Within Reason #150 Materialist AND Panpsychism are True - Galen Strawson
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Apr 8, 2026 Galen Strawson, British analytic philosopher known for work on mind and metaphysics, discusses whether consciousness is fundamental to physical reality. He argues physics describes structure not intrinsic nature. Short, sharp conversations cover panpsychism, why emergence fails, the combination problem, and whether fields or brains ground experience.
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Consciousness Implies Fundamental Presence
- Consciousness must be accounted for within a physicalist ontology because everything is physical and consciousness undeniably exists.
- If consciousness couldn't arise from wholly non-conscious matter (radical emergence), it plausibly exists in some form at the fundamental level, avoiding magical emergence.
Demanding A Special Explanation Begs The Question
- Treating consciousness as uniquely in need of explanation begs the question by assuming the fundamental stuff is non-conscious.
- The broader mystery is why there's something at all, so positing proto-consciousness avoids an arbitrary asymmetry.
Fundamental Properties Could Be Experiential
- A monistic view that all fundamental properties (mass, charge, spin) may be appearances of an intrinsic experiential nature is the least bad option.
- Naming 'energy' as the general substance, its intrinsic nature could be proto-experiential.