Papers by Philip Woodward
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2020
Constitutive panpsychism is the doctrine that macro-level consciousness-that is, consciousness of... more Constitutive panpsychism is the doctrine that macro-level consciousness-that is, consciousness of the sort possessed by certain composite things such as humans-is built out of irreducibly mental (or proto-mental) features had by some or all of the basic physical constituents of reality. On constitutive panpsychism, changes in macro-level consciousness amount to changes in either the way that micro-conscious entities 'bond' or the way that micro-conscious qualities 'blend' (or both). I pose the 'Selection Problem' for constitutive panpsychism: the problem of explaining how high-level functional states of the brain 'select' micro-conscious qualities for bonding or blending. I argue that there are no empirically plausible solutions to this problem.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Aug 21, 2020
Constitutive panpsychism is the doctrine that macro-level consciousness-that is, consciousness of... more Constitutive panpsychism is the doctrine that macro-level consciousness-that is, consciousness of the sort possessed by certain composite things such as humans-is built out of irreducibly mental (or proto-mental) features had by some or all of the basic physical constituents of reality. On constitutive panpsychism, changes in macro-level consciousness amount to changes in either the way that micro-conscious entities 'bond' or the way that micro-conscious qualities 'blend' (or both). I pose the 'Selection Problem' for constitutive panpsychism: the problem of explaining how high-level functional states of the brain 'select' micro-conscious qualities for bonding or blending. I argue that there are no empirically plausible solutions to this problem.
The Journal of Value Inquiry
According to the traditional Christian understanding, being devoted to God is partly constitutive... more According to the traditional Christian understanding, being devoted to God is partly constitutive of human welfare. I explicate this tradition view, in three stages. First, I sketch a general theory of well-being which I call 'Platonic Personalist Perfectionism.' Second, I show how being devoted to God is uniquely perfective. I discuss three different components of the posture of devotion: abnegation (surrender of one's will to God), adoration (responding to God's goodness with attention, love and praise), and existential dependence (receiving one's self-worth as an unmerited gift from God). All three components of devotion are perfective in a dual way: they are salvific (they remediate a great harm) and consummative (they confer a great benefit). Third, I respond to the objection that devotion involves subjugating oneself, and thus amounts to an allthings-considered harm, notwithstanding whatever benefits it confers. I argue that so long as one's acts of abnegating, adoring, and existentially depending are acts of one's own, then subjugation is not essential to devotion. However, devotion does diminish one if the object of one's devotion is unsuitable. I argue that the only suitable object of devotion is the God of traditional theism.
Consciousness and Rationality: The Lesson from Artificial Intelligence
Journal of Consciousness Studies
I review three problems that have historically motivated pessimism about artificial intelligence:... more I review three problems that have historically motivated pessimism about artificial intelligence: (1) the problem of consciousness, according to which artificial systems lack the conscious oversight that characterizes intelligent agents; (2) the problem of global relevance, according to which artificial systems cannot solve fully general theoretical and practical problems; (3) the problem of semantic irrelevance, according to which artificial systems cannot be guided by semantic comprehension. I connect the dots between all three problems by drawing attention to non-syntactic inferences — inferences that are made on the basis of insight into the rational relationships among thought-contents. Consciousness alone affords such insight, I argue, and such insight alone confers positive epistemic status on the execution of these inferences. Only when artificial systems can execute inferences that are rationally guided by phenomenally conscious states will such systems count as intelligent...
Incarnation and the Multiverse
Phenomenology and Mind, 2016
Participants in the cognitive phenomenology debate have proceeded by (a) proposing a bifurcation ... more Participants in the cognitive phenomenology debate have proceeded by (a) proposing a bifurcation of theoretical options into inflationary and non-inflationary theories, and then (b) providing arguments for/against one of these theories. I suggest that this method has failed to illuminate the commonalities and differences among conscious intentional states of different types, in the absence of a theory of the structure of these states. I propose such a theory. In perception, phenomenal-intentional properties combine with somatosensory properties to form P-I property clusters that serve as phenomenal modes of presentations of particulars. In imagination, somatosensory properties are replaced with phenomenal-intentional properties whose intentional objects are somatosensory properties, thus resulting in imaginative facsimiles of perceptual P-I property clusters. Such structures can then be used as phenomenal prototypes that pick out individuals and kinds. Sets of such prototypes consti...
