Physicalism and Panexperientialism:
Response to David Ray Griffin
by Jaegwon Kim
Jaegwon Kim is the William Herbert Perry
Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown
University.
He is the author of Supervenience and Mind, Cambridge University Press,
1993; Philosophy of Mind, Westview, 1996; and Mind in a Physical World MIT Press, 1998 Jaegwon _Kim@brown.edu.
The following article appeared in Process Studies, pp. 28-34, Vol. 28 , Number 1-2, Spring-
Summer, 1999. Process Studies is published
quarterly by the Center for Process Studies, 1325 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA
91711.
In his "Materialist and Panexperientialist Physicalism"
Professor David Griffin gives both a judicious
and illuminating exposition and critique
of the contemporary "mainstream"
physicalism and a brief but clearly
articulated
synopsis of his own alternative approach
which he calls "panexperientialism."
Although Griffin’s discussion focuses
on
my own work, many of his points are
applicable,
more or less directly, to the broad
physicalist
framework within which much of current
philosophical
work in philosophy of mind is being
carried
on. The relevant papers of mine that
Griffin
discusses, all of them from my Supervenience
and Mind, 1 were written over a period
of
a dozen years, and my views on the
issues
involved continued to change and evolve
during
this time (needless to say, this process
is still continuing). In view of this,
I
am especially impressed by Griffin’s
ability
to tell a reasonably coherent and intelligible
story about my overall picture on the
mind-body
problem.
I consider the following three theses
to
be central to contemporary physicalism:
1. [Ontological physicalism] The space-time
world is wholly constituted by basic
bits
of matter and their aggregates.
2. [Supervenience] Any two items --
things,
events, phenomena, even whole worlds
that
are physically indiscernible are indiscernible
tout court. Alternatively, physical
facts
determine all the facts.
3. [Causal closure of the physical
domain]
If any event causes a physical event,
it
itself is a physical event. In fact,
any
causal chain that involves at least
one physical
event must lie wholly within the physical
domain.
As is well known, there are various
inequivalent
ways of stating these claims, but the
slight
differences between them will not matter
for our purposes here. Ontological
physicalism
gives a sense to the idea that physics,
the
science of bits of matter in spacetime,
is
our basic science -- whatever its ultimate
success may turn out to be, it is the
only
science that attempts to give us a
comprehensive
understanding of all of our world,
Other
sciences are "special sciences,"
in that each of them concerns a specially
restricted domain. Only physics concerns
the whole spacetime world.
Ontological physicalism only concerns
the
objects, or entities, in the world,
and does
not speak, at least not directly, about
their
properties. Properties come on the
scene
in the second thesis, the doctrine
of supervenience;
for physical indiscernibility is indiscernibility
with respect to physical properties
(and
relations). Further, a physical fact
is constituted
by a physical object exemplifying a
physical
property, or a group of physical objects
standing in some physical relationship.
The
supervenience thesis gives an explicit
form
to the idea that physical properties
are
primary and basic, and the physical
properties
an object instantiates -- that is,
its physical
nature -- determines all of its properties,
that is, its entire nature. This of
course
allows things to have properties that
are
nonphysical, perhaps, certain physical
aggregates
with a high degree of systemic unity
and
organizational complexity, such as
biological
organisms and computing machines, may
exhibit
nonphysical properties.
The third thesis of physicalism, the
principle
of causal closure of the physical domain,
guarantees the self-sufficiency of
the domain:
there are no nonphysical causal agents
--
Cartesian souls, Hegelian spirits,
or neovitalist
entelechies -- that causally influence
the
behavior of physical objects or the
course
of physical processes. 2 It also guarantees
the explanatory sufficiency of physics:
if
a physical event has an explanation,
it has
a physical explanation. Note that this
does
not say that every physical event has
an
explanation, or a cause. In particular,
the
causal closure thesis does not entail
physical
determinism, and, further, physicalism
does
not entail determinism. It only says
that
physical events do not have nonphysical
causes.
If you deny the causal closure principle,
you are saying that theoretical physics
is
in principle incompletable -- unless,
that
is, it invoked nonphysical causal agents.
This might be the case; but if you
believe
that this in fact is the case, you
are not
a physicalist, and you wouldn’t want
to be
called a physicalist.
I believe that these three theses receive
substantial -- for some people, compelling
-- motivation and support from what
we know
about the world -- that is, our best
sciences.
To me, these are not ideal metaphysical
speculations.
Do I think they are all true? I believe
that
ontological physicalism is true, and
that
the physical causal closure is difficult
to deny. I would like to believe in
supervenience
as well, but I don’t know if it is
true.
