Introduction to a collection of essays called The Subject of Experience, reflecting on self-consciousness, the sense of self, the 'I', the notion of the subject of the experience.

We make powerful motor cars by suitably assembling items that are not themselves powerful, but we do not do this by 'adding in the power' at the very end of the assembly line; nor, if it comes to that, do we add portions of power along the way. Powerful motor cars are nothing over and above complex arrangements or aggregations of items that are not themselves powerful. The example illustrates the way aggregations can have interesting properties that the items aggregated (...) lack. What can we say of a general kind about what can be made from what by nothing over and above aggregation? I think that this is the key issue that Galen Strawson (2006) puts so. (shrink)

Galen Strawson (2006) thinks it is 'obviously' false that 'the terms of physics can fully capture the nature or essence of experience' (p. 4). He also describes this view as 'crazy' (p. 7). I think that he has been carried away by first impressions. It is certainly true that 'physicSalism', as he dubs this view, is strongly counterintuitive. But at the same time there are compelling arguments in its favour. I think that these arguments are sound and that the (...) contrary intuitions are misbegotten. In the first two sections of my remarks I would like to spend a little time defending physicSalism, or 'straightforward' physicalism, as I shall call it ('S' for 'straightforward', if you like). I realize that the main topic of Strawson's paper is panpsychism rather than his rejection of straightforward physicalism. But the latter is relevant as his arguments for panpsychism depend on his rejection of straightforward physicalism, in ways I shall explain below. (shrink)

I find myself in agreement with almost all of Galen's paper (Strawson, 2006) -- except, that is, for his three main claims. These I take to be: that he has provided a substantive and useful definition of 'physicalism'; that physicalism entails panpsychism; and that panpsychism is a necessary and viable doctrine. But I find much to applaud in the incidentals Galen brings in to defend these three claims, particularly his eloquent and uncompromising rejection of the idea of brute (...) emergence, as well as his dissatisfaction with standard forms of physicalism. I certainly find his paper far more on target than most of the stuff I read on this topic. (shrink)

The crux of this paper is to provide a concentrated critical evaluation of Galen Strawson's innovative approach to the self. To that end, I will first attempt to concisely introduce his general thesis, which seems appropriate to be broken up into two major pieces: the phenomenology (experience) of the self, what the self would have to be; and the metaphysics of the self (i.e., a query refers to its metaphysics [its existence and nature]: whether there is any). Explaining and (...) discussing Strawson's twofold account of the self is my first target in this paper. And it is with these two parts that I take issues. Accordingly, I shall determinedly try to develop a counterargument according to which Strawson's establishment of his entire enterprise of the self is based merely on unjustified intuitive generalisation. Next, I will put more effort into making some more argumentative points, mainly to show how his metaphysics does not give much thought to some vital matters of the self in comparison with the systems of metaphysics of his forebears of Western philosophers. What all this means is that Strawsonian metaphysical analysis of the self so conceived and so described appears philosophically to drive itself to justly be placed in an ahistorical context. (shrink)

Against its prominent compatiblist and libertarian opponents, I defend Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument for the impossibility of moral responsibility. Against John Martin Fischer, I argue that the Basic Argument does not rely on the premise that an agent can be responsible for an action only if he is responsible for every factor contributing to that action. Against Alfred Mele and Randolph Clarke, I argue that it is absurd to believe that an agent can be responsible for an action when (...) no factor contributing to that action is up to that agent. Against Derk Pereboom and Clarke, I argue that the versions of agent-causal libertarianism they claim can immunize the agent to the Basic Argument actually fail to do so. Against Robert Kane, I argue that the Basic Argument does not rely on the premise that simply the presence of indeterministic factors in the process of bringing an action about is itself what rules out the agent’s chance for being responsible for that action. (shrink)

This is a review of Galen Strawson's Real Materialism And Other Essays. It focuses on reconstructing and criticizing his "realistic materialism", a view that many philosophers will regard as a form of panpsychism.

