Tye’s Irreducible Consciousness*

Recently, philosopher Michael Tye has come to support a nuanced version of panpsychism. Switching sides, as it were, he comes to his view, he says, because he now holds that there are no borderline cases of phenomenal consciousness itself: it’s an on/off matter. As a result (in part), he says, “I don’t see any plausible (non-arbitrary) reductive physical candidates for consciousness, so understood. So, while I did elaborate a contingent version of reductive physicalism earlier, I no longer see the need to do so.” Rather, he asserts boldly, “The best explanation for the absence of borderline cases with respect to phenomenal consciousness is that phenomenal consciousness is irreducible” (Tye, 2024, 2025).

From Reductive Physicalism to Irreducibility

In Tye’s current view, at the most fundamental level, there is what Tye labels ‘consciousness*,’ which others would call ‘protoconsciousness.’ This is irreducible, he stresses. What happens as systems become more complex, he explains, is that “consciousness* gets transferred from the fundamental entities to complex combinations of them that meet certain further conditions, specifically combinations that play the right functional role and that represent various properties and property complexes. 

Those combinations are conscious, in the full-blooded sense. It is really consciousness* that is on/off, since experiences can have borderline cases with what they represent (e.g., am I now experiencing pure red or is there a hint of orange in it?)” (Tye, 2024, 2025).

Compatibility and Conversion

The version of panpsychism that Tye elaborates “explains differences in the phenomenal character of experiences via differences in what the experiences represent.” This aspect of his current view, he says, is compatible with representationalist claims he has made in the past with respect to phenomenal consciousness. In a way, he reflects, “what I have now is my original PANIC ^PANIC theory with the addition of consciousness*.” Tye argues that his resultant theory “provides a straightforward and satisfying solution to the [panpsychism’s] problem of combination” (Tye, 2024, 2025).

Tye reflects humorously on his ‘conversion’ to panpsychism, a worldview transformation that must have surprised, perhaps shocked colleagues. “So how, on Earth, did I become a panpsychist? Well, you may perhaps have heard the comment made by John Perry, the Stanford philosopher, that if you study consciousness long enough you either become a panpsychist or you go into administration! I haven’t gone into administration; so, I’ve become a panpsychist. I have to say that this conversion bothered me for quite a while but then I stopped worrying and came to love the view” (Tye, 2024).