My reason for this hesitation is that
I don’t
know if qualia, the qualitative characters
of our conscious experiences, are supervenient
on physical/neural processes. This
depends
in part on the strength of the supervenience
relation involved. However, I agree
with
many physicalists in thinking that
a clear
and satisfying form of physicalism
must insist
on supervenience with the force of
metaphysical
necessity -- for reasons that I cannot
go
into here. What I mean to say, then,
is this:
I do not know whether qualia supervene,
with
metaphysical necessity, on physical/neural
states and processes. That is, I do
not know
that we can exclude metaphysically
possible
worlds that are physically indiscernible
from this world but in which qualia
are distributed
differently -- or perhaps entirely
absent.
In any case, that is physicalism. Qualia,
as noted, present a fundamental challenge
to physicalism. Another challenge comes
from
mental realism -- in particular the
reality
of mental causation. As Griffin correctly
observes, I take mental realism and
mental
causation as essentially equivalent.
If mental
causation is real, then mental phenomena
must be real. Conversely, any object
or phenomenon
in the spacetime world that we wish
to recognize
as real must have causal powers. That
is
what I have called "Alexander’s
dictum,"
in honor of the British emergentist
Samuel
Alexander. Physicalism, however, is
not the
only thing a physicalist believes.
I am a
physicalist (modulo the qualia issue),
but
I believe lots of things other than
physicalism.
One of them is that mental phenomena
are
real, and that they have causal powers.
The
challenge to the physicalist is how
to make
his belief in the reality of mental
causation
consistent with his physicalism --
in particular,
the physicalist must give an account
of how
mental events can exercise their causal
powers
in a physical world in a way that is
consistent
with the supervenience thesis and the
physical
causal closure. Griffin gives a lucid
account
of the conundrum – "the dead end"
-- that the physicalist brings upon
himself.
3
Griffin says: "[Kim] takes his
version
of physicalism as more certain than
our assumption
as to the reality and thereby efficacy
of
conscious experience. I would agree
with
Whitehead . . . , by contrast, that
those
notions that we inevitably presuppose
in
practice should be regarded as the
non-negotiable
elements in our belief system"
(12).
I do not believe that I take physicalism
as "more certain" than the
causal
efficacy of the mental. I’m not sure
what
"more certain" could mean
in this
context. For me this is not a question
of
epistemological priority but metaphysical
priority. I believe that our own practical
epistemic needs must not take metaphysical
priority over what we believe to be
the fundamental
structure of reality, The former should
nor
dictate the latter. To me, reversing
the
order here is fundamentally inimical
to the
very idea of rationality and objectivity.
If we want to protect consciousness,
mental
causation, and free agency we should
give
an account of how these things are
possible
within a scheme of a world mandated
by theoretical
reason -- our science and the best
metaphysics
that goes with it. To me, it is a form
of
philosophical indulgence to purposely
and
consciously build into our foundational
metaphysics
exactly what we want to protect and
save.
Doing metaphysics is difficult and
rewarding
because we want to begin with an austere
fund of basic resources and try to
get, and
explain, other things that we want
out of
it. To begin metaphysics ‘with all
that we
want to preserve is a form of what
Frank
Jackson has called "big list"
metaphysics:
you would be doing this kind of metaphysics
if your ontology consisted merely of
making
up a list of all that you believe to
exist.
4 "Serious metaphysics,"
as Jackson
calls it, enters the scene when you
begin
with an austere and sparse foundation
and
endeavor to show that it is enough
to yield
the things you want to save.
I am not suggesting that Griffin begins
with all that he wants to save in the
way
of human consciousness, mental causation,
and free agency. That would have been
a "wish
list" metaphysics," to go
along
with Jackson’s "big list"
metaphysics.
But Griffin’s metaphysical foundation
--
the foundation of his panexperientialism
-- does remind one of a metaphysical
wish
list. For consider his "individuals."
I am not sure exactly what individuals,
in
general terms, are in Griffin’s (or
Whitehead’s)
system, but he writes:
Second, laws applying to genuine individuals,
whether simple or compound, would be
statistical,
because all individuals have at least
an
iota of mentality and thereby spontaneity.
This prediction is fulfilled, for example,
by the laws of quantum mechanics, which
predictively
describe the behavior of groups of
particles,
not that of any individual particle.
(24)
As I take it, the basic particles of
physics
are, or are among, Griffin’s "simple
individuals," and each of them
has some
sort of proto-mentality, which endows
it
with "spontaneity" and "creativity."
Moreover, it is because of these individuals’
spontaneity and creativity that the
laws
governing them, that is, quantum mechanical
laws, are statistical and nor deterministic.
