What do you think?
Rate this book
Unsnarling the World-knot: Consciousness, Freedom & the Mind-body Problem
The mind-body problem, which Schopenhauer called the "world-knot," has been a central problem for philosophy since the time of Descartes. Among realists—those who accept the reality of the physical world—the two dominant approaches have been dualism and materialism, but there is a growing consensus that, if we are ever to understand how mind and body are related, a radically new approach is required.
David Ray Griffin develops a third form of realism, one that resolves the basic problem (common to dualism and materialism) of the continued acceptance of the Cartesian view of matter. In dialogue with various philosophers, including Dennett, Kim, McGinn, Nagel, Seager, Searle, and Strawson, Griffin shows that materialist physicalism is even more problematic than dualism. He proposes instead a pan-experientialist physicalism grounded in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Answering those who have rejected "pan-psychism" as obviously absurd, Griffin argues compellingly that pan-experientialism, by taking experience and spontaneity as fully natural, can finally provide a naturalistic account of the emergence of consciousness—an account that also does justice to the freedom that we all presuppose in practice.
David Ray Griffin develops a third form of realism, one that resolves the basic problem (common to dualism and materialism) of the continued acceptance of the Cartesian view of matter. In dialogue with various philosophers, including Dennett, Kim, McGinn, Nagel, Seager, Searle, and Strawson, Griffin shows that materialist physicalism is even more problematic than dualism. He proposes instead a pan-experientialist physicalism grounded in the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Answering those who have rejected "pan-psychism" as obviously absurd, Griffin argues compellingly that pan-experientialism, by taking experience and spontaneity as fully natural, can finally provide a naturalistic account of the emergence of consciousness—an account that also does justice to the freedom that we all presuppose in practice.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
282 pages, Paperback
First published February 10, 1998
3 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
David Ray Griffin
76 books86 followersDr. Griffin, a retired emeritus professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology at the Claremont School of Theology, has published over 30 books and 150 articles. His 9/11 books have been endorsed by Robert Baer, William Christison, William Sloane Coffin Jr., Richard Falke, Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts and Howard Zinn.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 6, 2023
I have to finish crafting a review of a book that purports to refute materialism (the author has made quite a few errors in his presentation, not the least of which is misrepresenting the positions of targets of his attacks and trying to pass off the misrepresentations as fact. I’ve had to jump off to read Pinker’s tome How the Mind Workto confirm my assessment of that misrepresentation, and I took another side trip to this one to try to see what someone else has to say about the mind-body problem.
If I believed in a soul, this would crush it. I thought of “Dawkins’ Law of the Conservation of Difficulty”, which “ states that obscurantism in an academic subject expands to fill the vacuum of its intrinsic simplicity. Physics is a genuinely difficult and profound subject, so physicists need to – and do – work hard to make their language as simple as possible (‘but no simpler,’ rightly insisted Einstein). Other academics – some would point the finger at continental schools of literary criticism and social science – suffer from what Peter Medawar (I think) called Physics Envy. They want to be thought profound, but their subject is actually rather easy and shallow, so they have to language it up to redress the balance.”
Okay, the problem isn’t simple, but oh, my, philosophers love to language up their arguments. I don’t recommend engaging the author in a coffee shop debate without the help of Will Hunting. I also thought of Paul Dirac: “In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.” Substitute philosophy for poetry and Bob’s your uncle.
This won’t help many understand or unsnarl the world-knot. Dr. Griffin did no favors to the reader. His answer to the problem is something he calls panexperialentialism and the tortuous path he took to getting to it rumbles over philosophers who dream up unanswerable questions and then what they think are answers to them. He also apparently believed in paranormal nonsense (and 9/11 conspiracies, but that wasn’t part of this.)
You can read the book online for free here
I stopped highlighting and making notes when I realized that his arguments were no help, but here are some:
P241/2 Kim has been led to a dead end because, correctly seeing that a nonreductive materialism is impossible, he believes that there are only three other options, all of which are extremely problematic: reductive materialism, which reduces the psychological to the physical (as conventionally understood); eliminative materialism, which, realizing that reduction is impossible, excludes the psychological from its ontology; and ontological dualism, which rejects physicalism altogether. I have proposed a fourth option: a nonreductive, panexperientialist physicalism.
