In this book Fabian Klinge develops a novel approach for explaining phenomenal consciousness. He defends a version of panpsychism, that is the theory, that (some of) the fundamental physical entities exhibit consciousness. However, in contrast to standard conceptions of the view, the author does not take human consciousness to be grounded in but emergent from the consciousness of elementary particles. In this form, he argues, panpsychism can overcome the doctrine’s Achilles' heel, the combination problem, without running into similarly severe problems—thus rendering panpsychism a strong contender to its problem-ridden rivals physicalism and dualism. In addition, the author provides a thorough analysis of the poorly studied concept of metaphysical emergence. He argues that, by refining some of the major contributions in the literature, emergence can be made intelligible enough to serve as a basis for a credible solution proposal to the mind-body problem.

Panpsychism is the philosophical view that consciousness, mentality, or 'mindedness' in some form is fundamental in the universe. The idea has existed for centuries, but only recently has it had a serious resurgence. Galen Strawson has been on the front line of the battlefield on the topic of panpsychism since the 1990s. His paper on ‘realistic monism’, contained in this volume and originally published in 2006, is now considered something of a classic and a catalyst for panpsychism’s recent revival. This long overdue new edition of the book gives the original commentators, where they feel they have something more to add, an opportunity to update their thinking on the topic of panpsychism in general and Strawson’s realistic monism in particular. Seven new postscripts are included, which aim to enhance the original collection and push the discussion onwards. Eighteen years have passed since the first edition of this groundbreaking volume, and Strawson remains a distinctive and important voice in the field — the new edition is a must-read for all who are interested in consciousness studies.

Recent debates in philosophy of mind have resulted in an impasse, which lead to a renaissance of panpsychism as a viable alternative. Panpsychism is the thesis that mental being is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe. This book collects many of the most recent voices arguing for panpsychism as a genuine alternative in analytic philosophy of mind in the 21st century as well as some of the most prominent critics.

From a leading philosopher of the mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that offers a radically new picture of human consciousness--panpsychism, an exciting alternative that could pave the way forward.ward.

Panpsychism is the view that consciousness – the most puzzling and strangest phenomenon in the entire universe – is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the world, though in a form very remote from human consciousness. At a very basic level, the world is awake. Panpsychism seems implausible to most, and yet it has experienced a remarkable renaissance of interest over the last quarter century. The reason is the stubbornly intractable problem of consciousness. Despite immense progress in understanding the brain and its relation to states of consciousness, we still really have no idea how consciousness emerges from physical processes which are presumed to be entirely non-conscious. The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism provides a high-level comprehensive examination and assessment of the subject – its history and contemporary development. It offers 28 chapters, appearing in print here for the first time, from the world’s leading researchers on panpsychism. The chapters are divided into four sections that integrate panpsychism’s relevance with important issues in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and even ethics: Historical Reflections Forms of Panpsychism Comparative Alternatives How Does Panpsychism Work? The volume will be useful to students and scholars as both an introduction and as cutting-edge philosophical engagement with the subject. For anyone interested in a philosophical approach to panpsychism, the Handbook will supply fascinating and enlightening reading. The topics covered are highly diverse, representing a spectrum of views on the nature of mind and world from various standpoints which take panpsychism seriously.

A core philosophical project is the attempt to uncover the fundamental nature of reality, the limited set of facts upon which all other facts depend. Perhaps the most popular theory of fundamental reality in contemporary analytic philosophy is physicalism, the view that the world is fundamentally physical in nature. The first half of this book argues that physicalist views cannot account for the evident reality of conscious experience, and hence that physicalism cannot be true. Unusually for an opponent of physicalism, Goff argues that there are big problems with the most well-known arguments against physicalismChalmers' zombie conceivability argument and Jackson's knowledge argumentand proposes significant modifications. The second half of the book explores and defends a recently rediscovered theory of fundamental realityor perhaps rather a grouping of such theoriesknown as 'Russellian monism.' Russellian monists draw inspiration from a couple of theses defended by Bertrand Russell in The Analysis of Matter in 1927. Russell argued that physics, for all its virtues, gives us a radically incomplete picture of the world. It tells us only about the extrinsic, mathematical features of material entities, and leaves us in the dark about their intrinsic nature, about how they are in and of themselves. Following Russell, Russellian monists suppose that it is this 'hidden' intrinsic nature of matter that explains human and animal consciousness. Some Russellian monists adopt panpsychism, the view that the intrinsic natures of basic material entities involve consciousness; others hold that basic material entities are proto-conscious rather than conscious. Throughout the second half of the book various forms of Russellian monism are surveyed, and the key challenges facing it are discussed. The penultimate chapter defends a cosmopsychist form of Russellian monism, according to which all facts are grounded in facts about the conscious universe.

An updated edition of a comprehensive study of the theory that mind exists, in some form, in all living and nonliving things. In Panpsychism in the West, the first comprehensive study of the subject, David Skrbina argues for the importance of panpsychism—the theory that mind exists, in some form, in all living and nonliving things—in consideration of the nature of consciousness and mind. Panpsychism, with its conception of mind as a general phenomenon of nature, uniquely links being and mind. More than a theory of mind, it is a meta-theory—a statement about theories of mind rather than a theory in itself. Panpsychism can parallel almost every current theory of mind; it simply holds that, no matter how one conceives of mind, such mind applies to all things. After a brief discussion of general issues surrounding philosophy of mind, Skrbina examines the panpsychist views of philosophers from the pre-Socratics to the post-structuralists. The original edition of Panpsychism in the West helped to reinvigorate a neglected and important aspect of philosophic thinking. This revised edition offers expanded and updated material that reflects the growth of panpsychism as a subdiscipline. It covers the problem of emergence of mind from a non-mental reality and the combination problem in greater detail. It offers expanded coverage of the pre-Socratics and Plato; a new section on Augustine; expanded discussions of Continental panpsychism, scientific arguments, Nietzsche, and Whitehead; and a new section on Russellian monism. With this edition, Panpsychism in the West will be continue to be the standard work on the topic.

Panpsychism is the view that all things, living and nonliving, possess some mind like quality. It stands in sharp contrast to the traditional notion of mind as the property of humans and (perhaps) a few select ‘higher animals’. Though surprising at first glance, panpsychism has a long and noble history in both Western and Eastern thought. Overlooked by analytical, materialist philosophy for most of the 20th century, it is now experiencing a renaissance of sorts in several areas of inquiry. A number of recent books – including Skrbina’s Panpsychism in the West (2005) and Strawson et al’s Consciousness and its Place in Nature (2006) – have established panpsychism as respectable and viable. Mind That Abides builds on these works. It takes panpsychism to be a plausible theory of mind and then moves forward to work out the philosophical, psychological and ethical implications. With 17 contributors from a variety of fields, this book promises to mark a wholesale change in our philosophical outlook. (Series A)

Panpsychism has become a highly attractive position in the philosophy of mind. On panpsychism, both the physical and the mental are inseparable and fundamental features of reality. Panentheism has also become immensely popular in the philosophy of religion. Panentheism strives for a higher reconciliation of an atheistic pantheism, on which the universe itself is causa sui, and the ontological dualism of necessarily existing, eternal creator and contingent, finite creation. Historically and systematically, panpsychism and panentheism often went together as essential parts of an all-embracing metaphysical theory of Being. The present collection of essays analyses the relation between panpsychism and panentheism and provides critical reflections on the significance of panpsychistic and panentheistic thinking for recent debates in philosophy and theology.

An anthology of readings in panpsychism, spanning two millennia.