Although I don’t know the details,
which
I am certain are worked out systematically
in Griffin’s book, Unsnarling the World-Knot,
5 this talk of spontaneity and creativity
appears to indicate the presence of
some
form of proto-agency even in "simple
individuals." I am reminded here
of
what William James once said:
If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness
in some shape must have been present
at the
very origin of things. Accordingly,
we find
that the more clear-sighted evolutionary
philosophers are beginning to posit
it there.
Each atom of the nebula, they suppose,
must
have had an aboriginal atom of consciousness
linked with it. 6
The basic idea here appears to be something
like this: we know that consciousness
has
emerged from the process of evolution.
But
unless we posit consciousness at the
starting
point, there is no way of accounting
for
the existence of consciousness. So
we must
endow each and every atom with some
form
of "aboriginal consciousness"
–
"Mind-dust" as James calls
it.
7
Note that neither Griffin’s nor James’s
procedure is exactly what I called
"wish
list" metaphysics. For what they
posit
at the beginning, or at the bottom
level,
is not full-flown mentality or free
agency,
of the sorts we see in humans, but
some sort
of "aboriginal" or proto-mentality,
or, to use Griffin’s words, "an
iota
of mentality." But what I don’t
see
is how this really helps. How are we
supposed
to derive human consciousness -- our
rationality
and intentionality, our richly variegated
qualitative experiences, our sense
of free
choice, our complex and highly developed
agency -- from the aboriginal mentality
of
the simple individuals, presumably
the basic
particles, that constitute us? For
Griffin,
we are "compounds," not mere
"aggregates,"
of simple individuals, and this makes
us
genuine individuals. He regards individual
cells to be endowed with mentality.
He says
that "the brain cells are themselves
regarded as centers of experience,"
and that "living cells themselves
provide
a lower-level example, in that the
cell’s
living occasions of experience have
emerged
out of the cell’s more elementary constituents"
(19-20). But exactly how is the positing
of mentality at the level of individual
cells
and neurons supposed to help explain
the
emergence of full-blown consciousness
in
the human brain? 8 Just what sort of
mentality
is the supposed proto-mentality possessed
by basic particles, and how does a
"compound"
made up of these particles get to have
a
resultant mentality of a certain kind?
I
suppose that Griffin’s notion of a
"compound"
must do most of the work if these questions
are to be answered. In particular,
what I
would like to see is an independently
motivated
and defended principle that tells us
that
if something X is a compound individual
composed
of individuals x1 . . . , xn each with
a
certain specific kind and degree of
mentality
and in a certain structural configuration
R, then X exhibits mentality of some
specific
kind M.
Although Griffin refers to his position
as a form of emergentism, it clearly
is not
a form of classic emergentism. The
classic
emergentism of Samuel Alexander, C.
Lloyd
Morgan, and C. D. Broad would nor accept
basic material particles with a "mental
pole." The emergentism these philosophers
defended accepted ontological physicalism,
where the "bits of matter"
are
nothing but bits of matter without
anything
mental to them. For them mentality
was a
true emergent, and what they regarded
as
a brute and unexplainable fact is that
mentality
emerges when certain physical/biological
conditions are realized. Alexander
advised
us to accept this with "natural
piety."
In this sense, these emergentists were
austere
metaphysicians, and they would have
rejected
Griffin’s and Whitehead’s framework
in which
the basic constituents of the world
are given
some form of mentality as ad hoc and
ultimately
not very helpful. Furthermore, as is
clear
from the title of his essay, Griffin
believes
that his approach is, or can be considered,
a form of physicalism. This is a gracious
gesture on his part, but I am inclined
to
think it misleading to regard panexperientialism
as any form of physicalism. I believe
that
this position is inconsistent with
each of
the three doctrines (understood in
their
proper intended sense) that I listed
above
as central to contemporary physicalism.
Finally, I would like to correct one
point
in Griffin’s discussion of my views,
since
it represents one kind of misapprehension
that seems widely spread among the
critics
of physicalism, and even among some
physicalists
(especially, of the nonreductive variety).
I am willing to take the blame for
this since
the lack of clarity in my writings
has undoubtedly
helped abet the misunderstanding. Griffin
writes:
. . . all things big enough to be directly
observed would be of the same type:
We could
not regard living cells or multi-celled
animals
as being or containing, higher-level
actualities
to which causal efficacy could be attributed.
We would have to think of them, with
Kim,
as ontologically decomposable into
atoms
and other basic physical particles,"
to which all causal efficacy would
be assigned.
(18)
A bit later, he says: "All observable
things are of the same organizational
type,
so that human beings are analogous
to material
things such as rocks and bodies of
water."(19).
Here Griffin is not speaking for himself;
rather, he is drawing what he considers
to
be the consequences of the kind of
physicalism
I espouse – specifically, the mereological
supervenience of macro-properties on
micro-properties.
