Galen Strawson
Biographic Data
| ID | 989811 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Galen Strawson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Galen |
| FAMILY NAME | Strawson |
| SIGNATURE | STRAWSON G |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0899-5906 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Impossibility of Ultimate Moral Responsibility
If we are to be ultimately morally responsible for what we do, we must be ultimately responsible for how we are, at least in certain mental respects. This is because we can only be ultimately morally responsible for what we do intentionally, and what we intentionally do is a function of how we are, mentally speaking. However, we cannot be ultimately responsible for how we are, either mentally speaking or in any other respect. Nothing can be the u…
Self-Awareness
'Oh You Materialist!'
[1] Materialism in the philosophy of mind -- materialismPM -- is the view that everything mental is material (or, equivalently, physical). Consciousness -- pain, emotional feeling, sensory experience, and so on -- certainly exists. So materialismPM is the view that consciousness is wholly material. It has, historically, nothing to do with denial of the existence of consciousness. Its heart is precisely the claim that consciousness -- consciousnes…
The mechanism—the secret—of the given
A hundred years of consciousness
There occurred in the twentieth century the most remarkable episode in the history of human thought. A number of thinkers denied the existence of something we know with certainty to exist: consciousness, conscious experience. Others held back from the Denial, as we may call it, but claimed that it might be true —a claim no less remarkable than the Denial. This paper documents some aspects of this episode, with particular reference to two things. …
Things that bother me
Nietzsche’s Metaphysics?
This chapter considers ten claims. There is no [1] persisting and unitary self, [2] no fundamental (ontological) distinction between objects and their properties, or [3] between the categorical properties of things and the dispositional or power properties of things, or [4] between objects or substances and processes and events. [5] Reality isn't truly divisible into causes and effects. [6] Objects are not governed by laws of nature ontologically…
Humeanism
In metaphysics, the adjective ‘Humean’ is used to describe positions that deny the existence of any necessary connection or causal influence in concrete reality. This usage has been significantly reinforced by David Lewis's employment of ‘Humean’ in the phrase ‘Humean supervenience’. It is, however, not at all clear that this usage is appropriate. Lewis himself raised a doubt about it
The Evident Connexion
'The Evident Connexion' presents a bold new reading of David Hume's famous 'bundle' theory of the self or mind, and his later rejection of it. Galen Strawson illuminates the 'uniting principle' of Hume's philosophy and argues that the bundle theory does not, as widely supposed, claim that there are no subjects of experience
The identity of the categorical and the dispositional
Journal Article The identity of the categorical and the dispositional Get access Galen Strawson Galen Strawson 1University of ReadingReading RG6 6AA, [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 68, Issue 4, 1 October 2008, Pages 271–282, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/68.4.271 Published: 01 October 2008
Real Materialism
This book draws together chapters written over twenty years by the author in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. It focuses on five main areas of enquiry: the nature of the physical, consciousness, the ‘mind-body problem’, and the prospects for panpsychism; the self, the subject of experience, self-consciousness, and the ‘narrative’ self; free will and moral responsibility; the nature of thought and intentionality and their connection with consci…
Realistic Monism
This chapter discusses the following statements: a materialist holds that every concrete phenomenon is wholly physical or material and a realistic materialist is a full-fledged realist about consciousness. Therefore it follows that a realistic materialist must hold that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon, and that at least some arrangements of matter are conscious or constitute consciousness. The chapter asks: what follows from this? I…
Real materialism and other essays
"Real Materialism draws together papers written over twenty years by Galen Strawson in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Strawson focuses on five main areas of enquiry: [1] the nature of the physical, consciousness, the 'mind-body problem', and the prospects for panpsychism; [2] the self, the subject of experience, self-consciousness, and the 'narrative' self; [3] free will and moral responsibility; [4] the nature of thought and intentionality …
Against Narrativity
I argue against two popular claims. The first is a descriptive, empirical thesis about the nature of ordinary human experience: ‘each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” . . . this narrative is us, our identities’ (Oliver Sacks); ‘self is a perpetually rewritten story . . . in the end, we become the autobiographical narratives by which we “tell about” our lives’ (Jerry Bruner); ‘we are all virtuoso novelists. . . . We try to make all of our …
Epistemology, Semantics, Ontology, and David Hume
The Unhelpfulness of Indeterminism
Man himself' according to Immanuel Kant, make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is to become. Either condition must be an effect of his free choice; for otherwise he could not be held responsible for it and could therefore be morally neither good nor evil. Robert Kane agrees-he agrees that there is an inescapable sense in which true or ultimate moral responsibility requires a kind of self-creation. So …
