The first is ‘material composition’, a rejection of dualism. Material composition requires that all living organisms are a complex material system, composing solely of matter – nothing else is a part of this. To deny this premise would lead us to believe that we have non-material constituents; there is currently no evidence of this. The second premise entails is non-reductionism, where ordinary mental states cannot be reduced to physical states, and cannot be implied by these physical properties alone. Given our finite mental capacities, we would not be able to grasp the ultimate physical explanation of many complex phenomena, even if we knew the laws governing their ultimate constituents. Rejecting non-reductionism would require the acceptance of reductionism, however this would be contradicting our starting point. The third premise is realism; though the mental is irreducible to the physical, mental properties are nonetheless properties of an organism; they cannot be properties of nothing. Denying this premise would lead us challenge the existence of mental states, to become eliminativists. The last premise entails that emergentism is false. Either the mind was present in things from the very beginning, or it emerged at some point in history. Nagel explicitly states that there are no truly emergent properties of complex systems (1979:182); such notions of emergentism must be denied or its consequences would lead us to embrace nomological danglers. Simple mental properties would be linked by psychophysical laws to complex physical brain states. From these four premises, it follows that basic physical constituents have mental properties - human beings have mental properties that must derive logically from certain properties (Van Cleve 1990:217). However, some constituents of the human being are not physical, hence material constituents have non-physical properties. The reasoning for this argument can be repeated to accommodate the more fundamental and ubiquitous nature of matter in the universe.
Go backwards! Leads us to a peculiar conclusion.
Panpsychism provides a solution to the problem of emergentism, on the grounds that non-physical entities such as mentality and consciousness did not emerge at a certain point in time, rather it was present in things from the very beginning. The view of the panpsychist would fail if there were a clear conception of how consciousness emerged – however there has been no such discovery. For example, the mechanisms of how the heart pumps blood, or how the liver functions are all understood in the mere sense of epistemological emergence; our understanding of nature is limited by the subsequent extent of our knowledge. On the other hand, the mind, which encompasses entities such as consciousness and mentality, cannot be categorized as some kind of new material organ that is awaiting discovery or simply emerge. It is the burden of the emergentist to provide one, or convince us to be content with the brute fact that mental properties are conditioned by certain physically complex states in a fundamentally inexplicable way. Both Panpsychism and Emergentism face difficulties, neither of which have clear solutions.
Careful consideration should be exercised when determining the grounds to accept Nagel’s fourth premise on non-emergence. If one proceeds to accept the anti-emergence premise, it should not be on the basis that the only alternative is to believe in ‘magic’ (Van Cleve 1990:219). Nagel has established that fundamental particles will not comprise of consciousness, let alone intelligence or perception (Van Cleve 1990:218 ), however he brings up the notion of ‘proto-mentality’ which was given by Nagel (1979), which can be defined as an unconscious form of mentality. It must be clarified here that Nagel’s argument requires that it operate under ‘logical necessity’, if not the second and fourth premise of non-reductionism and non-emergentism, respectively, will not be coherent. How does intelligence in Nagel’s ‘complex system’ epistemologically emerge with logical necessity from the proto-mental properties of the constituents? It cannot – this would be the same as saying the mental follows from the physical (Van Cleve 1990:219). So it appears that some kind of emergence does appear in the panpsychist’s reasoning. A panpsychist could try to refute this objection by stating that the existence of logical connections between proto-mentality and mentality is possible, and what inhibits us from this realisation is our present epistemological knowledge. However, the inhibition of knowledge may be limiting us from an array of things, such as that perhaps there is a logical link between the mental and the physical. Therefore the defence that the panpsychist attempts to use appears to be poor; defending an argument like this would only leave one open to vulnerabilities and further attacks (Van Cleve 1990:220).
The simplest argument against panpsychism is the intuitive absurdity to suggest that rocks, plants or electrons possess minds or any kinds of consciousness; our everyday experience with physical objects ascertains us of this. However, panpsychism by no means grants mind-like qualities to all such physical things. Even if the fundamental entities that constitute the physical world have any aspect of mentality to it, it does not follow that combination made from them is similarly endowed.
A more powerful objection to panpsychism, coined as the ‘combination problem’ is given by William James. It lies on the principle by which the simplest psychological features come together to form complex minds. James puts forth the idea that panpsychism faces its own problem of emergence, of how consciousness can be created, or that it can emerge. James initially introduces the idea of giving a word to each of twelve men from a single sentence, and have them stand together, while letting each continue thinking of his word. James postulates that this would not give rise to any sort of consciousness; however, given there were one hundred men packed together thinking of their own word, this would result in the formation of a consciousness shared by them – a feeling of unity, of belonging to a group. Panpsychists such as Whitehead accept that there is mental emergence, calling it the very principle of process and reality (Hartshorne 1972:162.).
The issue of causal closure of the physical is another argument that proves to be problematic for panpsychists. The physical world seems to be complete in the causal sense; every event has a purely physical determining cause. If mental properties were to be included in the fundamental entities of the physical world, the notion of causality would become idle, if not arbitrary. Mentality would become entirely epiphenomenal, since the physical world that is governed by physical laws would be causally closed (McGinn 1999).
The doctrine appears to be more of a conjecture of how widespread the phenomenon of mind is in the universe, rather than an attempt to define the ‘mind’, or explain how the mind relates to the object that possess it, hence it may not be applicable to call it a formal theory of mind. Panpsychism appears to be an issue of the mind, that it is a part of all matter in varying levels. It appeals to the idea that matter alone cannot explain consciousness. As disclosed in previous paragraphs, panpsychism and emergentism both challenge each other directly. Either one is a panpsychist, believing that consciousness was present in things from the very beginning, or an emergentist who understands that consciousness emerges at certain points in time. This issue of consciousness is one of the central issues in the philosophy of mind, and is what largely makes the mind-body problem seem intractable. Panpsychism entails notions and concepts, many of which we have a hard time proving and disproving – which may be largely due to our progressive, yet still rudimentary understanding of nature. Panpsychism takes a great leap; past things that probably still have not been looked into carefully enough. For the time being, understanding the world as it is in its confines may be imperative, hence committing to any kind of panpsychism just yet may prove to be dangerously premature. As for it providing a solution to the mind-body problem, it seems highly unlikely - the theory leaves large gaps that can only be filled by things that at the most, can only be speculated.
Bibliography
Hartshorne, C (1972), Whitehead's Philosophy: Selected Essays 1935-1970. New York, Rider and Company.
McGinn, C. (1999), The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World. New York: Basic Books.
Nagel, T (1979), ‘Panpsychism’, in T Nagel (ed.), Mortal Questions, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 181-195.
Paulsen, F. (1904), Einleitung in die Philosophie, 13th edition, Stuttgart: Cotta. (An English translation of an earlier edition is An Introduction to Philosophy, F. Thilly (trans.), New York, Holt, 1895.)
Van Cleve, J (1990), ‘Mind-dust or magic? Panpsychism vs. Emergence’, Philosophical Perspectives, 4, 215-220.
Wundt, W. (1892/1894). Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Thierseele, Hamburg: L. Voss. An English translation is Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology, J.E. Creighton and E.B. Titchener (trans.), London: S. Sonnenschein.