Griffin appears to be reasoning as
follows:
mereological supervenience says that
the
properties characteristic of wholes
are supervenient
on, or determined by, the properties
of their
parts, and ultimately, therefore, the
properties
of the basic particles that make them
up.
And the causal powers of these wholes
must,
too, be supervenient on the properties
of
these basic microconstituents, and
reduce
to them. Now compare a human being
and a
rock: at bottom they are made up of
pretty
much the same basic particles -- electrons,
protons, neutrons, quarks, and what
have
you. So, on this view, there can be
no principled
difference between human beings and
animals
("genuine individuals"),
on one
hand, and rocks, clouds, and water
puddles
("mere aggregates"), on the
other.
In fact, it is a mystery; on this account,
how the causal powers of human beings
can
differ from those of rocks.
If this indeed is Griffin’s thought,
it
can be rebutted. Mereological supervenience
only asserts that the properties of
the whole
are determined, or fixed, by the properties
and relations that characterize its
parts.
That only means that if two wholes
are microstructurally
identical, they must exhibit the same
macroproperties
-- and the same causal powers. And
these
can be new causal powers; it is only
that
they are determined by microstructure.
Mereological
supervenience does not say, or imply,
that
the properties of the whole are identical
with properties of their microconstituents.
As emergentists, too, would say; such
properties
as inflammability, ductility, and temperature
of macro-objects are not among the
properties
of individual molecules or atoms. For
both
emergentists and (most) physicalists.
they
are genuine properties and causal powers,
which supervene on, or are determined
by
the microstructural makeup of the objects
that have them. Emergentists and physicalists
would stress that the Structural configuration,
no less than the intrinsic properties,
of
microconstituents is crucial in determining
what macro-properties are exhibited
by a
whole. For wholes -- anyway, those
of interest
to us -- are structures, not mere assemblages
of atoms and particles, and the very
same
atoms and particles configured in different
structural relationships can, and do,
exhibit
very different properties and causal
powers
at thc level of wholes. And many of
these
properties are not had by the wholes’
micro-constituents.
This is completely consistent with
physicalism,
and in particular with mereological
supervenience
and micro-reductionism. Thus, two points:
first, determination must be sharply
distinguished
from identity’ and, second, structure
is
crucially important. These points would
have
been acknowledged by many classic emergentists
as well, including C. D. Broad.
Griffin’s essays poses serious challenges
to contemporary physicalism, not only
because
it forces physicalists to return to
the beginnings
and re-examine their fundamental assumptions
but, more importantly, because it does
so
by proposing a radical, thought-provoking
alternative. I do not presume to have
grasped
the details and full import of Griffin’s
approach. The main question I will
have to
keep in mind as I read his book (as
I hope
to in the near future) is whether,
and to
what extent, the panpsychic approach
he espouses
helps us to understand "the mystery
of consciousness" -- that is,
just how
it does its job better here than the
various
well-known forms of contemporary physicalism.
Finally, we should all be grateful
to Professor
Griffin for his important service in
bringing
the Whiteheadian perspective to bear
on current
debates in the analytical philosophy
of mind
and showing how the two approaches
can be
relevant to each other, especially
in regard
to our shared concern to understand
the place
of the mind in the natural world.
Notes
1. Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993).
2. Does ontological physicalism imply
the
causal closure of the physical domain?
No,
because, as noted, the supervenience
doctrine
allows physical systems to have nonphysical
properties, and these nonphysical properties
might causally interact with physical
properties.
3. For additional considerations see
my
Mind in a Physical World (Cambridge
MIT Press,
forthcoming.)
4. See, e. g., Frank Jackson, "Finding
the Mind in the Natural World,"
in Philosophy
and Cognitive Science, ed. R. Casati,
B.
Smith, and G. White (Vienna: Verlag
Hoelder-Pichler,
1994).
5. David Ray Griffin, Unsnarling the
World-Knot
(Berkeley: University of California
Press,
1998).
6. William James, The Principles of
Psychology
(Cambridge Harvard University Press,
1983;
originally published in 1890), 152
(italics
in the original. I came upon this paragraph
in James Van Cleve’s "Mind-Dust
or Magic?
Panpsychism versus Emergence,"
Philosophical
Perspectives 4 (1990), 215-226.
7. And I have heard philosophers say
that
there is consciousness "all the
way
down" -- down to the level of
elementary
particles, quarks. or what have you.
8. Van Cleve, in the article cited
in note
4, raises similar questions.
9. There is another distinction that
is
often overlooked (but not by classic
emergentists):
to be determined by such-and-such is
one
thing, to be explainable by such-and-such
is another thing. On the standard conception,
emergents are determined by their "basic
conditions" but not explainable
by them.
At least, the concept of determination
here
does not entail explainability.
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Evans Experientialism 
Physicalism and Panexperientialism: 