Velmans’s Reflexive Monism

Psychologist Max Velmans describes Reflexive Monism as “a dual-aspect theory” (in the tradition of Spinoza), which argues that the one basic stuff of which the universe is composed has the potential to manifest both in physical forms and as conscious experience. According to the theory, in the universe's “evolution from some primal undifferentiated state,” it differentiates into “distinguishable physical entities, at least some of which have the potential for conscious experience, such as human beings” (Velmans, 2008).

Core Model and Reflexivity

Velmans's “Monism” is straightforward: “the view that the universe, at the deepest level of analysis, is one thing, or composed of one fundamental kind of stuff.” His “Reflexive” is more complex: “Each human participates in a process whereby the universe differentiates into parts and becomes conscious in manifold ways of itself, making the entire process reflexive.”

Velmans focuses on “the ontological status and seeming ‘out-thereness’ of the phenomenal world and to how the ‘phenomenal world’ relates to the ‘physical world’, the ‘world itself’, and processing in the brain.” He seeks both to bridge the materialist-dualist gap and to differentiate Reflexive Monism from “both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought.” Within Reflexive Monism, he says, “the brain is simply what the human mind looks like when it is viewed from an external (third-person) perspective, and neither the observations of external observers nor those of subjects have a privileged status” (Velmans, 2008).

Phenomenology and Externalism

Central to Velmans's argument is that in terms of their phenomenology, “experiences of the external world are none other than the physical world-as-experienced, thereby placing aspects of human consciousness in the external phenomenal world, rather than exclusively within the head or brain” (Velmans, 2023). His reflexive model also makes the strong claim—the radical claim—that, “Insofar as experiences are anywhere, they are roughly where they seem to be.”

For example, “A pain in the foot is in the experienced foot, and this perceived print on this visible page really is out here on this visible page. Nor is a pain in the foot accompanied by some other, additional experience of pain in the brain, or is this perceived print accompanied by some additional experience of print in the brain. In terms of phenomenology, this perceived print, and my experience of this print are one and the same.” Technically, he says, this is a form of phenomenological externalism (Velmans, 2008).

To understand how experienced objects and events might really be (roughly) where they are experienced to be, Velmans looks closely at “the way that phenomenal space relates to ‘real’ space. No one doubts that physical bodies can have real extension and location in space.” But we “find it hard to accept that experiences can have a real, as opposed to a ‘seeming’ location and extension.” We do not doubt, he says, that a physical foot has a real location and extension in space, but a pain in the foot can't really be in the foot, as we are “committed to the view that it is either nowhere or in the brain.” Although this common understanding that “location in phenomenal space is not location in real space,” according to Reflexive Monism, “this ignores the fact that, in everyday life, we take the phenomenal world to be the physical world. It also ignores the pivotal role of phenomenal space in forming our very understanding of space, and with it, our understanding of location and extension in measured or ‘real’ space” (Velmans, 2008).

Velmans says that Reflexive Monism provides a different perspective on the hard problem of consciousness by viewing physical and experiential aspects of mind as arising from a common “psychophysical ground.” Thus, he argues, of the competing views of consciousness on offer, Reflexive Monism, being a non-reductionist dual-aspect theory, “most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense” (Velmans, 2008).