In his forthcoming essay, “Mind and Being: The Primacy of Panpsychism,” Galen Strawson outlines his four proposition metaphysics. While all four deserve a closer look, Strawson’s third proposition, “Sein ist Sosein” or “being is quality,” is what I wish to focus on here. I will use “[3]” as a shorthand for this proposition, as Strawson does, and all citations are to “Mind and Being: the Primacy of Panpsychism” unless otherwise noted.

By [3], Strawson means to break down our traditional “distinction between substance and attribute.” (p. 4) Strawson believes that if a concrete object is to exist at all, it must exist in a certain way. That is,

“to be at all is necessarily to be somehow, and to be somehow is necessarily to exist.” (p. 4)

More strongly put, there is no distinction between the totality of what constitutes object o, at time t, and the totality of what constitutes the intrinsic properties of o.

One might jump to respond that the “necessarily” in this claim makes it hard to make sense of accidental qualities of things and how they could be different across possible worlds. For examples, that Socrates was a philosopher seems to be an accidental quality of him–he could’ve failed to be a philosopher. If Socrates could have failed to be a philosopher, then his quality is not his being. However, there are two charitable ways of interpreting Strawson such that he can avoid this and other counter-examples.

First, it depends on how we interpret Strawson’s strong phrasing of [3]:

“that there’s no real distinction, in the case of any particular thing or object o, considered at any particular time t, between the totality of what constitutes the existence of o at t and the totality of what constitutes the existence of the (intrinsic instantiated) propertiedness of o at that time.” (p. 4)

Take two worlds: our world, w, where Socrates was a philosopher and another, w1, where Socrates was a cobbler. Strawson might argue that his principle is consistent with these two situations. Socrates at time t in world w is the totality of his intrinsic qualities (which happen to make him a philosopher) and Socrates in world w1 at time t is the totality of his intrinsic qualities (which happen to make him a cobbler). In w and w1 there must be something different about the intrinsic properties that make up Socrates in each world. This is the response I think Strawson’s paper points at. However, I think this position is ultimately untenable because Socrates is not just his intrinsic qualities, but he is also constituted by his structural properties (e.g., the organization of the particles which make him up) and his relational properties (e.g., his being the teacher of Plato). I don’t think either of these could be said to be intrinsic.

In light of this, I think there is a better position for Strawson to hold and still maintain the spirit of [3]. In his paper “Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism,” Strawson articulates the concept of the “ultimates” to describe whatever fundamental entity (or entities, as there could be more than one ultimate) that make up the world–whether it’s quarks, bosons, fields, strings, or monads. (“Realistic Monism” 2006, p. 9 [p. 58 at the link]) [3] might more accurately describe these ultimates and their intrinsic natures than it does composite objects (objects made of ultimates). If we restrict [3] to the ultimates, then Strawson is able to avoid Socrates-like objections because Socrates and other composites just aren’t the kinds of things that [3] describes. The properties that make up Socrates are not just the intrinsic natures of the things that make him up, but also this structural and relational properties as described above. Composite objects are not just the totality of their internal properties, but their structural and relational properties as well. However, it’s not clear that this same principle holds for the ultimates. The ultimates, by definition, are not made up of other things, so they don’t have structural properties. Ultimates can clearly be in certain relations with other ultimates to build composites. However, this may not contribute to their constitution. It is here that I propose that Strawson makes his stand with [3].

(I should be clear that I do not think Strawson means [3] to only refer to ultimates. It seems that he thinks the principle applies to composites as much as [3] applies to ultimates. However, I think the issues that arise under this interpretation are irresolvable.)

Works Cited

Strawson, G. (2006). “Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism.” In Consciousness and its Place in Nature.

Strawson, G. (Forthcoming). “Mind and Being: The Primacy of Panpsychism.” In Panpsychism: Philosophical Essays.