Consciousness and Fundamental Reality

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A core philosophical project seeks to uncover the fundamental nature of reality and the limited set of facts upon which all others depend. A prevalent theory in contemporary analytic philosophy is physicalism, which posits that the world is fundamentally physical. The first half of this book argues that physicalism fails to account for the undeniable reality of conscious experience, rendering it untrue. Uniquely, the author critiques well-known arguments against physicalism, such as Chalmers' zombie conceivability argument and Jackson's knowledge argument, suggesting significant modifications to these critiques. The second half explores and defends a recently revived theory of fundamental reality, known as 'Russellian monism,' inspired by Bertrand Russell's theses in "The Analysis of Matter." Russell contended that physics provides an incomplete picture of the world, revealing only extrinsic, mathematical features of material entities while obscuring their intrinsic nature. Russellian monists argue that this 'hidden' intrinsic nature of matter explains consciousness. Some adopt panpsychism, suggesting that the intrinsic natures of basic entities involve consciousness, while others propose that these entities are proto-conscious. Various forms of Russellian monism are examined, addressing key challenges. The penultimate chapter defends a cosmopsychist variant, positing that all facts are grounded in the consciousness of the uni