Replies to Noam Chomsky, Pierre Jacob, Michael Smith, and Paul Snowdon
Precis of Mental Reality
Mental Reality
Mental Reality
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Mental Reality. By Galen Strawson. (;MIT Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 337. Price $34.95.) John Heil John Heil Davidson College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 46, Issue 184, July 1996, Pages 414–416, https://doi.org/10.2307/2956461 Published: 01 July 1996
The impossibility of moral responsibility
Mental Reality
What is distinctive of the mental? In Mental Reality, Galen Strawson argues that the answer is not intelligence, representational content, or intentionality broadly understood, but conscious experience. Strawson challenges neobehaviorist accounts of the mental. He argues that much contemporary philosophy of mind is still confused by positivism and its various offspring. It gives undue primacy of place to nonmental phenomena, publicly observable p…
The contingent reality of natural necessity
The contingent reality of natural necessity Get access Galen Strawson Galen Strawson Jesus CollegeOxford OX1 3DW Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 51, Issue 4, October 1991, Pages 209–213, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/51.4.209 Published: 01 October 1991
Freedom and Belief
Causation and Universals
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Causation and Universal. By Evan Fales. (London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xxii + 362. Price £35.00.)The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume. By Galen Strawson. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 291. Price £32.50.)Causation: A Realist Approach. By Michael Tooley. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Pp. xiv + 360. Price £32.50.) E.J. Lowe E.J. Lowe University of Durham Search for…
Red and ?red
Realism and Causation
Journal Article Realism and Causation Get access Galen Strawson Galen Strawson Netv College, Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 37, Issue 148, July 1987, Pages 253–277, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220397 Published: 01 July 1987
The Unhelpfulness of Indeterminism
Man himself' according to Immanuel Kant, make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is to become. Either condition must be an effect of his free choice; for otherwise he could not be held responsible for it and could therefore be morally neither good nor evil. Robert Kane agrees-he agrees that there is an inescapable sense in which true or ultimate moral responsibility requires a kind of self-creation. So …
Humeanism
In metaphysics, the adjective ‘Humean’ is used to describe positions that deny the existence of any necessary connection or causal influence in concrete reality. This usage has been significantly reinforced by David Lewis's employment of ‘Humean’ in the phrase ‘Humean supervenience’. It is, however, not at all clear that this usage is appropriate. Lewis himself raised a doubt about it
A hundred years of consciousness
There occurred in the twentieth century the most remarkable episode in the history of human thought. A number of thinkers denied the existence of something we know with certainty to exist: consciousness, conscious experience. Others held back from the Denial, as we may call it, but claimed that it might be true —a claim no less remarkable than the Denial. This paper documents some aspects of this episode, with particular reference to two things. …
Precis of Mental Reality
Realism and Causation
Journal Article Realism and Causation Get access Galen Strawson Galen Strawson Netv College, Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 37, Issue 148, July 1987, Pages 253–277, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220397 Published: 01 July 1987
Freedom and Belief
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Freedom and Belief. By Galen Strawson. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Pp. xiv + 339. Price £27.50) C.J. Hookway C.J. Hookway University of Birmingham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 38, Issue 153, October 1988, Pages 533–535, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219717 Published: 01 October 1988
Red and ?red
The contingent reality of natural necessity
The contingent reality of natural necessity Get access Galen Strawson Galen Strawson Jesus CollegeOxford OX1 3DW Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 51, Issue 4, October 1991, Pages 209–213, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/51.4.209 Published: 01 October 1991
Freedom and Belief
Causation and Universals
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Causation and Universal. By Evan Fales. (London and New York: Routledge, 1990. Pp. xxii + 362. Price £35.00.)The Secret Connexion: Causation, Realism, and David Hume. By Galen Strawson. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 291. Price £32.50.)Causation: A Realist Approach. By Michael Tooley. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Pp. xiv + 360. Price £32.50.) E.J. Lowe E.J. Lowe University of Durham Search for…
The impossibility of moral responsibility
Mental Reality
What is distinctive of the mental? In Mental Reality, Galen Strawson argues that the answer is not intelligence, representational content, or intentionality broadly understood, but conscious experience. Strawson challenges neobehaviorist accounts of the mental. He argues that much contemporary philosophy of mind is still confused by positivism and its various offspring. It gives undue primacy of place to nonmental phenomena, publicly observable p…
