I argue that it is metaphysically necessary that: (i) every fundamental entity is conscious, and (ii) every fundamental property is a phenomenal property.

This paper scrutinises the limits of a posteriori induction in acquiring modal knowledge. I focus on my similarity-based account (Roca-Royes [2017]); an inductive, non-rationalist epistemology of modality about concrete entities. Despite the explanatory merits of the account in relation to a vast range of modal claims, this inductive epistemology has been found incapable of yielding knowledge of a certain, other range of modal claims. Here, two notions of knowability are distinguished which reveal some of these limitations to be not only (...) accidental to the method but also virtuous. Additionally, the scrutiny suggests a recipe for increasingly pushing back, as modal enquirers, some of these limits. Limits will irremediably remain. But, as modal epistemologists, it is to explain what lies beyond these irremediable limits (not within) that we should look somewhere else. (shrink)

In his Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (2017) Philip Goff defends his anti-physicalist argument against what he calls the "Dual Carving" objection—the idea that two representations of the very same fact could both be conceptually independent and "transparent," that is, revealing of the essences of the entities in question. His defense invokes a thesis he calls "Minimal Rationalism." I explore exactly how Minimal Rationalism is supposed to turn aside the objection and argue that the formulation of Minimal Rationalism on offer is (...) ambiguous between stronger and weaker readings. Goff needs the stronger reading to use it in defense of his argument, but only the weaker reading is warranted by the considerations he brings to bear in favor of his rationalism. His minimal rationalism is, in sum, insufficiently minimal. The upshot is not only that Goff is deprived of a way of turning back an important objection to his case against physicalism; we also gain a better sense of what kind of rationalist thesis is properly invoked in metaphysics. (shrink)

One of the most widely-discussed arguments against physcialism appeals to the conceivability of zombies, being which are physically or functionally identical to humans but which have no conscious experiences. Philip Goff : 119–139, 2010; Consci Cognit 21: 742–746, 2012a; in Sprevak M, Kallestrup J New waves in philosophy of mind. Palgrave, 2014) has recently presented a number of different anti-physicalist arguments appealing to the conceivability of ghosts, entities whose nature is exhausted by their being conscious. If ghosts are conceivable, this (...) would rule out a priori physicalism. If the conceivability of ghosts entails that they are metaphysically possible, then this forms the basis for arguments against a posteriori physicalism. Drawing on work on conceivability by Peter Kung :620–663, 2010, Noûs 50: 90–120, 2016) and my own discussion of arguments which appeal to the conceivability of zombies Consciousness and the ontology of properties. Routledge, New York, 2019), I shall argue that ghosts are conceivable, but that what allows us to conceive of them undermines the belief that conceivability is a reliable guide to possibility. While this does not undermine Goff’s argument against a priori phyiscalism, it suggests that a posteriori physicalists need not be haunted by ghosts. (shrink)