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Overview

Professor Philip Goff

Professor / Director of UG & PG Student Experience


Affiliations
Affiliation
Professor / Director of UG & PG Student Experience in the Department of Philosophy

Biography

Email: philip.a.goff@durham.ac.uk

Office hours:

Wednesday: 11-12. 

Thursday: 9:15-10:15, 11:15-12:15, 14:00-15:00

About me

My main research project is trying to work out how consciousness fits into our overall theory of reality. I argue that the traditional approaches of physicalism (consciousness can be explained in terms of physical processes in the brain) and dualism (consciousness is separate from the body and brain) face insuperable difficulties. On the basis of this I defend a form of panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. It sounds a bit crazy, but I try to show that it avoids the difficulties faced by its rivals.

In my recent book Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023) I explore whether panpsychism can offer a kind of middle way between traditional belief in God and secular atheism.

I have also have a more general book on panpsychism aimed at a general audience – Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (Rider in UK, Pantheon in US, 2019) – and a book on panpsychism aimed at an audence of academic philosophhers –  Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (Oxford University Press, 2017). Finally, I have co-edited a collection of essays by scientists (including Carlo Rovelli, Sean Carroll, Lee Smolin, Annaka Harris, Christof Koch, and Anil Seth), philosophers, and spiritual thinkers responding to my work: Is Consciousness Everywhere? Essays on Panpsychism.

NB I DON'T REGULARLY UPDATE THIS PAGE. PLEASE GO TO MY WEBSITE....where you can access more of my publications, articles for a general audience, and videos of interviews and conversations with scientists and philosophers: www.philipgoffphilosophy.com

Whatever Google says, I'm not 60!

Publications

Authored book

Book review

Chapter in book

Journal Article

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

Supervision students