The conscious mind unified.
| dc.contributor.advisor | Pruss, Alexander R. | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | O'Connor, Timothy, 1965- | |
| dc.creator | Rickabaugh, Brandon, 1976- | |
| dc.creator.orcid | 0000-0002-8484-2381 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-11-05T15:06:39Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-11-05T15:06:39Z | |
| dc.date.created | 2020-08 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-07-30 | |
| dc.date.submitted | August 2020 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2020-11-05T15:06:39Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | The current state of consciousness research is at an impasse. Neuroscience faces a variety of recalcitrant problems regarding the neurobiological binding together of states of consciousness. Philosophy faces the combination problem, that of holistically unifying phenomenal consciousness. In response, I argue that these problems all result from a naturalistic assumption that subjects of consciousness are built up out of distinct physical parts. I begin by developing a Husserlian mereology of part-whole relations, which I apply to both an ontology of the holistic unity of the subjects of consciousness and the holistic unity of phenomenal consciousness itself. After a detailed analysis of the ontology and neuroscience of phenomenally unified consciousness, I argue against the three major naturalist views: physicalism, Russellian panpsychism, and emergentism. I develop various arguments demonstrating that these views each fail to account for the possibility of subjects of phenomenally unified consciousness. In the final chapter, I show how these arguments entail that the subject of phenomenal unity must be partless, must be a simple holistic unity. In turn, this provides a defense of substance dualism or at least something near enough. Given the widespread rejection of mind-body dualism, I answer certain neurological objections and conclude by sketching the details of an underexplored neo-Aristotelian form of substance dualism. I conclude that each of us, indeed every subject of phenomenally unified consciousness, is not made up of distinct parts. Not a brain. Not a body. Every embodied subject of phenomenally unified consciousness is a bodily soul. | |
| dc.format.mimetype | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/2104/11139 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.rights.accessrights | No access – contact librarywebmaster@baylor.edu | |
| dc.subject | Consciousness. Philosophy of mind. Philosophy of neuroscience. Metaphysics. Epistemology. Ontology of human persons. Analytic phenomenology. | |
| dc.title | The conscious mind unified. | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| dc.type.material | text | |
| local.embargo.lift | 2025-08-01 | |
| local.embargo.terms | 2025-08-01 | |
| thesis.degree.department | Baylor University. Dept. of Philosophy. | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | Baylor University | |
| thesis.degree.level | Doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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