Mental Reality
Mental Reality
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Mental Reality. By Galen Strawson. (;MIT Press, 1994. Pp. xviii + 337. Price $34.95.) John Heil John Heil Davidson College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 46, Issue 184, July 1996, Pages 414–416, https://doi.org/10.2307/2956461 Published: 01 July 1996
Replies to Noam Chomsky, Pierre Jacob, Michael Smith, and Paul Snowdon
Precis of Mental Reality
Epistemology, Semantics, Ontology, and David Hume
The Unhelpfulness of Indeterminism
Man himself' according to Immanuel Kant, make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is to become. Either condition must be an effect of his free choice; for otherwise he could not be held responsible for it and could therefore be morally neither good nor evil. Robert Kane agrees-he agrees that there is an inescapable sense in which true or ultimate moral responsibility requires a kind of self-creation. So …
Against Narrativity
I argue against two popular claims. The first is a descriptive, empirical thesis about the nature of ordinary human experience: ‘each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” . . . this narrative is us, our identities’ (Oliver Sacks); ‘self is a perpetually rewritten story . . . in the end, we become the autobiographical narratives by which we “tell about” our lives’ (Jerry Bruner); ‘we are all virtuoso novelists. . . . We try to make all of our …
The identity of the categorical and the dispositional
Journal Article The identity of the categorical and the dispositional Get access Galen Strawson Galen Strawson 1University of ReadingReading RG6 6AA, [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 68, Issue 4, 1 October 2008, Pages 271–282, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/68.4.271 Published: 01 October 2008
Real Materialism
This book draws together chapters written over twenty years by the author in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. It focuses on five main areas of enquiry: the nature of the physical, consciousness, the ‘mind-body problem’, and the prospects for panpsychism; the self, the subject of experience, self-consciousness, and the ‘narrative’ self; free will and moral responsibility; the nature of thought and intentionality and their connection with consci…
Realistic Monism
This chapter discusses the following statements: a materialist holds that every concrete phenomenon is wholly physical or material and a realistic materialist is a full-fledged realist about consciousness. Therefore it follows that a realistic materialist must hold that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon, and that at least some arrangements of matter are conscious or constitute consciousness. The chapter asks: what follows from this? I…
Real materialism and other essays
"Real Materialism draws together papers written over twenty years by Galen Strawson in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Strawson focuses on five main areas of enquiry: [1] the nature of the physical, consciousness, the 'mind-body problem', and the prospects for panpsychism; [2] the self, the subject of experience, self-consciousness, and the 'narrative' self; [3] free will and moral responsibility; [4] the nature of thought and intentionality …
The Evident Connexion
'The Evident Connexion' presents a bold new reading of David Hume's famous 'bundle' theory of the self or mind, and his later rejection of it. Galen Strawson illuminates the 'uniting principle' of Hume's philosophy and argues that the bundle theory does not, as widely supposed, claim that there are no subjects of experience
Nietzsche’s Metaphysics?
This chapter considers ten claims. There is no [1] persisting and unitary self, [2] no fundamental (ontological) distinction between objects and their properties, or [3] between the categorical properties of things and the dispositional or power properties of things, or [4] between objects or substances and processes and events. [5] Reality isn't truly divisible into causes and effects. [6] Objects are not governed by laws of nature ontologically…
Humeanism
In metaphysics, the adjective ‘Humean’ is used to describe positions that deny the existence of any necessary connection or causal influence in concrete reality. This usage has been significantly reinforced by David Lewis's employment of ‘Humean’ in the phrase ‘Humean supervenience’. It is, however, not at all clear that this usage is appropriate. Lewis himself raised a doubt about it
Things that bother me
A hundred years of consciousness
There occurred in the twentieth century the most remarkable episode in the history of human thought. A number of thinkers denied the existence of something we know with certainty to exist: consciousness, conscious experience. Others held back from the Denial, as we may call it, but claimed that it might be true —a claim no less remarkable than the Denial. This paper documents some aspects of this episode, with particular reference to two things. …
'Oh You Materialist!'
[1] Materialism in the philosophy of mind -- materialismPM -- is the view that everything mental is material (or, equivalently, physical). Consciousness -- pain, emotional feeling, sensory experience, and so on -- certainly exists. So materialismPM is the view that consciousness is wholly material. It has, historically, nothing to do with denial of the existence of consciousness. Its heart is precisely the claim that consciousness -- consciousnes…
Philosophy (22 works) · Epistemology (21 works) · Metaphysics (11 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (7 works) · Consciousness (5 works) · History (5 works) · Materialism (5 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (5 works)