Grounding Physicalism and the New Challenge of Consciousness

Summary

Grounding physicalists face challenges in explaining our substantial phenomenal knowledge, particularly the concept of revelation, which suggests that this knowledge is essence-revealing. To address this, they can either abandon the idea that grounding relations are essence-mediated in favor of a law-based approach or maintain essence-mediation while arguing that phenomenal properties lack purely phenomenal essences. Both strategies are considered viable for grounding physicalism to tackle this challenge.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Grounding is a non-reductive relation which promises to help physicalists deal with the hard problem of consciousness. Grounding physicalists, however, are yet to face the new challenge for physicalism, which consists of explaining our substantive phenomenal knowledge. Among the difficulties posed by this challenge, grounding physicalists struggle the most in accounting for revelation, the claim that our phenomenal knowledge is not only substantive, but also essence-revealing. Revelation is said to be in tension with the view that grounding relations are essence-mediated. We argue that grounding physicalists can accommodate revelation in two ways. First, they can drop the claim that the physical/phenomenal grounding relation is essence-mediated and adopt a law-based formulation of grounding physicalism. However, to make this work, they must show that the resulting view does not bear the costs of dualism. Second, they can retain essence-mediation and explain why, contrary to introspective appearances, phenomenal properties do not have purely phenomenal essences. We contend that both approaches are viable, grounding physicalism can address the new challenge.

Tags