Neutral monism is the position that everything that exists is all of a single ontologically fundamental type. There is just one fundamental type of thing in all existence; and that thing either includes the mental and the physical at its foundational level, or it at least allows for the existence of them together within some derivative or emergent level of existence. There are no such separate types of things as ‘mind’ or ‘body’ at the fundamental level of existence. There is only one fundamental mode of existentiality that, in one way or another, either combines mentality and physicality together, or that accounts for the distinction between the higher-order types of the mental and the physical as simply derivative or naturally (weakly) emergent properties of that fundamentally neutral existence.
This neutral strategy strives to avoid the pitfalls of substance dualism — such as futile attempts to magically explain brute emergence of nonphysical subjective consciousness from the electrochemical wetwork of our purely physical brains — while allowing for the manifest facticity of mental and physical entities, states, types, and kinds.
This concept of monistic neutrality has been around at least since the time of Baruch Spinoza. His concept of substance falls under the ‘both’ flavor of neutral monism — both mental and physical. (Rosenkrantz and Hoffman 2011: 287). A fundamentally substantial extant entity is neutral because it includes both these fundamental qualities within its foundationally intrinsic nature.
But there are yet other types of neutral monism that describe a negative reading of neutrality: neither physical nor mental — rather some other base level of existence that allows for the derivation of the higher-order types of mentality and physicality. With some debatable variances, the traditional philosophical positions of the ‘Big Three’ of neutral monism generally fall within this ‘neither sense’ of neutrality. The renowned philosophers Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell are probably the most notable defenders of negatively neutral monism, with their respective chronologies understood as the prior having influenced and informed the next over time, with Mach inspiring James, and James inspiring Russell. (SEP, Neutral Monism, 1.0)
While this negative sense of neutrality has notably become the default reading in the history of neutral monism, it is not without significant challenge: the most significant obstacle being the lack of any positive definition of what actually constitutes the fundamental ontological layer of existence. What is the substantial character or essential nature of this ‘thing’ that is neither mental nor physical? Simply saying what it is not leaves a level of dissatisfaction within our philosophical bellies; and we are left hungering for something quite a bit more satisfying. To fully explicate a complete metaphysical model, we should demand the positive assertion and defense of what is fundamentally manifest, rather than simply what is not.
To that end, a positive reading of the ‘both sense’ of neutral monism offers the benefit of categorically stating what constitutes the fundamental metaphysical layer of existence. The challenge for this position becomes how to explain the conjunction of the mental and physical within that positively neutral monistic substance, form, or mode of existence. How can they both exist together, as well as somehow causally interact with one another, as it appears they do within our everyday experience. (My mind wills my body to move, and it does. My neurons fire, and I see a red schoolhouse.)
Dual-aspect monism has, of late, taken on the mantle of championing neutral monism as a viable solution to the hard problem of consciousness. Positively stating the fundamental nature of existence as a monistic substance or mode of being that possesses the two foundational aspects of mentality and physicality, each with equal existential priority, is a step in the right direction, but hardly a complete solution. For simply postulating these aspects together does not explain their ability to interact, interrelate, or, more importantly, have some causal connection. Positing independent aspects, after all, simply leaves us with independent aspects. Such independence must continue that same causal rift present within substance dualism. We have gotten nowhere with such a model. Unless we can establish a fundamental causal connection between these dual aspects of mentality and physicality, we have simply traded nomenclature, rather than having finally bridged that traditionally dualistic chasm.
Dual-aspect monism also carries the weight of defending itself as proper monism; for if there are independent aspects at the fundamental level, how can we defend this as monism and not simply another flavor of dualism? And if we simply explain these dual aspects as derivative of some fundamental substance or mode of existence, then we have not really asserted a positively neutral stance, rather simply embraced the traditional negatively neutral stance with derivative, higher-order or emergent aspects of mentality and physicality, without ever going on the record with what positively constitutes the ontological foundation of existence at all.
Clearly, we must ascribe and justify how mentality and physicality exist together at the foundational level of existence and within a necessary and causal relation. We must somehow explain how the fundamental substance or foundational mode of existence entails both these qualities, without them existing independently of one another, but rather depending upon one another in a fundamentally necessary relation.
Sceptics might immediately balk at the mention of a ‘relation’ being present within the fundamental structure of any monistic model. In fact, the very mention of ‘structure’ may raise their hackles, given that the notions of ‘relation’ and ‘structure’ would traditionally imply a complex entity, mode, or substance, rather than a monistic one. But there are subtleties that we can leverage to allow relational structure to exist within a monistic model, given some further explication of the foundational nature of existence proposed by such a model. If we are proposing fundamental aspects or qualities that exist necessarily at the foundational level of the given monistic substrate, each with equal existential priority, we can accept the relational structure they form as equally foundational. This type of monism is known as priority monism, as opposed to existence monism. For this model to work, the fundamental monistic substrate or substance (if there is even the need at all for such an ontological base) must possess these foundational qualities as necessary, equal in priority, and mutually dependent upon one another. Else, we would, indeed, have a complex structure with further independencies that would remain inexplicable within any truly monistic model.
Modal Monism:
The Synthesis of Modal Realism and Neutral Monism
One such model of priority monism is modal monism. As the synthesis of modal realism and neutral monism, the metaphysical model of modal monism argues that Possibility simpliciter is the neutral ground of existence, and all beings are singular grounding possibilities of existence, each of them defined by their utterly unique haecceities.
If all beings are singular possibilities of existence, then their physically actualized phenomenal expressions are qualitatively homogenous with our internally realized conscious impressions of them in virtue of their foundational unities of possibility.
The physically actualized phenomenal expressions of beings in the world and our realized conscious impressions of them are necessarily coherent, intelligible, and unified in virtue of their respective singular grounding possibilities of haecceity drawing them forth into actuality and the reality we experience.
As such, modal monism would solve the combination problem of consciousness through validating the necessary unity of singular possibilities grounding all phenomenal expression and conscious impression of beings in the world. Moreover, modal monism would offer sound metaphysical grounding for the new Science of Consciousness we so fervently seek.
We shall explore the details of modal monism in further posts.