P9 This confusion is so serious because Problem 1 is based on a metaphysical assumption that is pure supposition, and one that, on reflection, is revealed to be dubious. After all, an amoeba, like a neuron, is a single-celled organism, and an amoeba shows signs of spontaneity suggestive of some slight degree of experience. If amoebas might have experience, why might not neurons in the brain have experience as well?
P12 The way these two types of thinkers [dualists and materialists] weigh data and arguments may at least be significantly influenced by their respective wishes and fears. In this way, the wish (or the fear) may be the parent of the paradigm.
P12 "The deepest motivation of materialism," Searle suggests, "is simply a terror of consciousness" with its "essentially terrifying feature of subjectivity," which most materialists think to be "inconsistent with their conception of what the world must be like"
{project, much? There is nothing terrifying about consciousness. This alone slides him into the fringe category.}
P15 Philosophers as well as scientists have failed to distinguish between the kind of common sense that science can sensibly reject and the kind that it cannot.
P23 When some principles are stated, they are usually scattered throughout the writing, making criticism difficult. Mutual criticism is especially important because even when principles are explicitly formulated, they are often formulated ambiguously.
P26 Some conscious states may be partly caused by previous conscious states (as prima facie seems to be the case in memory); some conscious states may be partially caused by influences that have not been transmitted through the brain (as seems to be the case in moral, logical, and religious experience, not to mention clairvoyance and telepathy);…
{um… best not to mention quackery at all}
P28 1. We should accept only a realistic theory about the "physical world."
a . This substantive principle rules out all idealisms that deny full-fledged actuality to the "physical world," making its reality dependent on its being perceived or conceived by mind.
P30 4. Our theory should be naturalistic .
a . This substantive regulative principle, which has recently been insisted on strongly by McGinn, entails not only the rejection of any explicit supernaturalism, according to which the natural causal nexus is said to be interrupted; it also entails the rejection of any doctrine that even implies the need for supernatural intervention.
{however, he goes off the edge with…}
d . Naturalism also does not necessarily rule out seemingly "paranormal" types of causal influence, such as extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. That would be the case if paranormal events were understood to be "miracles" involving interruptions of fundamental causal principles, but they need not be (and by parapsychologists usually are not) so understood.
P42 1. In mathematical and logical experience, the mind seems to be in touch with entities that are not only nonphysical but even nonactual, which the brain's sensory organs are not suited to perceive. Of course, under the pressure of a materialistic worldview—for example, McGinn says that to affirm a causal relation between abstract entities and human minds would be to affirm a nonnatural, even "funny," kind of causation
P43/44 6. There is considerable evidence, some of it of quite high quality and some of it vouchsafed by people of otherwise undoubted intelligence and honesty, for telepathy and clairvoyance. Current writers about the mind-body relation typically reject the possibility of extrasensory perception in this sense. But their rejections are usually a priori; few of them show signs of serious grappling with the evidence. Some philosophers and scientists who have seriously studied the evidence, such as [long list] became convinced (some of them, such as Freud, much against their wills) that these experiences sometimes really do involve nonsensory perception.
P45 I have, probably to the annoyance of some readers, listed several kinds of data that are especially difficult for a materialistic view of the mind to accommodate. I have done this deliberately, because most recent discussions, among both scientists and philosophers, have weighted the evidence one-sidedly in favor of evidence meant to be embarrassing to views that distinguish mind from brain, especially those that attribute some autonomous powers to the mind. […] In the current discussion, the tendency has been to stress the evidence that supports a materialistic view and then to look only at that part of the contrary evidence, such as consciousness itself, that is too obvious to everyone to be completely ignored. My discussion has sought to redress the imbalance.
It is very difficult, of course, for philosophers and scientists who have been socialized into one worldview to take seriously data that are, from that perspective, not respectable.[…] In any case, we need a theory that takes account of all the relevant facts—those that have been regarded as supportive of materialism, those that have been regarded as supportive of dualism, and those that may count against both materialism and dualism.
P54 In short, the datum of freedom, like the data of the unity of experience
and the unity of our bodily behavior, favors dualism over materialism—or at least would if the problems of discontinuity and dualistic interaction could be ignored.
