Dualism, the Causal Closure of the Physical, and Philip Goff’s Case for Panpsychism

The article examines Philip Goff's panpsychist research program, which aims to explain consciousness's place in the physical world and the intrinsic nature of physical reality while avoiding the causal closure problem that challenges dualism. The author argues that dualism can adequately address the inductive no-gap objection based on causal closure, whereas panpsychism, as presented in Goff's book Galileo's Error, encounters similar difficulties and its ability to overcome them is questionable. The later hybrid cosmopsychism avoids the causal closure issue but relies on assumptions that are hardly intelligible.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract The article discusses Philip Goff’s latest projects of developing panpsychist research program as one that is capable of revealing the place of consciousness in the physical world and accounting for the intrinsic nature of physical reality, while avoiding the problem of the causal closure of the physical that is supposed to be pernicious for psychophysical dualism. The case is made that on the one hand, dualism has pretty good resources to meet the inductive no-gap objection appealing to the causal closure, while on the other hand, insofar as this objection has some force, panpsychism in the forms discussed in Goff’s book Galileo’s Error (Goff, P. 2019. Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. New York: Pantheon Books) faces nearly the same difficulties and its capability of overcoming these difficulties is problematic. While the hybrid cosmopsychism, as developed in Goff’s later manuscript, circumvents the causal closure problem, it does so at the price of relying on assumptions that are hardly intelligible.