The emergence of mental content: An essay in the metaphysics of mind
Consciousness and the Ontology of Properties, 2018
A family of so-called "anti-physicalist" arguments have been widely discussed over the last four ... more A family of so-called "anti-physicalist" arguments have been widely discussed over the last four decades. 1 Each of these arguments purports to demonstrate that phenomenal properties-the felt qualities of conscious experience-are not identical to, constituted by, or realized in non-phenomenal properties, but rather that some of them are ontologically fandamental. 2 Let us suppose for present purposes that at least one of these arguments is successful. What positive account of phenomenal properties can be given? Where, that is, do phenomenal properties come from, and how are they related to the rest of concrete actuality? Here, there is a diyide between two schools of thought: panpsychists maintain that phenomenal properties are instantiated by the most basic building-blocks of reality; emergentists maintain that they emerge from reality once those building-blocks are suitably arranged. In this paper, I develop the latter option. Some have suggested that emergentism is no positive account at all. According to this line of criticism, emergentists appear to be saying something positive-viz., that consciousness "emerges" from physical reality-but the only substantive way to unpack their claim is in terms of the rejection of other explanatory proposals (identity-theory, non-reductive physicalism, panpsychism, occasionalism, etc.). So, at best, emergentists have no explanation of phenomenal properties to offer. 3 At worst, emergentists rejects the very possibility of such an explanation. According to Thomas Nagel, for example, emergentism implies that phenomenal properties "are not explainable in terms of any more fundamental properties, known or unknown, of the constituents of the system. " 4 If emergentists were right, then reality would contain fundamentally unintelligible aspects. This is a consequence Nagel, a friend of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, finds alarming.. But it is no part of emergentism to reject the possibility of, or simply to remain silent about, the explanation of consciousness. As Elanor Taylor (2015) has convincingly argued, that some phenomenon is emergent does not entail that it is inexplicable, but only that it can' t be explained in the familiar, scientific way. So it is open to emergentists to provide explanations of phenomenal properties. The aim of the present essay is to contribute to that task.
Philosophia Reformata, 2020
I discuss three tiers of technological innovation: mild innovation, or the acceleration by techno... more I discuss three tiers of technological innovation: mild innovation, or the acceleration by technology of a human activity aimed at a good; moderate innovation, or the obviation by technology of an activity aimed at a good; and radical innovation, or the altering by technology of the human condition so as to change what counts as a good. I argue that it is impossible to morally assess proposed innovations within any of these three tiers unless we rehabilitate a natural-law ethical framework. And I offer some moral starting points within such a framework, in connection with innovations of each of the three types.
