The Binding Problem for Strong Experiential Monism

Bibliographic Data

ID21394640
AuthorsSanttu Heikkinen (0000-0001-7024-7939, University of Helsinki, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume61
Issue4
Pages795-809
Publication date2022-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSophia (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-1527 • E-ISSN: 1873-930X
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11841-022-00918-z
OpenAlexW4280645867
LanguageEN
References cited28

In this article, I explicate a new problem for a variant of panpsychism, strong experiential monism, that is the view that all being is experiential. I contrast the view with weak experiential monism, a softer variant that allows for non-experiential bare particulars to act as the carriers of properties. I argue that strong experiential monism can’t explain what works as the ontological commonality between the referents of one experience of something and another experience of that same thing; in other words, in virtue of what are those experiences about the same thing at all. If they aren’t about the same ontological existent at all, the apparent mutual coherence between these experiences (as manifest in our ability to discuss about them in a seemingly coherent way, for example) requires explanation. I argue that strong experiential monism necessitates a more or less brute kind of parallelism between the experiences to explain their mutual coherence. Alternatively, the strong experiential monist must either retreat to weak experiential monism and non-experiential bare particulars or to a more robust kind of property dualism or dual-aspect monism

Epistemology · Experiential learning · Monism · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology

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