Towards a Critical Investigation into the Metaphysics of Panpsychism
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Panpsychism is the metaphysical doctrine that sees everything in existence ashaving a mind or mind-like qualities. Some scholars have critiqued this viewfrom the stance of materialism and dualism, grounding their arguments on theinability of panpsychists to account for consciousness in their philosophicalpostulations. Panpsychist assumptions may be acceptable on one hand, yetrefuted on the other, not only because of their failure to address consciousness inthe mind-body problem, but because it defies logic to attribute mind and mindlikequalities—the pride of rational beings—to nonhuman entities. This paperexamines panpsychism as an attempt to bridge the explanatory gap betweenmaterialism and dualism by proposing that all entities, from atoms to complexorganisms, possess some form of consciousness. The study explores theoreticalfoundations through the work of David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel, who arguethat panpsychism offers a more plausible explanation for phenomenalconsciousness than strict physicalism or dualism. Chalmers presents a deductiveargument demonstrating that panpsychism poses fewer problems in explainingphenomenal consciousness compared to physicalism and dualism. The analysisexamines key arguments, including the conceivability argument and zombieargument, distinguishing between macro-experiences (human consciousness)and micro-experiences (proposed mental states of microscopic entities) whileaddressing the fundamental mind-body problem. This paper, throughphilosophical analysis, examines panpsychism as a philosophical doctrine thatposits mentality as a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the natural world,including inanimate matter.
Author: OGUNDELE, Emmanuel Adetokunbo
Institution: Rivers State University
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7108226367
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