Against its prominent compatiblist and libertarian opponents, I defend Galen Strawson's Basic Argument for the impossibility of moral responsibility. Against John Martin Fischer, I argue that the Basic Argument does not rely on the premise that an agent can be responsible for an action only if he is responsible for every factor contributing to that action. Against Alfred Mele and Randolph Clarke, I argue that it is absurd to believe that an agent can be responsible for an action when (...) no factor contributing to that action is up to that agent. Against Derk Pereboom and Clarke, I argue that the versions of agent-causal libertarianism they claim can immunize the agent to the Basic Argument actually fail to do so. Against Robert Kane, I argue that the Basic Argument does not rely on the premise that simply the presence of indeterministic factors in the process of bringing an action about is itself what rules out the agent's chance for being responsible for that action. (shrink)

(not intended for publication), Replies to Strawson and Block in Colloquium at the CUNY Graduate Center, December 13, 2006.

Resumen: En este artículo reviso la interpretación de Eduardo Nicol de la teoría de la propiedad de Francisco Suárez. Para ello, presento la posición de Suárez acerca de la propiedad y la propiedad privada atendiendo dos cuestiones fundamentales. La primera es si la propiedad y la propiedad privada son derechos; la segunda es si ambos pertenecen a la naturaleza humana o no. Al final, argumento que la lectura de Nicol es insostenible, pues difícilmente puede admitirse que Suárez defendió algún tipo (...) de comunismo.: In this paper I revisit Eduardo Nicol’s interpretation of Suarez’s theory of property. To this purpose, I present Suárez’s account of property and private property focusing on two main aspects. The first is whether property and private property are rights; the second is whether they belong to the human nature or not. Finally, I argue that Nicol’s reading of Suárez is untenable for it can hardly be accepted that Suárez defended some kind of communism. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s, Galen Strawson has introduced an argument into the analytic debate about the concept and possibility of freedom. He has repeated and defended it in various formulations, which amounts to an “impossibilism” of freedom in the moral sense, i. e., to the impossibility that we can be called ultimately responsible for the moral quality of our actions based on existing freedom in the full sense. In this paper, I want to explain Strawson’s argument, which is supposed to (...) prove this intuitive difficulty as impossible to fulfill, and to show the conditions of its persuasiveness. Furthermore, I will make clear how and by what right philosophers like Kant, Fichte and especially Schelling were able to evade this argument avant la lettre by introducing the concept of an intelligible self-constituting act of freedom. (shrink)

Thesis on metaphysics featuring Galen Strawson and Noam Chomsky. I discuss Strawsons' Materialism, panpsychism and the topic of reference. I compare Strawson's view with Chomsky's in relation to panpsychism, the nature of reference and the limits of human understanding by reviewing important historical events in the history of philosophy. I also cover some aspects of neuroscience to see if empirical evidence in any way contradicts the claims made by Strawson and Chomsky. I conclude by recasting the questions of metaphysics (...) under an epistemological framework. (shrink)

In a series of important papers, Galen Strawson has articulated a spectrum of “temporal temperaments,” populated at one end by “Diachronics”, who experience their selves (understood as the “mental entity” they are at this moment) as something that existed in the past and will exist in the future, and at the other end by “Episodics”, who lack any such sense of temporal extension. As a self-declared Episodic, Strawson provides lucid descriptions of what episodicity is like, but cannot furnish a (...) corresponding phenomenology of diachronic self-experience. He further argues that nothing normatively significant depends upon diachronicity, so Episodics can live fully moral (and fully satisfying) lives. I attempt to supply this missing phenomenology of diachronic self-experience using Kierkegaard’s account of “contemporaneity” (samtidighed). Kierkegaard operates with something quite close to Strawson’s “me/me*” (human/self) distinction, yet he nonetheless offers a compelling description of diachronic self-experience that is fully normative in character. I discuss some of the implications of this normativity for Strawson’s claim that there is nothing ethically or psychologically deficient in the Episodic’s self-experience. (shrink)

