Lecture 8, 2013
“Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism”
David J. Chalmers
Australian National University
New York University
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Abstract
I present an argument for panpsychism: the thesis that everything is conscious, or at least that fundamental physical entities are conscious. The argument takes a Hegelian dialectical form. Panpsychism emerges as a synthesis of the thesis of materalism and the antithesis of dualism. In particular, the key premises of the causal argument for materialism and the con- ceivability argument for dualism are all accommodated by a certain version of panpsychism. This synthesis has its own antithesis in turn: panprotopsychism, the thesis that fundamental physical entities are protoconscious, also accommodates the key premises. Panpsychism and panprotopsychism are synthesized under Russellian monism, and then face an antithesis, the combination problem. The question of whether there is a new synthesis remains open.
Preferred citation
Chalmers, David J. “Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism.” The
Amherst Lecture in Philosophy 8 (2013): 1–35.
<http://www.amherstlecture.org/chalmers2013/>.
