Does Dispositionalism Entail Panpsychism?
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Does Dispositionalism Entail Panpsychism? Hedda Hassel Mørch1,2
© Springer Nature B.V. 2018
Abstract According to recent arguments for panpsychism, all (or most) physical properties are dispositional, dispositions require categorical grounds, and the only categorical properties we know are phenomenal properties. Therefore, phenomenal properties can be posited as the categorical grounds of all (or most) physical properties—in order to solve the mind–body problem and/or in order avoid noumenalism about the grounds of the physical world. One challenge to this case comes from dispositionalism, which agrees that all physical properties are dispositional, but denies that dispositions require categorical grounds. In this paper, I propose that this challenge can be met by the claim that the only (fundamentally) dispositional properties we know are phenomenal properties, in particular, phenomenal properties associated with agency, intention and/or motivation. Versions of this claim have been common in the history of philosophy, and have also been supported by a number of contemporary dispositionalists (and other realists about causal powers). I will defend a new and updated version of it. Combined with other premises from the original case for panpsychism—which are not affected by the challenge from dispositionalism—it forms an argument that dispositionalism entails panpsychism. Keywords Panpsychism · Dispositionalism · Categoricalism · Causal powers
1 Introduction Panpsychism, the view that all physical entities are associated with phenomenal consciousness, has recently seen a revival in philosophy. This has been based on two main arguments. Both arguments start from the observation that all (or at least most) physical properties are dispositional. They then claim that dispositional properties require categorical grounds or realizers, and that phenomenal properties are the only categorical properties we know. This suggests that phenomenal properties could be the categorical realizers of all (or most) physical properties—as per what is known as Russellian panpsychism.1 The two main arguments then offer different reasons for taking this possibility as actual. The first main argument— call this the argument from philosophy of mind—claims that it enables a solution to the mind–body problem that * Hedda Hassel Mørch [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, New York University, New York, USA
2
avoids the main problems of physicalism and dualism at once (Strawson 2006; Alter and Nagasawa 2012; Chalmers 2013). Roughly, this is because, unlike physicalism, Russellian panpsychism takes phenomenal properties to be fundamental and irreducible to physical properties, but unlike dualism, it also offers phenomenal properties an explanatorily role in the physical world compatible with physical causal closure. The second main argument—call this the argument from anti-noumenalism—claims that Russellian panp
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