{oh, those little things? Pshaw! We obviously aren’t meant to understand them. (Yes, sarcasm)}
P59 6. A related problem for materialists, given the virtual necessity of their restricting perception to that which occurs through the physical sensory organs, is the impressive evidence for extrasensory perception, in the sense of telepathy and clairvoyance.
{impressive? Unreal, this guy.}
If I believed in a soul, this would crush it. I thought of “Dawkins’ Law of the Conservation of Difficulty”, which “ states that obscurantism in an academic subject expands to fill the vacuum of its intrinsic simplicity. Physics is a genuinely difficult and profound subject, so physicists need to – and do – work hard to make their language as simple as possible (‘but no simpler,’ rightly insisted Einstein). Other academics – some would point the finger at continental schools of literary criticism and social science – suffer from what Peter Medawar (I think) called Physics Envy. They want to be thought profound, but their subject is actually rather easy and shallow, so they have to language it up to redress the balance.”
Okay, the problem isn’t simple, but oh, my, philosophers love to language up their arguments. I don’t recommend engaging the author in a coffee shop debate without the help of Will Hunting. I also thought of Paul Dirac: “In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.” Substitute philosophy for poetry and Bob’s your uncle.
This won’t help many understand or unsnarl the world-knot. Dr. Griffin did no favors to the reader. His answer to the problem is something he calls panexperialentialism and the tortuous path he took to getting to it rumbles over philosophers who dream up unanswerable questions and then what they think are answers to them. He also apparently believed in paranormal nonsense (and 9/11 conspiracies, but that wasn’t part of this.)
You can read the book online for free here
I stopped highlighting and making notes when I realized that his arguments were no help, but here are some:
P241/2 Kim has been led to a dead end because, correctly seeing that a nonreductive materialism is impossible, he believes that there are only three other options, all of which are extremely problematic: reductive materialism, which reduces the psychological to the physical (as conventionally understood); eliminative materialism, which, realizing that reduction is impossible, excludes the psychological from its ontology; and ontological dualism, which rejects physicalism altogether. I have proposed a fourth option: a nonreductive, panexperientialist physicalism.
P9 This confusion is so serious because Problem 1 is based on a metaphysical assumption that is pure supposition, and one that, on reflection, is revealed to be dubious. After all, an amoeba, like a neuron, is a single-celled organism, and an amoeba shows signs of spontaneity suggestive of some slight degree of experience. If amoebas might have experience, why might not neurons in the brain have experience as well?
P12 The way these two types of thinkers [dualists and materialists] weigh data and arguments may at least be significantly influenced by their respective wishes and fears. In this way, the wish (or the fear) may be the parent of the paradigm.
P12 "The deepest motivation of materialism," Searle suggests, "is simply a terror of consciousness" with its "essentially terrifying feature of subjectivity," which most materialists think to be "inconsistent with their conception of what the world must be like"
{project, much? There is nothing terrifying about consciousness. This alone slides him into the fringe category.}
P15 Philosophers as well as scientists have failed to distinguish between the kind of common sense that science can sensibly reject and the kind that it cannot.
P23 When some principles are stated, they are usually scattered throughout the writing, making criticism difficult. Mutual criticism is especially important because even when principles are explicitly formulated, they are often formulated ambiguously.
P26 Some conscious states may be partly caused by previous conscious states (as prima facie seems to be the case in memory); some conscious states may be partially caused by influences that have not been transmitted through the brain (as seems to be the case in moral, logical, and religious experience, not to mention clairvoyance and telepathy);…
{um… best not to mention quackery at all}
P28 1. We should accept only a realistic theory about the "physical world."
a . This substantive principle rules out all idealisms that deny full-fledged actuality to the "physical world," making its reality dependent on its being perceived or conceived by mind.
P30 4. Our theory should be naturalistic .
a . This substantive regulative principle, which has recently been insisted on strongly by McGinn, entails not only the rejection of any explicit supernaturalism, according to which the natural causal nexus is said to be interrupted; it also entails the rejection of any doctrine that even implies the need for supernatural intervention.
