Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion
August 1, 2025
Sam Coleman
Abstract If panpsychism is true then consciousness pervades the cosmos, and there exist many more conscious subjects than other worldviews contemplate. Panpsychism’s explanatory story about how human material composition and complexity grounds human consciousness seems to entail that there exist, notably, various conscious subjects within human organisms. Given the plausibility of the thesis...
Mind and Matter
July 20, 2024
Sam Coleman
In an influential article, Thomas Nagel (1979) was one of the first to address the doctrine of panpsychism after a long time of silence about it. The present paper focuses on Nagel's account in detail, and how it seems to oscillate between the apparently conflicting positions of panpsychism and neutral monism. To resolve the tension between them it is proposed to consider the mental and the...
Phenomenology & Mind
2022
Sam Coleman
According to Brentano, mentality is essentially intentional in nature. Other philosophers have emphasized the phenomenal-qualitative aspect of conscious experiences as core to the mind. A recent philosophical wave – the ‘phenomenal intentionality programme’ – seeks to unite these conceptions in the idea that mental content is grounded in phenomenal qualities. However, a philosophical and...
The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness
July 9, 2020
Philip Goff, Sam Coleman
4 citations
Russellian monism is a quite general approach to the problem of consciousness, which comes in a variety of forms depending on what is said about the categorical properties of basic physical entities. We can usefully distinguish between panpsychist and panprotopsychist forms. Panpsychist Russellian monists hold that the categorical properties of basic physical entities are experiential...
Trans/Form/Ação
2018
Sam Coleman
Abstract Over many years and in many publications David Rosenthal has developed, defended and applied his justly well-known higher-order thought theory of consciousness.2 In this paper I explain the theory, then provide a brief history of a major objection to it. I suggest that this objection is ultimately ineffectual, but that behind it lies a reason to look beyond Rosenthal's theory to...
February 14, 2015
Sam Coleman
Abstract Due to their reliance on constitutive higher-order representing to generate the qualities of which the subject is consciously aware, I argue that the major existing higher-order representational theories of consciousness insulate us from our first-order sensory states. In fact on these views we are never properly conscious of our sensory states at all. In their place I offer a new...