Université de Liège Département de philosophie

Centre de recherches phénoménologiques

Early British Metaphysics of Mind

Conference. University of Liège, 18-19 June 2026

Organized as part of the Creph ARC research project: MIND - The British Sources of Philosophy of Mind 1888-1949

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This conference explores central metaphysical debates about the nature of mind that emerged in British philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century, focusing on figures situated at the intersection of early analytic philosophy and scientific psychology. While early analytic philosophy is often portrayed as primarily concerned with logic and epistemology, many of its leading figures were deeply engaged with substantive metaphysical questions about consciousness, mental causation, emergence, and the mind–body relation. The aim of the conference is to recover and reassess this neglected tradition, and to evaluate its relevance for contemporary philosophy of mind.

A central theme is the variety of positions developed in response to the problem of how mental phenomena relate to the physical world. Several contributions examine early analytic accounts of mind–body parallelism, emergence, and antireductionism, highlighting both their internal diversity and their philosophical sophistication. These views are compared with contemporary positions in metaphysics of mind, especially with respect to mental causation and downward causation. By situating early British debates alongside current discussions, the conference seeks to show that many issues regarded as distinctively contemporary—such as the robustness of non-reductive physicalism or the metaphysical commitments of emergentism—were already articulated in rich and nuanced forms in the early analytic period.

Another important focus of the conference is the openness of early analytic philosophers to phenomena that now sit at the margins of mainstream philosophy of mind. Figures such as C. D. Broad took parapsychological phenomena, including telepathy, seriously as potential data for metaphysical theorizing about consciousness. Rather than treating these interests as historical curiosities, the conference investigates their philosophical motivations and implications. In particular, it explores the idea that certain metaphysical commitments—especially versions of physicalism that regard qualia as objective features of the world—may have unexpected consequences for the possibility of intersubjective access to conscious experience.

Overall, the conference aims to challenge simplified narratives about early analytic metaphysics and to bring into view a tradition of metaphysical reflection on the mind that is both historically significant and philosophically fertile. By combining careful historical scholarship with systematic engagement, Early British Metaphysics of Mind seeks to foster dialogue between historians of philosophy and contemporary philosophers of mind, and to demonstrate the continuing relevance of early British analytic thought for current debates.

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  http://www.pheno.ulg.ac.be/go?u=91

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