A perennial criticism of analytic philosophy is that it fails to engage with our deepest and most basic human concerns, and has thereby rendered itself irrelevant to the larger culture. In my own thinking about philosophy, I am inclined to dismiss this criticism; after all, different philosophers will find different issues to be interesting and important and will philosophize accordingly; surely it is not the philosopher's job to indulge a corrupted culture by anticipating what it will judge to be important. (...) And yet, a feeling of uneasiness remains; something about the criticism strikes a nerve, although I have difficulty articulating what exactly it is about analytic philosophy that is supposed to be problematic here. Now I know: what a good deal of analytic philosophy is missing is precisely what is not missing from Galen Strawson's work, as demonstrated in his remarkable Real Materialism and Other Essays, a collection of his previously published papers. These papers cover a wide variety of topics and issues, but what remains constant is the sense that something important is always at stake; it matters how these philosophical issues get resolved. This is truly philosophy that matters, but it is also analytic philosophy, and so it refutes the canard that there is something about the very nature of analytic philosophy that ensures its societal irrelevancy.I think an important source of the relevance of Strawson's work is that he so often engages with ‘common-sense views of the world’ , views that are part of what he sometimes calls ‘ordinary thought’ . Moreover, he engages with them in such a way that …. (shrink)

What I want to do in this essay is examine a notorious argument put forward by Galen Strawson. He advocates what he describes as an a priori argument against the possibility of ultimate (moral) responsibility. There have been many attempts at answering Strawson, but whether they have been successful is debatable. I attempt to employ Henri Bergson's approach to the free will debate and assess whether what he says has any purchase in terms of criticism of Strawson's position. I (...) conclude that Bergson's views offer a serious alternative in debates about free will. (shrink)

As narrative conceptions of selfhood have gained more acceptance within various disciplines including philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences, so too have these conceptions been critically appraised. Chief among those who are suspicious of the overall viability of ‘narrative identity’ is the philosopher, Galen Strawson. In this paper, I develop five arguments underlying Strawson’s critique of narrative identity, and respond to each argument from the perspective of the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricœur. Though intuitive, I demonstrate that none of (...) Strawson’s arguments are cogent. The confrontation between these two figures highlights a deep conceptual disagreement about our epistemic access to the self, which has thus far gone unrecognized in the Anglo-American discussion, so that it raises a new problem for the metaphysics of personal identity. (shrink)

English summary: Is radical self-determination relevant to the theory of freedom? In other words, is it a constitutive moment of freedom? And is radical self-determination possible or indeed real? Frank Dettinger understands radical self-determination as being the faculty of an acting subject - in whose personal and characteristic nature decisions and actions are established - to self-determine in an independent act. The author provides impetus not only for the analytical-philosophical, but also the theological freedom debates. In the first instance, his (...) work is intended as a contribution to the understanding of the freedom debate about itself. Secondly, its objective seeks to demonstrate the potential of an inter-disciplinary approach. The author reconstructs Luther's understanding of freedom by the precise application of analytical-philosophical freedom systematics and in this way makes it accessible to argumentative examination. German description: Ist radikale Selbstbestimmung freiheitstheoretisch relevant, d.h. ein konstitutives Moment von Freiheit? Und ist radikale Selbstbestimmung moglich oder gar wirklich? Unter radikaler Selbstbestimmung versteht Frank Dettinger dabei das Vermogen eines Handlungssubjekts, dessen personliche und charakterliche Beschaffenheit, in der seine Entscheidungen und Handlungen grunden, in einem unabhangigen Akt selbst zu bestimmen.Dettinger gibt Impulse sowohl fur die analytisch-philosophische als auch fur die theologische Freiheitsdebatte. In der ersten Hinsicht versteht sich seine Arbeit insbesondere als Beitrag zur Verstandigung der Freiheitsdebatte uber sich selbst. In der zweiten Hinsicht liegt das Proprium im Aufweis des Potentials eines interdisziplinaren Vorgehens. Er rekonstruiert Luthers Freiheitsverstandnis in Anwendung analytisch-philosophischer Freiheitssystematik prazise und macht es auf diese Weise einer argumentativen Prufung zuganglich. (shrink)