The radical claim that consciousness is the fundamental stuff of reality

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Most people assume consciousness is a byproduct of the brain, but philosopher Galen Strawson argues the opposite. He suggests that consciousness isn't just something we have; it is the fundamental 'stuff' of being. This perspective challenges our entire understanding of what it means to be physical.

Galen Strawson, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, defends a version of panpsychism that is fundamentally materialist. Unlike idealism, which suggests reality is mental, Strawson’s panpsychism argues that consciousness is and must be part of the fundamental nature of physical reality. He suggests that the essence of existence consists entirely of consciousness in its most robust version. This viewpoint differs from rejecting consciousness; instead, it claims that consciousness is completely physical.

Strawson's work explores the 'thin' notion of the subject, where a subject of experience cannot exist without an experience for it to be the subject of. He proposes a radical metaphysical identity: the content of an experience, the experience itself, and the subject of that experience are one and the same. This collapses the traditional object/property distinction, suggesting that reality is not divisible into substances and their attributes, but is instead a unified whole.

This perspective aligns with certain interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, whom Strawson suggests held views that reality is one and suffused with mentality. By moving away from 'radical emergence'—the idea that consciousness suddenly appears from non-conscious matter—Strawson seeks to address the 'hard problem' of how mental states arise. His work invites a shift in how we view the mind-body problem, suggesting that instead of searching for how matter produces mind, we should recognize mind as a fundamental constituent of the physical world.

Strawson also addresses the 'Basic Argument' regarding free will, which posits that you do what you do because of the way you are. He contends that ultimate moral accountability for one's deeds is never possible, a point he upholds irrespective of whether determinism exists or not. This underscores a philosophy where the self is not a persisting, unitary entity, but a process deeply embedded in the fundamental nature of reality.

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