A revival of panpsychistic considerations of the mind's place in nature has recently enriched the debate on the mind-body problem in the contemporary philosophy of the mind. The essays assembled in the present collection aim to supply a positive contribution to these considerations, providing new perspectives on panpsychism by shedding new light on its arguments and impacts, as well as on its problems and theoretical challenges. Panpsychism is discussed as a position that understands consciousness as a truly fundamental feature of (...) our reality—not only with respect to the human species, but also with respect to the evolution of the universe as such. (shrink)

Blamauer, Michael_Panpsychism without Subjectivity.

Some philosophers of mind have argued for considering consciousness as a further fundamental feature of reality in addition to its physical properties. Hence most of them are property dualists. But some of them are panpsychists. In the present paper it will be argued that being a real property dualist essentially entails being a panpsychist. Even if panpsychism deals rather elegantly with certain problems of the puzzle of consciousness, there’s no way around the composition problem. Adhering to the fundamentality claim of (...) the mind, it will be shown that only a radical revision of metaphysics will allow the panpsychist to avoid these troubles, and hence that a panpsychist must adopt Leibnizian idealism. (shrink)

The Principle of Continuity is a major premise in what can be called the “Continuity-Argument for Panpsychism” : If we, as complex conscious organisms, are the evolutionary products of originally inorganic components and processes, and consciousness is a metaphysically irreducible feature, thenconsciousness must have already been a feature of these fundamental components, assuming there is continuity between the inorganic and the organic. This argument faces one serious objection, based on the possible vagueness of consciousness: If consciousness is a feature of (...) organisms which is gradually gained at some later phylogenetic stage the conclusion of CAP is false. In my paper I defend the assumption that consciousness cannot be vague with the goal of concluding that CAP is sound. (shrink)

In this paper, some of Schelling’s core ideas on consciousness and nature are investigated with the aim ofemphasizing their historical and systematic relevance to the current discussion on consciousness andpanpsychism. The focus is on the reasons and consequences of Schelling’s “turn” from his early Fichteanidealism to the “real materialism” of his later Identity Philosophy. It is shown that Schelling’s way of copingwith the ontological problems of the emergence of consciousness from a natural basis is by all meanscomparable to current panpsychist (...) strategies dealing with these topics. The paper concludes by presenting someof the prospects of, as well as a critical discussion of, the impacts of Schelling’s assumptions. (shrink)