Philosophical Psychology, 2019
In case you haven't received the news, the phenomenal intentionality research program is under wa... more In case you haven't received the news, the phenomenal intentionality research program is under way. It was both recognized and catalyzed as such by Uriah Kriegel in his introduction to the (2013) edited volume Phenomenal Intentionality. Before that, it had been coalescing for over a decadeeven longer if the work of John Searle (1992) and Galen Strawson (1994) in the early 1990s counts. Charles Siewert's (1998) book The Significance of Consciousness helped make respectable the idea, long out of favor, that consciousness and intentionality are bound up with one another. It would be hard to overstate the influence of Horgan and Tienson's (2002) paper "The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality." (A fellow phenomenal-intentionality sympathizer who heard the paper when it was first presented told me that her reaction was one of dizzy elation. She thought, "Really? We get to say things like that?") Brian Loar, David Pitt, and David Chalmers also contributed seminal papers right around the same time. 1 These early contributions paved the way for a flurry of work in the past ten years, comprising two volumes of new essays, 2 themed journal issues in The Monist (2008) and Phenomenology and Mind (2016), numerous journal articles, andso farthree monographs. 3 The most recent is The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality by Angela Mendelovici. 4 Thomas Kuhn wrote in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that the early development of a scientific research program (a 'paradigm,' in his jargon) is marked by the publication of books written for a broadly educated readership, whereas a more mature research program proceeds by the working out of puzzles in journal articles directed at other specialists. The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality is an excellent example of the sort of paradigmestablishing monograph that Kuhn had in mind. Up until now, most work on phenomenal intentionality has sought to establish either the existence or the scope of phenomenallybased intentionality. Mendelovici contributes to these discussions, but she proceeds much further, providing a positive theory of the metaphysics of all intentionality in terms of consciousness. Mendelovici makes it clear when she is making claims that are accepted by all or most members of the phenomenal-intentionality crowd and when her claims are more parochial. This allows the book to serve both as a primer and as a cutting-edge proposal. It is and shall be essential reading for those interested in the phenomenal-intentionality paradigm. Certainly, it raises many puzzles, some of which I discuss below. But these are the sorts of puzzles that galvanize rather than paralyze. Would-be puzzle-solvers within the paradigm can now get to work: The research program has been thoroughly launched.
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2019
This paper explores the relationship between phenomenal properties and intentional properties. In... more This paper explores the relationship between phenomenal properties and intentional properties. In recent years a number of philosophers have argued that intentional properties are sometimes necessitated by phenomenal properties, but have not explained why or how. Exceptions can be found in the work of Katalin Farkas and Farid Masrour, who develop versions of reductionism regarding phenomenally-necessitated intentionality (or ‘phenomenal intentionality’). I raise two objections to reductive theories of the sort they develop. Then I propose a version of primitivism regarding phenomenal intentionality. I argue that primitivism avoids the pitfalls of reductionism while promising broad explanatory payoffs.
Acta Analytica, 2017
According to a posteriori physicalism, phenomenal properties are physical properties, despite the... more According to a posteriori physicalism, phenomenal properties are physical properties, despite the unbridgeable cognitive gap that holds between phenomenal concepts and physical concepts. Current debates about a posteriori physicalism turn on what I call Bthe perspicuity principle^: it is impossible for a suitably astute cognizer to possess concepts of a certain sort-viz., narrow concepts-without being able to tell whether the referents of those concepts are the same or different. The perspicuity principle tends to strike a posteriori physicalists as implausibly rationalistic; further, a posteriori physicalists maintain that even if the principle is applicable to many narrow concepts, phenomenal concepts have unique features that render them inferentially isolated from other narrow concepts (a dialectical move known as Bthe phenomenal concept strategy^(PCS)). I argue, on the contrary, that the case for the perspicuity principle is quite strong. Moreover, not only have versions of the PCS repeatedly failed, likely, all versions will, given the strange combination of lucidity and opacity that the PCS has to juggle (it requires that we come up with a lucid explanation of an irremediable cognitive blindspot). I conclude that a posteriori physicalists currently lack a principled objection to classic anti-physicalist arguments.
Review of Keith Ward, Christ and the Cosmos: A Reformulation of Trinitarian Doctrine Cambridge University Press, 2015, ISBN:978-1107531819, pb, xvii+271pp
Sophia, 2017
Introspection and Consciousness
Philosophical Psychology, 2014
Introspection stands at the interface between two major currents in philosophy and related areas ... more Introspection stands at the interface between two major currents in philosophy and related areas of science: on the one hand, there are metaphysical and scientific questions about the nature of consciousness; and on the other hand, there are normative and epistemological questions about the nature of self-knowledge . . . . The impetus behind this volume is to bring together these two lines of research by exploring the nature of introspection, which lies at the intersection between consciousness and self-knowledge. (pp. 3–4)
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Papers by Philip Woodward