نقد دوگانه‌انگاری ویژگی دیوید چالمرز از رهگذر یگانه‌انگاری انتولوژیک

Abstract
This article develops a critique of David Chalmers’s property dualism from the standpoint of ontological monism. Chalmers, by proposing panprotopsychism, attempts to preserve the principle of the causal closure of physics while treating consciousness as a fundamental property that exists at the level of microparticles in the form of protophenomenal properties. According to this view, once these properties are arranged within an appropriate compositional structure at the macro level, they give rise to first person consciousness. In this account, the relation between macro level consciousness and micro states is explained through the grounding relation, without reducing consciousness to the physical body. However, this approach appears inadequate in resolving the relation between consciousness and the body. The critique developed here is grounded in a renewed understanding of the body. Ontological monism, centered on the notion of the pre noetic body, argues that consciousness is not the outcome of the composition of fundamental particles but rather a mode of the body’s being-in-the-world. The pre noetic body, in an ontological relation of availableness with the biological body and its environment, constitutes the first person structure of consciousness through proprioception, kinesthetic perception, and ecological experience. From this perspective, Chalmers’s explanation faces three major difficulties: an abstract and reductionist approach to the body, ambiguity in explaining the relation of grounding, and an inability to account for the first person phenomenal perspective.

Keywords: The ontological monism, the pre-noetic body, the biological body, Panprotopsychism, David Chalmers, the relation of grounding..
 

Introduction
This article aims to critically examine David Chalmers’ account of the mind-body problem, with particular emphasis on his theories of panprotopsychism and property dualism, and to develop a novel account of the relationship between consciousness and the body within a critical framework termed Ontological Monism. The study seeks to re-establish the foundational significance of the body, a dimension that has been largely overlooked in dominant theories within the philosophy of mind and in reductionist approaches to cognitive science. It argues that perception and consciousness are inseparable from the embodied structure of human existence and cannot be adequately understood independently of lived bodily experience.

Research Question
The central research question of this study is whether, in the analysis of human perceptual states, the primary point of reference should be the mind or the body. More specifically, the study asks whether Chalmers’ theory of panprotopsychism, which attempts to explain consciousness at the level of fundamental entities and to resolve the combination problem while preserving a broadly physicalist framework, can provide a coherent and genuinely non-reductionist account of first-person phenomenal consciousness. Alternatively, does this theory, despite its innovative aspects, ultimately remain committed to a reductionist explanatory model that fails to recognize the constitutive role of the body in the emergence of consciousness?

Methodology
This study adopts a descriptive-analytical and critical approach grounded in the phenomenological tradition and informed by the achievements of the embodied cognition movement, drawing on the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Gallagher. To this end, the article first reconstructs Chalmers’ account of the relationship between consciousness and fundamental physical entities. It then evaluates this account through a distinct critical framework developed in the present study, namely Ontological Monism. This framework is based on the notion of the pre-noetic body as the arche or foundational ground of consciousness, together with the ontological concept of availableness (adapted from Heidegger’s analysis of being-in-the-world).

Key Findings
The analysis indicates that Chalmers’ theory faces three major challenges.

1. The Abstract Conception of the Body
Chalmers’ account does not adequately address the constitutive role of the biological body, including bodily posture, skeletal organization, anatomical structure, and sensory orientation, in the formation of consciousness. The body is treated primarily as a vehicle for neural processes, while explanatory priority is assigned to brain activity and fundamental particles. Against this view, the present study argues that the brain is not the exclusive locus of consciousness; rather, conscious experience is shaped by the active and situated presence of the living body in the world.

2. The Explanatory Gap in the Grounding Relation
Chalmers’ appeal to a non-causal grounding relation between micro-phenomenal entities and macro-level consciousness lacks sufficient explanatory power to account for the developmental emergence and unity of conscious experience. As a result, the theory risks collapsing into a functional or reductive mode of explanation, despite its explicit attempt to avoid reductionism.
3. The Failure to Account for First-Person Phenomenal Consciousness
The mere aggregation or combination of fundamental entities that do not themselves possess first-person or phenomenal characteristics cannot, on logical and ontological grounds, adequately account for the subjective character of human consciousness. In contrast, the pre-noetic body, understood as a lived bodily structure endowed with proprioceptive, motor, and ecological capacities, and characterized by the experiential dimensions of the sense of ownership and the sense of agency, provides a more plausible ontological basis for first-person phenomenal consciousness.

Conclusion
Compared with panprotopsychism, Ontological Monism offers a more comprehensive account of the relationship between consciousness and the body. Consciousness is neither the mechanical outcome of combining fundamental particles nor a secondary appendage of neural processes. Rather, it is the mode of being and intentional orientation of the pre-noetic body in the world. From this perspective, the mind-body problem must be reformulated. Instead of asking how consciousness emerges from physical matter, we should ask how the living body discloses the world and brings it into meaningful presence. Consciousness and cognition become intelligible only when the foundational role of the body in lived experience and its active participation in the world are taken seriously. Without the body, the world would appear merely as a third-person description devoid of phenomenal presence and subjective awareness.

References
Campos, J. J., Bertenthal, B. I., & Kermoian, R. (1992). Early experience and emotional development: The emergence of wariness of heights. Psychological Science, 3(1), 61–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00259.x
Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press.
Chalmers, D. J. (2002). Philosophy of mind: Classical and contemporary readings. Oxford University Press.
Chalmers, D. J. (2015). Panpsychism and panprotopsychism. In T. Alter & Y. Nagasawa (Eds.), Consciousness in the physical world: Perspectives on Russellian monism (pp. 246–276). Oxford University Press.
Chiel, H. J., & Beer, R. D. (1997). The brain has a body: Adaptive behavior emerges from interactions of nervous system, body and environment. Trends in Neurosciences, 20(12), 553–557. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-2236(97)01149-1
Gallagher, S. (2006). How the body shapes the mind. Oxford University Press.
Gibson, J. J. (2015). The ecological approach to visual perception: Classic edition. Psychology Press.
Goff, P. (2017). Consciousness and fundamental reality. Oxford University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1996). Being and time (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). State University of New York Press.
Husserl, E. (1990). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy—Second book: Studies in the phenomenology of constitution (R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer, Trans.). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Paillard, J. (2000). The neurobiological roots of rational thinking. In H. Cruse, J. Dean, & H. Ritter (Eds.), Prerational intelligence: Adaptive behavior and intelligent systems without symbols and logic (Vol. 1, pp. 343–355). Kluwer Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0870-9_23
Plato. (1985). Phaedo. In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.), Plato: The collected dialogues. Princeton University Press.
Rizzolatti, G., Fadiga, L., & Fogassi, L. (1996). Action recognition in the premotor cortex. Brain, 119(2), 593–609. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/119.2.593
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1990). The roots of thinking. Temple University Press.
Sprigge, T. L. S. (1998). Panpsychism. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy: Genealogy to Iqbal. Routledge.
Straus, E. (1966). Phenomenological psychology. Basic Books.
Zahavi, D., & Gallagher, S. (2008). The phenomenological mind. Routledge.