in experien…Read more
  •  1120
    Mind under Matter
    In David Skrbina (ed.), Mind that Abides, Benjamins. 2009.
    Panpsychism is an eminently sensible view of the world and its relation to mind. If God is a metaphysician, and regardless of the actual truth or falsity of panpsychism, it is certain that he regards the theory as an honest and elegant competitor on the field of ontologies. And if God didn’t create a panpsychist world, then there’s a fair chance that he wishes he had done so, or will do next time around. The difficulties panpsychism faces, then, are not metaphysical ones. They are, instead, difficu…Read more
  •  29
    Phenomenal Qualities: Sense, Perception, and Consciousness (edited book)
    Oxford University Press UK. 2015.
    What are phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences? Are phenomenal qualities subjective, belonging to inner mental episodes of some kind, or should they be seen as objective, belonging in some way to the physical things in the world around us? Are they physical properties at all? And to what extent do experiences represent the things around us, or the states of our own bodies? Fourteen original papers, written by a team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists, explore …Read more
  •  77
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  923
    There Is No Argument that the Mind Extends
    Journal of Philosophy 108 (2): 100-108. 2011.
    There is no Argument that the Mind Extends On the basis of two argumentative examples plus their 'parity principle', Clark and Chalmers argue that mental states like beliefs can extend into the environment. I raise two problems for the argument. The first problem is that it is more difficult than Clark and Chalmers think to set up the Tetris example so that application of the parity principle might render it a case of extended mind. The second problem is that, even when appropriate versions of t…Read more
  •  233
    Being realistic - why physicalism may entail panexperientialism
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (10-11): 40-52. 2006.
    In this paper I first examine two important assumptions underlying the argument that physicalism entails panpsychism. These need unearthing because opponents in the literature distinguish themselves from Strawson in the main by rejecting one or the other. Once they have been stated, and something has been said about the positions that reject them, the onus of argument becomes clear: the assumptions require careful defence. I believe they are true, in fact, but their defence is a large project th…Read more
  •  38
    Review of Daniel N. Robinson, Consciousness and Mental Life (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (1). 2009.