{however, he goes off the edge with…}
d . Naturalism also does not necessarily rule out seemingly "paranormal" types of causal influence, such as extrasensory perception and psychokinesis. That would be the case if paranormal events were understood to be "miracles" involving interruptions of fundamental causal principles, but they need not be (and by parapsychologists usually are not) so understood.
P42 1. In mathematical and logical experience, the mind seems to be in touch with entities that are not only nonphysical but even nonactual, which the brain's sensory organs are not suited to perceive. Of course, under the pressure of a materialistic worldview—for example, McGinn says that to affirm a causal relation between abstract entities and human minds would be to affirm a nonnatural, even "funny," kind of causation
P43/44 6. There is considerable evidence, some of it of quite high quality and some of it vouchsafed by people of otherwise undoubted intelligence and honesty, for telepathy and clairvoyance. Current writers about the mind-body relation typically reject the possibility of extrasensory perception in this sense. But their rejections are usually a priori; few of them show signs of serious grappling with the evidence. Some philosophers and scientists who have seriously studied the evidence, such as [long list] became convinced (some of them, such as Freud, much against their wills) that these experiences sometimes really do involve nonsensory perception.
P45 I have, probably to the annoyance of some readers, listed several kinds of data that are especially difficult for a materialistic view of the mind to accommodate. I have done this deliberately, because most recent discussions, among both scientists and philosophers, have weighted the evidence one-sidedly in favor of evidence meant to be embarrassing to views that distinguish mind from brain, especially those that attribute some autonomous powers to the mind. […] In the current discussion, the tendency has been to stress the evidence that supports a materialistic view and then to look only at that part of the contrary evidence, such as consciousness itself, that is too obvious to everyone to be completely ignored. My discussion has sought to redress the imbalance.
It is very difficult, of course, for philosophers and scientists who have been socialized into one worldview to take seriously data that are, from that perspective, not respectable.[…] In any case, we need a theory that takes account of all the relevant facts—those that have been regarded as supportive of materialism, those that have been regarded as supportive of dualism, and those that may count against both materialism and dualism.
P54 In short, the datum of freedom, like the data of the unity of experience
and the unity of our bodily behavior, favors dualism over materialism—or at least would if the problems of discontinuity and dualistic interaction could be ignored.
{oh, those little things? Pshaw! We obviously aren’t meant to understand them. (Yes, sarcasm)}
P59 6. A related problem for materialists, given the virtual necessity of their restricting perception to that which occurs through the physical sensory organs, is the impressive evidence for extrasensory perception, in the sense of telepathy and clairvoyance.
{impressive? Unreal, this guy.}
October 24, 2018
I have read David Ray Griffin’s book, “Unsnarling the World-Knot”, with intense interest. I regard this as the best book I have read in recent years. Griffin goes into great detail in discussing any number of contemporary philosophies of consciousness, free will (or the lack of it), etc.
The book presupposes the validity (at least, principally) of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. There are numerous quotes from Whitehead’s books, specifically, “Process and Reality”, “Adventures of Ideas”, and “Science and the Modern World”. Whitehead declared that every aspect of reality (every particle or entity) within space-time has a “mental pole” and a “physical” pole. This does not mean, as Griffin explains, that every elementary entity (or aggregate of entities) is conscious. Yet, an element of “feeling”, a capacity for prehension, is contained within each actual entity.
Rather than to get into the technical aspects of Whiteheadian process philosophy (which Griffin takes pains to clarify), let me point out in this review that Griffin declares that consciousness is a genuine reality, that it has objective existence, that it has powers to act on other aspects of reality (including matter – especially within the human brain), that materialist physicalism is dead wrong, and that we must reckon with reality as possessing both properties of mind (temporality and feeling) as well as spatially located material elements. Thus, Griffin affirms the efficacy of consciousness (mind), and he affirms the powers of conscious entities to self-modify their operations. That is, such actual entities (compound individuals) can function with at least an element of FREE WILL (libertarian freedom).
Griffin’s philosophical outlook rejects neither the existence of God (some sort of God – maybe not fully in line with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of God), and he allows for a human “soul” that is so advanced as to possess powers to survive the death of the body – meaning that some sort of genuine, conscious immortality is possible. Griffin argues that the ultimate nature of the “stuff” of reality can be described as “panexperientialism”. This is essentially the same thing as panpsychism, but has some differing connotations.
