This paper responds to an argument from Botin which claims that Russellian physicalism is committed to the view that either (i) our phenomenal concepts do not reveal anything essential about phenomenal properties (following Goff, Botin calls this the ‘opaque’ account of phenomenal concepts), or that (ii) phenomenal concepts are capable of revealing at least some of the essence of phenomenal properties—making phenomenal concepts ‘translucent’ if some-but-not-all-revealing or ‘transparent’ if all-revealing—but this entails that phenomenal properties are fundamental, which violates physicalism. I (...) argue that Botin is wrong that Russellian physicalists are committed to the view that physical and phenomenal concepts must have similarly qualitative/phenomenal modes of presentation or contents, since Russellian physicalists assume that we do not possess concepts which specifically refer to non-phenomenal categorical properties. If we were to acquire concepts for non-phenomenal categorical properties, they would need to have categorical contents and modes of presentation, but need not have qualitative/phenomenal contents and modes of presentation. Given this, Russellian physicalists can embrace a translucent account of phenomenal concepts, and hold that our phenomenal concepts more-or-less accurately tell us about certain sorts of non-fundamental properties which are both physical and categorical. (shrink)

The book argues that there is a best design for the human self, making the case in favour of the transcendent self-view – a perspective on the self that transcends ideas and viewpoints generally, seeing and treating them as subordinate facets of a total self that has empty consciousness, the underlying essence of consciousness itself, as its resting focus and core. The two main claims defended are, first, that it is the one self-view that fully and accurately reflects our true (...) behavioural and experiential nature; second, that making it the basis of the fully developed human self, whilst also maintaining unique personal elements, should be an aim for both the individual and educational professionals. For the individual, taking this step may be thought of as personal transcendence and may even be given a spiritual slant, but it is best seen as an everyday kind of transcendence that is really nothing special – just a sensible and logical endpoint to human development. An account of how the perspective helps resolve the hard problem of consciousness is also given. Chapter 1 is a full summary of the main points of the book. (shrink)