BARBARA MONTERO ON

RUSSELLIAN PHYSICALISM

Emmett L. Holman

George Mason University

eholman@gmu.edu

I

As some see it, an impasse has been reached between traditional physicalist and traditional dualist theories of mind, in particular with respect to the nature of consciousness. As a consequence, interest has recently been growing in what might be called the ‘Russellian Theory of Mind” (RTM), so called because it is inspired by some ideas once proposed by Bertrand Russell (1927). This theory takes as its point of departure a view of the nature of physical theory which can appropriately also be called ‘Russellian’. According to this view, physical theory characterizes the fundamental properties with which it deals strictly in terms of causal, functional and other structural relations in which they stand to each other and in no other way. To paraphrase Barbara Montero on this in the paper under consideration, it tells us what the fundamental properties do but not what they are. But, it is held, there must be something to these properties beyond just the fact that they enter into such relations. Furthermore, it is in virtue of having such additional underlying natures that they can enter into some of the relations (e.g., the causal ones) they do. To quote Montero quoting Stephen Hawking, these underlying natures are what “breathes fire into the equations [of any possible grand unified theory of physics] and makes a universe for them to describe” (p. 6).

Since these underlying natures are beyond the ken of physical theory, Montero calls them ‘inscrutables’, and I will follow her terminology on this (subject to a qualification to be mentioned later).¹ RTM then proposes that (at least some of) these inscrutables provide the supervenience base for consciousness. This is, then, not a physicalist theory of mind in the mainstream sense. Consciousness does not supervene on the physical as characterized by physical theory. But it’s also not a traditional dualism either.² In fact, though I won’t here detail how, it finesses the objections that are standardly raised against both such theories. (Montero fills in some of this in her paper)

But beyond this, one might wonder what forms RTM might take. This is the topic of Montero’s paper. In particular, she asks whether or not RTM might take a form that could appropriately be called ‘physicalist’. She thinks it can, and in this she is not entirely alone. Although most Russellians favor panpsychism, Daniel Stoljar has at least entertained the possibility of a Russellian physicalism (in two articles (2001a, b). In his 2006 book, on the other hand, he gives this idea much less pride of place)

But exactly how would a Russellian physicalism go? And what other forms of RTM might there be?

II

Before addressing these questions, let me say something about terminology. I have said that I am following Montero’s lead in my use of the term ‘inscrutables’. But maybe not quite. I may be wrong about this, but she seems to restrict that term to just those fundamental properties beyond the ken of physical theory whose function is (perhaps among other things) to ground consciousness. But we certainly want to allow that there may be beyond-the-ken fundamental properties that play no consciousness grounding role at all. So I will use ‘inscrutables’ to include those (possibly) additional properties as well.

Now to the question: What is Russellian physicalism? In some of her earlier papers, Montero (1999, 2001) has proposed a way of seeing the physicalist-nonphysicalist issue which she here applies to RTM before moving on to tentatively propose a new approach. If we apply this earlier way of seeing things to Russellianism, we get Russellian physicalism as saying that no fundamental inscrutables, including those that ground consciousness, are themselves conscious or phenomenal or in any way mental. Thus, the conscious/phenomenal/mental is not a fundamental feature of nature, and this, as Montero sees it, is the real motivating idea behind physicalism.³

Now, of course, one alternative to Russellian physicalism, as so understood, is a kind of monistic panpsychism according to which all the fundamental inscrutables are conscious or phenomenal or ... , though no doubt at a very attenuated or low level. But there are also dualistic options here, though they are not traditional dualistic (and hence not subject to the standard objection to traditional dualism)⁴ I.e., one could hold that some of the fundamental inscrutables are mental (conscious, etc.) and some not. This could even take the form of dualistic panpsychism if it should turn out that (some of) the mental properties are universally instantiated (in which case there would be some co-instantiation with non-mental properties).