Suffice it to say that my thinking about the nature of ultimate reality has been sharpened and somewhat modified by reading Griffin’s book. I am a devout theist, and I do have reservations about Griffin’s view that the nature of the Divine Reality can be properly describable as “panentheism”. Nevertheless, I do plan to read another book of Griffin’s, this one titled “Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism”.
I regard David Ray Griffin as one of the most prolific and knowledgeable advocates of Whitehead’s philosophy and of a viable philosophy of consciousness and free will of anyone concerning whom I have knowledge. I highly recommend “Unsnarling the World-Knot” to anyone interested in the wondrous and mysterious nature of consciousness, free will, and the mind-body problem. In that sphere, this book serves as a masterpiece.
The book presupposes the validity (at least, principally) of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. There are numerous quotes from Whitehead’s books, specifically, “Process and Reality”, “Adventures of Ideas”, and “Science and the Modern World”. Whitehead declared that every aspect of reality (every particle or entity) within space-time has a “mental pole” and a “physical” pole. This does not mean, as Griffin explains, that every elementary entity (or aggregate of entities) is conscious. Yet, an element of “feeling”, a capacity for prehension, is contained within each actual entity.
Rather than to get into the technical aspects of Whiteheadian process philosophy (which Griffin takes pains to clarify), let me point out in this review that Griffin declares that consciousness is a genuine reality, that it has objective existence, that it has powers to act on other aspects of reality (including matter – especially within the human brain), that materialist physicalism is dead wrong, and that we must reckon with reality as possessing both properties of mind (temporality and feeling) as well as spatially located material elements. Thus, Griffin affirms the efficacy of consciousness (mind), and he affirms the powers of conscious entities to self-modify their operations. That is, such actual entities (compound individuals) can function with at least an element of FREE WILL (libertarian freedom).
Griffin’s philosophical outlook rejects neither the existence of God (some sort of God – maybe not fully in line with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of God), and he allows for a human “soul” that is so advanced as to possess powers to survive the death of the body – meaning that some sort of genuine, conscious immortality is possible. Griffin argues that the ultimate nature of the “stuff” of reality can be described as “panexperientialism”. This is essentially the same thing as panpsychism, but has some differing connotations.
Suffice it to say that my thinking about the nature of ultimate reality has been sharpened and somewhat modified by reading Griffin’s book. I am a devout theist, and I do have reservations about Griffin’s view that the nature of the Divine Reality can be properly describable as “panentheism”. Nevertheless, I do plan to read another book of Griffin’s, this one titled “Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism”.
I regard David Ray Griffin as one of the most prolific and knowledgeable advocates of Whitehead’s philosophy and of a viable philosophy of consciousness and free will of anyone concerning whom I have knowledge. I highly recommend “Unsnarling the World-Knot” to anyone interested in the wondrous and mysterious nature of consciousness, free will, and the mind-body problem. In that sphere, this book serves as a masterpiece.
August 14, 2021
Reading this book emphasized why I am not a philosopher.
Read
August 5, 2022Explaining Whitehead on consciousness very well and comprehensively.
A tough read.
A tough read.
January 24, 2024
This is a very good book. It's very hard to wrap my mind around the concepts, as I too have been steeped in the materialist tradition of the last few centuries. But it's worth the effort to know what the essence of my humanity consists of. Griffin was a careful thinker who tried hard to understand his fellow philosophers. Obviously he has a point of view, but he addresses the arguments of some of the most prominent philosophers who considered consciousness and the mind-body problem up to the time he wrote the book.
February 26, 2017
If you are looking for a process philosophy approach to theory of mind and consciousness, the is THE book to read. Griffin's book has a clear, lucid writing style which is something of a rarity among process philosophy literature in general.
July 16, 2013
This is a flawed, yet extremely interesting diagnosis of why the philosophy of mind has hit a dead end, and how to back out and try a new approach. The first few chapters diagnosing the problem are penetrating and spot-on. The ideas on how to proceed (based mainly on panpsychism and the Process Philosophy of Whitehead) fall flat in many places, but are still extremely stimulating.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews