Panpsychism

Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla

Philosophy of Mind

The first, systematic, state-of-the-art anthology on panpsychism
Challenges the standard physicalistic worldview
Contains original articles making exciting contributions to the academic landscape

Panpsychism

Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla

Description

Recent debates in philosophy of mind seemingly have resulted in an impasse. Reductive physicalism cannot account for the phenomenal mind, and nonreductive physicalism cannot safeguard a causal role for the mental as mental. Dualism was formerly considered to be the only viable alternative, but in addition to exacerbating the problem of mental causation, it is hard to square with a naturalist evolutionary framework.

By 1979, Thomas Nagel argued that if reductionism and dualism fail, and a non-reductionist form of strong emergence cannot be made intelligible, then panpsychism-the thesis that mental being is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe-might be a viable alternative. But it was not until David Chalmers' The Conscious Mind in 1996 that debates on panpsychism entered the philosophical mainstream. Since then the field has been growing rapidly, and some leading philosophers of mind as well as scientist have argued in favor of panpsychism.

This book features contemporary arguments for panpsychism as a genuine alternative in analytic philosophy of mind in the 21st century. Different varieties of panpsychism are represented and systematically related to each other in the volume's 16 essays, which feature not only proponents of panpsychism but also prominent critics from both the physicalist and non-physicalist camps.

Panpsychism

Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla

Philosophy of Mind

Contributors
Introduction Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla
The Logical Place of Panpsychism
Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism David Chalmers
Emergent Panpsychism Godehard Bruntrup
The Varieties of Panpsychistic Ontologies
Mind and Being: The Primacy of Panpsychism Galen Strawson
Panpsychism and Priority Cosmopsychism Yujin Nagasawa and Khai Wager
In Search of Mentons: Panpsychism, Physicalism and the Missing Link Berit Brogaard
Land Ho? We are Close to a Synoptic Understanding of Consciousness Gregg Rosenberg
The Combination Problem for Panpsychism
The Combination Problem for Panpsychism David Chalmers
What Combination Problem? Barbara Gail Montero
Panpsychist Infusion William Seager
Panpsychism and Neutral Monism: How to Make up One's Mind Sam Coleman
The Phenomenal Bonding Solution to the Combination Problem Philip Goff
Panpsychism and its Alternatives
Mind Dust, Magic, or a Conceptual Gap Only?Brian McLaughlin
Emergence and Panpsychism Achim Stephan
Neutral Monism and Panpsychism Leopold Stubenberg
Dualism and Panpsychism Charles Taliaferro
Idealism and Panpsychism Uwe Meixner
Index

Panpsychism

Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla

Philosophy of Mind

Author Information

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup, Erich J. Lejeune Chair, Munich School of Philosophy, and Ludwig Jaskolla, Lecturer, Munich School of Philosophy

Godehard Brüntrup holds a PhD (1994) in philosophy from FU Berlin. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame. After receiving tenure in 2003 at Munich School of Philosophy, he now holds the Erich J. Lejeune Chair. He has been visiting professor at Fordham University and is currently a regular visiting professor at St. Louis University. In addition to a monograph on mental causation, he is the author of a bestselling introduction into the philosophy of mind as well as of numerous articles in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of religion.

Ludwig Jaskolla studied philosophy and physics in Munich, Germany. In 2013, he defended his PhD thesis on persistence-conditions and causation in 4-dimensional ontologies at the Munich School of Philosophy, which has been funded by a grant of the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung. His current research foci are: the metaphysics and phenomenology of persons, the philosophy of psychology, issues in the meta-ethics of virtue theory, and the philosophy of technology.

Contributors:

Godehard Brüntrup (Munich School of Philosophy)
Ludwig Jaskolla (Munich School of Philosophy
David Chalmers (New York University)
Galen Strawson (University of Texas at Austin)
Yujin Nagasawa (University of Birmingham)
Khai Wager (University of Birmingham)
Berit Brogaard (University of Miami)
Gregg Rosenberg
Barbara Gail Montero (City University of New York)
William Seager (University of Toronto Scarborough)
Sam Coleman (University of Hertfordshire)
Philip Goff (Central European University)
Brian McLaughlin (Rutgers University)
Achim Stephan (Universität Osnabrück)
Leopold Stubenberg (University of Notre Dame)
Charles Taliaferro (St. Olaf College)
Uwe Meixner (Universität Augsburg)

Panpsychism

Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla

Philosophy of Mind

Reviews and Awards

"this collection is addressed to seasoned readers in the philosophy of mind and analytically leaning metaphysics." - Jörn Kroll, Independent Scholar, Philosophy Practice

"The book ... is a very rich resource for studying and thinking about a significant contemporary development in analytical metaphysics and philosophy of mind. ... I found the whole package of papers rewarding reading." - Robert Merrihew Adams, Grazer Philosophische Studien

Panpsychism

Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Godehard Bruntrup and Ludwig Jaskolla

Philosophy of Mind

From Our Blog

Is the mind just an accident of the universe?

The traditional view puts forward the idea that the vast majority of what there is in the universe is mindless. Panpsychism however claims that mental features are ubiquitous in the cosmos. In a recent opinion piece for Scientific American entitled 'Is Consciousness Universal?' (2014), neuroscientist Christof Koch explains how his support of panpsychism is greeted by incredulous stares'in particular when asserting that panpsychism might be the perfect match for neurobiology

Posted on September 10, 2016

Read the blog post