But let’s now turn to how Montero suggests this might be modified. On the modified account of physicalism, not only must the fundamental inscrutables all be non-mental, but there must be no set of them whose only role in nature is to ground consciousness. (She doesn’t quite put it this way, but I take the difference to be due to the fact that she and I are using ‘inscrutables’ in a somewhat different way. See my explanation a little ways back) This would mean that there is nothing special about consciousness; that the line from consciousness grounding inscrutables to consciousness is not, as it were, insulated from the rest of nature (if there is a rest of nature. See further on) It also means that if there is such an insulated line, non-physicalism would be true even though all fundamental properties are non-mental. This is a sufficiently odd consequence that Montero hedges and says this “...may be best thought of as a borderline case of physicalism” (p. 6). (Or at least I assume that is why she says this)

Montero is here entertaining the possibility of a new, non-standard form of dualism, one which is consistent with all the fundamental inscrutable properties’ being non-mental. The dualism arises if some of these properties have as their only role the providing of a base for consciousness and others do not. But once we start thinking along these lines we also see the possibility of a new kind of monism in which all the fundamental inscrutables are non-mental but of the sort that serve only to ground consciousness. So consciousness is pervasive and we have a strange form of panpsychism-cum-borderline physicalism. In some of its instantiations this pervasive consciousness takes the form of the full-fledged conscious states characteristic of human beings and other higher animals. In other instantiations it remains at a very attenuated level and is the implementing factor underlying the causal, functional and other structural features that constitute the subject matter of physical theory.

This is a sufficiently offbeat theory that Montero may well not have had it in mind in formulating her new approach for distinguishing physicalism from non-(or borderline)-physicalism. Maybe she was just thinking of the dualist option. On the other hand, her main interest in the paper is forms of Russellian monism, and this is one. Besides, to expand on a point she herself makes at one place, since when should a theory not be taken seriously just because it is offbeat?

But let’s turn to another point. Both of Montero’s suggestions for distinguishing between different Russellian monisms start with distinguishing between a situation in which all the inscrutables are non-conscious (or non-phenomenal or non-mental in general) and a situation in which this is not so. I now want to take a close look at this distinction. So for simplicity’s sake we can just attend to her earlier, simpler way of characterizing Russellian physicalism and Russellian nonphysicalism. (And since monism is Montero’s main concern, I will hereafter assume that the latter must take the form of monistic panpsychism).

Montero (1999, 2001) has argued for her way of approaching the issue partly on the grounds that attempts to first define ‘physical’ and go from there have not been very successful. But her alternative approach constitutes an improvement only if the concept of consciousness, or phenomenality, or mentality is not itself subject to clarity problems comparable to those facing the concept of the physical. And the more one gets into the Russellian literature, the less confident one becomes that this is so. This largely stems from the fact that, to have any credibility at all, panpsychists can’t say that neutrinos, or quarks, or strings, or whatever physics tells us is fundamental, are conscious in the full-fledged sense that humans and many other animals are. So they hedge and say that these things are conscious in a ‘low level’ or ‘attenuated’ sense, or that they are ‘analogous to consciousness’ in key ways, or are ‘proto-conscious’. But at what point does ‘proto-consciousness’ become no consciousness at all? So at what point does would-be panpsychism become de facto physicalism? One manifestation of this lack of clarity is irritating disparities in terminology. Montero herself tacitly acknowledges an example of this at one place. Some authors use ‘proto-conscious’ or ‘proto-phenomenal’ to mean conscious or phenomenal–but just barely. Others use it to mean not conscious or phenomenal at all, but such that the pathway from proto-consciousness to genuine consciousness is non-gappy. But, of course, the panpsychist holds to this last point as well. So how do they differ?

One possible response to this situation would be to view the concept of consciousness, and maybe other mental concepts as well, as fuzzy concepts, best treated via fuzzy logic. Elsewhere (Holman, 2008) I have shown how doing this can lead to a kind of Russellian neutral monism that allows us to avoid the question of physicalism vs. panpsychism. But I won’t pursue that here. Instead, I want to very briefly explain a way I have proposed (in the same elsewhere–i.e., Holman, 2008) for distinguishing Russellian physicalism from Russellian panpsychism.

