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Sprigge's Ontology of Consciousness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2010

Leemon McHenry
Leemon McHenry
Affiliation:
California State University, Northridge
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Abstract

Timothy Sprigge advanced an original synthesis of panpsychism and absolute idealism. He argued that consciousness is an irreducible, subjective reality that is only grasped by an introspective, phenomenological approach and constructed his ontology from what is revealed in the phenomenology. In defending the unique place of metaphysics in the pursuit of truth, he claimed that scientific investigation can never discover the essence of consciousness since it can only provide descriptions of structure and function in what we normally think of as physical existence. In this paper I present a critical evaluation of Sprigge's view focusing in particular on his conception of the nature of scientific inquiry vis-à-vis the ambitious project of his metaphysics. I argue that a naturalistic metaphysics provides a more adequate approach to the relation between science and metaphysics.

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Papers
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Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 67 , October 2010 , pp. 5 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2010

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References

1 Sprigge, T. L. S., ‘Consciousness’ in The Ontological Turn, edited by Gram, M. S. and Klemke, E. D. (Iowa City: Iowa University Press, 1974), 115Google Scholar. Also see ‘Orientations’, Philosophical Writings 2 (1996), 98–100.

2 For a critical evaluation of Sprigge's thought, see Basile, P. and McHenry, L. (eds), Consciousness, Reality and Value: Essays in Honour of T. L. S. Sprigge (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 Ibid., 5.

10 T. L. S. Sprigge, ‘The Importance of Subjectivity’, op. cit., 146–7. Sprigge credits F. H. Bradley with articulating this view. See also his ‘Knowledge of Subjectivity’, Theoria to Theory 14 (1981), 320.

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36 T. L. S. Sprigge, ‘Consciousness’, op. cit., 73.

37 See for example, D. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, op. cit., 276–310; G. Strawson, ‘Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism entails Panpsychism’ in A. Freeman (ed.), Consciousness and its Place in Nature, op. cit., 3–31; Skrbina, D. (ed.), Mind that Abides: Panpsychism in the New Millennium (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009)Google Scholar; Seager, W., ‘Consciousness, Information, and Panpsychism’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2:3 (1995), 272–88Google Scholar.

38 G. Strawson, ‘Realistic Monism’, op. cit., 3–31.

39 D. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind, op. cit., 288–99.

40 This is a view that was considered but rejected in Clark, A. and Chalmers, D., ‘The Extended Mind’, Analysis 58 (1998), 7–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, yet the authors agree the extended mind implies an extended self.

41 This distinction appears in my Whitehead and Bradley: A Comparative Analysis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 16–9. Pure metaphysicians would include Bradley and Sprigge who argue for a sharp separation of science and metaphysics whereas naturalized metaphysicians would include Peirce, Whitehead and Quine who see metaphysics and science as necessary to rounding out our general theory of the world.

42 Quine, W. V., Theories and Things (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981), 72Google Scholar. Quine espoused a thoroughgoing physicalism and behaviourism in line with his naturalism. Private, subjective phenomena play no role in his ontology, which perhaps explains why he regarded consciousness as a mystery.

43 I have profited from discussions with Frank McGuinness, Pauline Phemister and Pierfrancesco Basile on earlier drafts of this paper.