Philosophy Colloquium: Torin Alter

Title: "Russellian Monism and Mental Causation."

When

3 to 5 p.m., Sept. 7, 2018

Where

According to Russellian monism, consciousness is constituted at least partly by intrinsic properties that categorically ground dispositional (or structural-and-dynamic) properties described by fundamental physics (Chalmers 2010). I will defend this view from the charge that, roughly put, Russellian monism leads to epiphenomenalism (Howell 2015, Robinson 2018, Pautz n.d.). That charge, I will argue, depends partly on an equivocation (between metaphysical and nomological possibility) and partly on misunderstandings about the Russellian monist’s commitments.