One feature of consciousness that has often been remarked upon is its (apparent)⁵ ‘subjective unity’. As Gregg Rosenberg (2004) puts it, conscious states have (or seem to) a ‘complex but not composite’ nature. A given conscious state can manifest much diversity in terms of colors, shapes, sounds, smells and other things, but there is a special kind of unity that holds these diverse components together. This consists of the fact that the unified state is not decomposable into its diverse parts the way other complex things (piles of bricks, brick walls, planetary systems) are. No such part can be instantiated except as a constituent of some conscious state or other.

Now this subjective unity is a higher level, structural property of conscious states. As such, we can’t rule out that it might be instantiated by states that are not conscious in the way our conscious states are. Still, this is a sufficiently striking feature that we might want to take it as what links the fundamental inscrutable properties postulated by panpsychism to full-fledged conscious properties. We would then have a basis for distinguishing Russellian panpsychism from Russellian physicalism. According to the former, the fundamental properties are necessarily constituents of states with this kind of subjective unity; according to the latter, they aren’t. (And if I understand him aright, this is pretty much Rosenberg’s own position) Of course, once the conscious-nonconscious distinction is spelled out in the way proposed, we are free to draw the lines among different Russellian theories differently, in the (second) way Montero does in this paper.

Much more could be said on this, both pro and con. But I am going to end with a few brief comments on the relative merits of panpsychism and physicalism so construed.

Probably the major challenge facing this kind of physicalism is to figure out how we can get properties that manifest subjective unity from those that don’t. This is no problem for panpsychism as here conceived, of course, since on panpsychism we have subjective unity at the most basic level. But for that very reason it faces another problem that (I think) is just as serious. (Out of the frying pan and into the fire) This is the subject combination problem, famously raised by William James (1890/1950) among others. How can multiple micro-subjects, manifesting this special kind of unity, combine to form a single macro-subject manifesting that kind of unity? For that matter, why does such a combination not occur in some cases whereas it does in others? (Why does a rock not have a single subjectively unified consciousness whereas a human being does?) Montero acknowledges this problem in her n. 8, but holds that, for all that, Russellian panpsychism is more promising than Russellian physicalism. Given our present state of ignorance this is a judgement call, of course. I will just say that my judgement is not the same as hers. I see no reason to be any more optimistic about one of these than the other. So on my view the choice between Russellian physicalism and Russellian panpsychism is, at present, a standoff.

NOTES

1. In the literature on this, the inscrutable-scrutable disntinction is usually characterized as a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties, or, sometimes, categorical and dispositional properties. But as Montero points out in n. 1, attempts to spell out these latter distinctions have not been entirely satisfactory, so she opts for ‘inscrutability’ (and, implicitly, ‘scrutability’). Nothing hinges on this for the purposes of this paper, so I am (more or less) going along with this.

2. By ‘traditional dualism’ I mean a theory according to which mentality, though a fundamental feature of nature, doesn’t emerge, or at least become associated with a body, until a neurophysiological system reaches a certain level of complexity. It then emerges full blown, as it were, and is associated with (perhaps is causally supervenient on) such a system globally or holistically. It is not metaphysically supervenient on, or in any way constructed out of, phenomenal properties associated with simpler physical elements.

3. If we supplement what Stoljar says in his 2001 articles with what he says in his 2006 book, this seems to be how he sees Russellian physicalism as well. Without the supplementation, however, things get a bit confusing. For details see Holman (2008).

4. I have in mind here the objection that dualism either fails to allow for the causal closure of the physical or forces us to epiphenomenalism.

5. There are dissenters to the idea of subjective unity. See Daniel Dennett (1992) and Thomas Nagel (1971). There are also those who accept the idea but hold that it can come in degrees. See Michael Lockwood (1989) and Susan Hurley (1998, 2003).

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