https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3057-3224
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Abstract
Russellian monists argue that non-structural properties, or a combination of structural and non-structural properties, necessitate phenomenal properties. Different Russellian monists offer varying accounts of the structural/non-structural distinction, leading to divergent forms of Russellian monism. In this paper, I criticise Derk Pereboom’s characterisation of the structural/non-structural distinction proposed in his Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism and further work. I argue that from Pereboom’s characterisation of structural and non-structural properties, one can formulate general metaphysical principles concerning what structural and non-structural properties necessitate. These principles undermine the claim that non-structural properties—either alone or in combination with structural properties—necessitate phenomenal properties. Moreover, these principles are not affected by our supposed inability to conceive of non-structural properties in a manner conducive to the success of conceivability arguments.
Acknowledgements
Material from this paper was presented at a number of venues including: the ANU Philosophy Society, ANU Philosophy of Mind Group and the Kioloa Graduate Conference. I am indebted to the audience members at each of these occasions who provided invaluable feedback on the contents of this paper. I would also like to particularly thank Daniel Stoljar for his extensive and immensely helpful written comments on many drafts of this paper, as well as for many extremely valuable conversations on the topic over a number of years.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The exact nature of our ignorance of non-structural properties varies between different Russellian monists. Some Russellian monists such as Pereboom Citation2011 and Chalmers Citation2017 advocate explicit ignorance about non-structural properties, whilst others such as Seager Citation2017, Goff Citation2017, Roelofs Citation2019 attempt to positively characterise non-structural properties. It is worth noting that once Russellian monists positively characterise non-structural properties, these non-structural properties are no longer immune from conceivability reasoning in the way described in this paper.
2 The arguments in this paper can be seen as an extension of the arguments formulated in Cutter Citation2019. Cutter Citation2019 argues that there appears to be an explanatory gap in the Russellian monist account of phenomenal consciousness that is prima facie just as large as the explanatory gap in the physicalist account. The arguments here claim that there is in fact a metaphysical gap in the Russellian monist account of phenomenal consciousness that not only holds prima facie, but at the ideal limit.
3 Thanks to an anonymous referee for raising the following objection: Some mathematicians think Goldbach’s conjecture is undecidable and hence ideally conceivable as both true and false. Yet given it is a mathematical truth it must either be necessarily true or necessarily false—so ideal conceivability does not entail metaphysical possibility. Response: Even if we grant that the undecidability of Goldbach’s conjecture entails it is both ideally conceivable as true and false (conversely, Yablo’s (Citation1993) account of undecidability entails that a scenario is neither ideally conceivable as true or false) it is only a counterexample to a simple entailment between conceivability and possibility, not the claim that conceivability is a reliable guide to possibility.
4 Of course, it is hard to provide uncontroversial examples of intrinsic properties. One may challenge the idea that geometric properties or phenomenal properties are in fact intrinsic. See for example Skow Citation2007 and Lewis Citation1980. These challenges will be set aside for the purpose of this paper.
5 In Pereboom Citation2011, Citation2013 and Citation2019 these notions are defined slightly differently in terms of either analysis, reduction or grounding as opposed to necessitation. These differing formulations do not have an impact on the arguments that follow. For the purposes of exposition the necessitation formulation of the structural/non-structural distinction will be utilised in this paper.
6 Thanks to an anonymous referee for helpfully pointing out the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction here is based on concepts of properties from the manifest image (as the everyday examples of sphericity and distance suggest), and imposing concepts of properties from the manifest image on the properties described by sciences is generally problematic for the truth and motivation of 1P—and by extension the truth and motivation of Russellian Monism.
7 Pereboom Citation2011 oscillates between claiming that non-structural properties alone necessitate phenomenal properties and claiming that a combination of structural and non-structural properties necessitate phenomenal properties.
8 This is a simplification of Langton and Lewis’ (Citation1998) definition of intrinsic properties. Langton and Lewis provide a complex set of combinatorial principles to define intrinsic properties. Nevertheless, the basic idea remains the same: intrinsic properties are compatible with loneliness.
9 Strictly speaking, the claim should be that the instantiation of sphericity by does not entail the existence of any distinct contingent properties other than those instantiated by
. For instance, if god necessarily exists, then even worlds with lonely spheres will contain god. This issue will not make any difference to the arguments that follow.
10 To be clear, Intrinsic Collection is not the principle that the instantiation of a collection of intrinsic properties does not entail the instantiation of any further properties at all. The instantiation of a collection of intrinsic properties by a collection of objects, may entail the instantiation of further properties by those same objects and their proper parts under Intrinsic Collection (for example, a collection of objects instantiating sphericity will also instantiate extension). What Intrinsic Collection prevents is the instantiation of a collection of intrinsic properties by a collection of objects, entailing the instantiation of properties outside of those very same objects and their proper parts.
11 This assumes the denial of a sort of panpsychism, where the phenomenal properties of human beings are identical with the phenomenal properties of protons and electrons. Such a view avoids the problems argued for in this paper. Setting aside the various further problems this radical form of panpsychism would face, this is certainly not a metaphysical view that Pereboom subscribes to. Pereboom’s overall motive in Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism is to develop a form of Russellian monism that is as close to physicalism as possible (Pereboom Citation2011: 6–7). Pereboom (Citation2011: 110) explicitly states panpsychism would not satisfy this desideratum.
12 Claims about the intrinsic nature of non-structural properties are present in Stoljar Citation2001, Seager Citation2006, Alter Citation2016, Chalmers Citation2017, Goff Citation2017, Roelofs Citation2019.