Abstract
In this article, I offer a critical evaluation of non-reductive physicalism as articulated and defended by Nancey Murphy. I argue that (A) the examples given by Murphy do not illustrate robust emergence and the philosophical idea of downward causation. (B) The thesis of multiple realizability is ontologically neutral, and so cannot support the idea of the causal efficacy of higher-level properties. (C) Supervenience is incompatible with strong emergence. I also argue for the fruitful relationship between emergence theory and panpsychism pertaining to the metaphysical issue of the origin and nature of mind.
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Notes
A naturalist who seems to hold to an epistemological conception of emergence is Colin McGinn who argues for ‘agnostic naturalism’ (see McGinn 1993).
A similar distinction is made by Timothy O’Connor and Hon Yu Wong. They distinguish between structural properties and non-structural properties. A structural property S is defined by the relation of the parts of S. A non-structural property, on the other hand, does not even partly consist in the instantiation of distinct properties by the entities or its parts. O’Connor and Wong maintain that robust ontological emergence is dependent on a view of properties as being non-structural. See O’Connor and Wong (2005).
Peacocke writes ‘For to be real is to have causal powers’, (Peacocke 2006: 262). Clayton argues in the following way about the importance of causal efficacy: ‘one cannot make sense of mental causation except from the standpoint of strong emergence. If the strong emergence interpretation of mental causes is not correct, one should be an epiphenomenalist about mind, that is, one should hold that mind has no effect on the world’, (Clayton 2004:108). Similar to Clayton, Mark A. Bedau writes that ‘Emergence is interesting in part because of emergent causal powers. Emergent phenomena without causal powers would be mere epiphenomena’, (Bedau 2008: 175).
By ‘sufficient’ Murphy probably means that the physical base structure is enough to explain M such that there is no need to invoke a non-physical category to explain M.
Murphy’s idea regarding the notion of mind being constituted by its environment is related to ‘the extended mind’thesis. See, in particular, Andy Clark’s and David Chalmers’ seminal paper on extended mind, (Clark and Chalmers 1998).
For an interesting linguistic treatment of naturalism, see Price (2011).
See Post (1987: 159–208).
Moreland, in (2008: 114–134), critiques David Skrbina’s form of panpsychism for being philosophically inadequate, and suggests that his own dualism is superior to a panpsychist conception of the consciousness.
Strawson received some significant critique for his definition of physicalism.
What Strawson opts for instead is a form of monism, or a ‘dual-aspect view’, whereby experiential and non-experiential properties ‘exist in such a way that neither can be said to be based in or realized by or in any way asymmetrically dependent on the other…’ (Strawson 2006b: 241–246).
For Murphy, goal-directedness is not confined to higher-level organisms. Indeed, ‘even at the level of single-celled organisms we find a degree of self-direction’ (Murphy 2006: 86).
For an explanation of resultant properties, see Kim (2010: 8–49).
Other emergence theorists seem to hold to a view of emergent properties as basic. Timothy O’Connor, for example, writes that ‘The basic properties and relations of our world will be those properties whose instantiation does not even partly consists in the instantiation of distinct properties by the entity or its parts. It is the thesis of emergentism that some basic properties are had by composite individuals’, (O’Connor and Wong 2005: 665). Philip Clayton and Stuart Kauffman have suggested that agency is present even on the molecular level. However, they do not mean that we have full-blown consciousness on the molecular level, only that molecular agents meet five minimal physical conditions (reproduction, work cycles, boundaries for reproducing individuals, self-propagating work, and constrain construction) and choice and action that have evolved to respond to food or poison, which would justify the use of agential language in biological discourses. Hence, ontological emergence is implied by the presence of agency at the molecular level (see Kauffman and Clayton 2006: 501–521). This way of arguing for agency in the natural order bears some resemblance to the panpsychist D.S. Clarke who argues that mentality can ‘be attributed to all natural forms having an appropriate level of unified structural organization that maintains themselves over a period of time against their environments’ (see Clarke 2003: 12). This idea of enduring individuals or subjects possessing minds is also evident in the writings of panexperientialist David Ray Griffin (see Griffin 2000: 137–178; Griffin 2001: 94–128).
My proposal comes close to but should not be equated with Griffin’s panexperientialism. Griffin’s formulation of panexperientialism is helpful for outlining the fundamentality of the mental. I am largely sympathetic to Griffin’s approach. Yet, I am reluctant to label my own approach ‘panexperientialism’ as I think that Griffin’s approach is too focused on experience. I suggest that the subjective dimension that Griffin seeks to retain and protect from reductionism, might include a variety of phenomenal properties, or aspects of qualia (subjective experiences).
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Leidenhag, M. From Emergence Theory to Panpsychism—A Philosophical Evaluation of Nancey Murphy’s Non-reductive Physicalism. SOPHIA 55, 381–394 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-016-0550-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-016-0550-0