Panpsychism in the West

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.
Acknowledgments ix 1 Panpsychism and the Ontology of Mind 1.1 The Importance of Panpsychism 1.2 Basic Concepts in Ontology and Mind 1.3 Background on Monism 1.4 Dualism and Interaction 1.5 Panpsychism Defined 2 Ancient Origins 2.1 Ancient Greece and the "Hylozoist" Tradition---The Pre-Socratics 2.2 Plato 2.3 Aristotle 2.4 Epicurus and the Atomic Swerve 2.5 Stoicism and the Pneuma 2.6 Remnants of Panpsychism in the Early Christian Era 3 Developments in the Renaissance (Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe) 3.1 Transition to the Renaissance 3.2 Four Italian Naturalists: Cardano, Telesio, Patrizi, and Bruno 3.3 Gilbert and the Soul of the Magnet 3.4 Campanella and the Seventeenth Century 3.5 The Early Scientific Philosophers 3.6 Spinoza 3.7 Locke and Newton 3.8 Leibniz 4 Continental Panpsychism of the Eighteenth Century 4.1 French Vitalistic Materialism 4.2 Kant and Priestly 4.3 German Romanticism and the Naturphilosophie 5 Panpsychism, Mechanism, and Science in Nineteenth-Century Germany 5.1 Schopenhauer 5.2 Fechner 5.3 Other Scientist-Philosophers of the Age 5.4 A Survey of the Field 5.5 Nietzsche and the Will to Power 6 The Anglo-American Perspective 6.1 Anglo-American Panpsychism of the Late Nineteenth Century 6.3 Royce, Peirce, and Other Sympathetic Thinkers 7 Panpsychism in the Twentieth Century, Part I: 1900-1950 7.1 Bergson and the Early-Twentieth-Century Panpsychists 7.2 Schiller 7.3 Alexander, Lossky, Troland, and Dewey 7.4 The Process Philosophers---Whitehead and Russell 7.5 Phenomenology 7.6 Teilhard de Chardin 8 Scientific Perspectives 8.1 Historical Arguments from the Scientific and Empirical Perspectives 8.2 Panpsychism in Early- and Mid-Twentieth-Century Science 8.3 Bateson 8.4 Recent Scientific Implications 8.5 Bohm and the Implicate Order 9 Panpsychism in the Twentieth Century, Part II: 1950-Present 9.1 Hartshorne 9.2 Developments in the 1960s and the 1970s 9.3 Mind in Nature: Panpsychism and Environmental Philosophy 9.4 Recent Thoughts, Pro and Con 10 Toward and Panpsychist Worldview 10.1 An Assessment of the Arguments 10.2 Opposing Views 10.3 Into the Third Millennium