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. Despite the recent advances in our knowledge of the brain and the increasing intricacy and sophistication of philosophical discussion, the nature of mind remains an enigma. 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. In addition, panpsychism is one of the most ancient and enduring concepts of philosophy, beginning with its pre-historical forms, animism and polytheism. Its adherents in the West have included important thinkers from the very beginning of Greek philosophy through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the present.
Skrbina argues that panpsychism is long overdue for detailed treatment, and with this book he proposes to add impetus to the discussion of panpsychism in serious philosophical inquiries. After a brief discussion of general issues surrounding philosophy of mind, he traces the panpsychist views of specific philosophers, from the ancient Greeks and early Renaissance naturalist philosophers through the likes of William James, Josiah Royce, and Charles Sanders Peirce--always with a strong emphasis on the original texts. In his concluding chapter, "A Panpsychist World View," Skrbina assesses panpsychist arguments and puts them in a larger context. By demonstrating that there is panpsychist thinking in many major philosophers, Skrbina offers a radical challenge to the modern worldview, based as it is on a mechanistic cosmos of dead, insensate matter. Panpsychism in the West will be the standard work on this topic for years to come.
1 Panpsychism and the Ontology of Mind 1
1.1 The Importance of Panpsychism
1.2 Basic Concepts in Ontology and Mind 5
1.3 Background on Monism 8
1.4 Dualism and Interaction 12
1.5 Panpsychism Defined 15
2 Ancient Origins 23
2.1 Ancient Greece and the "Hylozoist" Tradition---The Pre-Socratics 23
2.2 Plato 34
2.3 Aristotle 45
2.4 Epicurus and the Atomic Swerve 51
2.5 Stoicism and the Pneuma 53
2.6 Remnants of Panpsychism in the Early Christian Era 58
3 Developments in the Renaissance (Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe) 65
3.1 Transition to the Renaissance 65
3.2 Four Italian Naturalists: Cardano, Telesio, Patrizi, and Bruno 67
3.3 Gilbert and the Soul of the Magnet 76
3.4 Campanella and the Seventeenth Century 77
3.5 The Early Scientific Philosophers 81
3.6 Spinoza 87
3.7 Locke and Newton 91
3.8 Leibniz 95
4 Continental Panpsychism of the Eighteenth Century 101
4.1 French Vitalistic Materialism 101
4.2 Kant and Priestly 108
4.3 German Romanticism and the Naturphilosophie 112
5 Panpsychism, Mechanism, and Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany 117
5.1 Schopenhauer 117
5.2 Fechner 122
5.3 Other Scientist-Philosophers of the Age 126
5.4 A Survey of the Field 133
5.5 Nietzsche and the Will to Power 137
6 The Anglo-American Perspective 141
6.1 Anglo-American Panpsychism of the Late Nineteenth Century 141
6.2 William James 145
6.3 Royce, Peirce, and Other Sympathetic Thinkers 149
7 Panpsychism in the Twentieth Century, Part I: 1900-1950 157
7.1 Bergson and the Early-Twentieth-Century Panpsychists 157
7.2 Schiller 162
7.3 Alexander, Lossky, Troland, and Dewey 165
7.4 The Process Philosophers---Whitehead and Russell 174
7.5 Phenomenology 180
7.6 Teilhard de Chardin 182
8 Scientific Perspectives 185
8.1 Historical Arguments from the Scientific and Empirical Perspectives 185
8.2 Panpsychism in Early- and Mid-Twentieth-Century Science 188
8.3 Bateson 196
8.4 Recent Scientific Implications 198
8.5 Bohm and the Implicate Order 202
9 Panpsychism in the Twentieth Century, Part II: 1950-Present 207
9.1 Hartshorne 208
9.2 Developments in the 1960s and the 1970s 217
9.3 Mind in Nature: Panpsychism and Environmental Philosophy 223
9.4 Recent Thoughts, Pro and Con 235
10 Toward and Panpsychist Worldview 249
10.1 An Assessment of the Arguments 249
10.2 Opposing Views 255
10.3 Into the Third Millennium 265
David Skrbina is a Lecturer in Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at the University of Michigan at Dearborn.
