Neutral Monism
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Neutral monism, realism, Russell, A.J. Ayer, Qualia
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Russell introduced in The Problems of Philosophy a new form of realism. This realism dispenses with the traditional realist belief in a transcendental world, to which we have no direct access through consciousness. His realism concerns the status of sense-data. 1. The constituents of reality are sense-data. 2. Sense-data are physical objects. 3. Sense-data are publicly observable. 4. Sense-data are directly present to each observer. Each observer has direct acquaintance with sense-data. 5. Sense-data exist independently of the mind. It can, of course, be argued that this is not a consistent set of beliefs. Additionally, many philosophers who are sympathetic to realism have found the claim that sense-data are physical objects questionable. This queasiness over the status of sense-data has led them to adopt a modified view of this form or realism, called neutral monism. A.J. Ayer adopts neutral monism in Language, Truth and Logic. It was first advanced by William James. Neural monism asserts that the ultimate constituents of reality, which are sense-data, are neither mental nor physical entities, but neutral between them. When sense-data are used in this sense – that is as neutral objects that are neither mental nor physical but are before the mind the are also called qualia. So minds and physical objects alike are composed of sense-data, which form the primitive stuff of the universe. In this way, the dualism of mind and matter is supposed to be exposed to be apparent, since both mental and physical events are composites of the same stuff. There are some indications that Russell is in a state of confusion in The Problems of Philosophy regarding the status of sense-data, and it is possible to argue that his treatment of physical objects in that book is ambiguous and unsatisfactory. In 1921 he adopted the neutral monist position in his book, The Analysis of Mind. Neutral monism is an attempt to reconcile the epistemological priority of sense-data with the metaphysical belief in a physical reality. In practice, and as A.J. Ayer illustrates, the neutral monists have a very physicalist conception of what sense-data are. In practice they interpret them as some form of brain state, and thus recoil from the strictly neutral monist position to the view that sense-data are physical objects. Historically, the arguments of Russell and his American acolytes succeeded in routing the idealists. Whether their arguments were good enough to deserve this is a matter of debate. The spirit of the age turned against idealism, and the arguments of Berkely, Hume and Kant that gave it its impetus. Russell's claim that the world is made of sense-data and that sense-data were before the mind were sufficient to convince the bulk of philosophers to reject idealism.
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Contents of
Neutral Monism
1 Sense data, atoms of perception
2 Hume, sense-data, sense impressions and atoms of experience
3 Entrapment within subjectivity, ideas
4 Neutral monism, realism, Russell, A.J. Ayer, Qualia
5 Is the whole a composite of its parts?
6 Space, time, continuity and atomism
7 Phenomenalism
8 The philosophy of logical atomism
9 Logical atomism, complex sentences and intensional contexts
10 Human identity in the context of naive realism
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