Customer Reviews

Panpsychism in the West (Bradford Books)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An outstanding piece of work that shows that philosophy CAN be a lot more interesting than watching paint dry!

The deanimation of Nature was a great sleight of hand of the Enlightenment. There is progressively more evidence that the notion that the whole Universe is comprised of nothing but cleverly arranged inanimate objects is fundamentally flawed. This fine book does not present us with a definitive answer or solution: it is rather an examination of the concept that Mind exists in some form throughout the phenomenal world and beyond it. It emphasizes that this apparently heretical concept is a legitmate field of inquiry.

This book is well written and deserves a wide readership, particularly amongst those who have enjoyed the insights of Ken Wilber, Ervin Laszlo and Christian de Quincey. I wish that it would also be read by some of my friends and colleagues in the scientific community, but I fear that is a vain hope!

This book is an excellent introduction to Panpsychism. It gives lots of detailed history and clarifies the issues up to recent debates. I highly recommend it, especially for tough minded scientists and other true believers.

Science has had a hard time finding a focus for mind and awareness under its microscope. After a decade of having the spotlight of science on this subject area, there is still no agreement even on what consciousness is, and that is the self admission of the leaders in the field of consciousness studies.

It's my (lonely) view that science as now understood is not up to this task, is not itself well understood, and that a radical change of view and approach is needed to place mind in nature. My long standing openness to Panpsychism has recently led to incorperating it into an integrated view of nature. This view requires better "nontranscendental" science.

There are other recent voices who would approach this through quantum mechanics, emergence etc. etc. With the historical emphasis of this book, I dont think it had the scope for an in-depth coverage of what has been happening the past 25 years related to Panpsychism. My hope is that Skrbina is working on a sequel to clarify the current state of the art in addition to working on his own solutions in his research interests.

We are scientistically smug about the nature of the "inanimate world." We KNOW all about matter/energy, and KNOW that it is just a matter of time before the natural sciences, the disciplines dealing with the inert world, can explain the up-to-now mysterious leap from neurobiology to awareness. Read this excellent book to find out that an alternative view has been available all along--for at least 2500 years in Western thought-- and that it is a credible, interesting, generative option that many major thinkers, old and new, have seriously promulgated.

If you find the notion of materialism (matter is primary and mind is a mere emergent or epiphenomena of matter) unsatisfying
and
The concept of idealism (mind is primary and matter is merely a manifestation of mind) a bit fanciful or romantic.
then
you should learn about or entertain the premise of panpsychism (the idea that mind and matter are different manifestations of the true underlying monistic reality).
This book offers a complete historical review of this philosophical concept in the west from the ancients to modern scientific observation.
A fascinating read of the history of the middle way in the duel between mind and matter as primary reality.

In existence since pre-Socratic times and undergoing sporadic retreatment throughout the millennia since, panpsychism is one of the oldest ideas regarding the interrelationship of substance, material, and life. A meta-theory, panpsychism does not seek to define life or matter scientifically, religiously, or psychologically--as the name might imply--rather, it is a statement about theories. From Anaximenes's pneuma to Leibniz's monad, Lovelock's Gaia theory to Bohm's implicate order, these and similar theories which to various degrees deny the linear, mechanistic view and attribute more life-like or "thinking" qualities to all matter--not just that in animate or human form--are examples to be found under the umbrella theory of panpsychism. In his 2009 Panpsychism in the West, David Skrbina offers the most recent reworking of the subject.

A thorough survey of panpsychisms's evolution to date, the book summarizes the millennia of panpsychist theories and suppositions, bringing the author to conclude that panpsychism is a view verified by modern holistic science. However, rather than seeing panpsychism as "the view that all things have mind or mind-like quality" (2), Skrbina discards the term "mind" in favor of "experience" and claims that "all objects or systems of objects, possess a singular inner experience of the world around them" (16). This idea is elaborated upon with three distinctions:

"(1) Objects have experiences for themselves; that is, the mind-like quality is something internal or inherent in the object. (2) There is a sense in which this experience is singular; to the extent that a structure of matter and energy that we call an object is one thing, this one-ness is reflected in a kind of unitary mental experience. (3) An object is a particular configuration of mass/energy, and therefore any configuration or system of mass/energy should qualify in the same sense." (16)

While the majority of Skrbina's book surveys the millennia of theories which impute mind or soul-like qualities to matter, from the Greeks to modern science, the idea that objects have "a kind of unitary mental experience" remains central. Skrbina's explains that "the panpsychist asks us to see the `mentality' of other objects not in terms of human consciousness but as a subset of a certain universal quality of physical things in which both inanimate mentality and human consciousness are taken as particular manifestations" (17). He explicitly states "discussions of panpsychism should avoid the most heavily anthropocentric terms, which cloud the discussion more than they provide clarity" (18).

Religious fundamentalism and conventional science's main thrusts of criticism fall upon the question: to what extent does panpsychism assign consciousness or mind-like qualities to inanimate objects? Reflecting perennial philosophy as well as the revelations of modern science, in response Skrbina outlines a hierarchy of all matter in the following four categories: 1) humans: self consciousness, cognition, 2) all animals: thought, consciousness, 3) animals and plants: sense awareness, sentience, emotion, 4) all animate and inanimate: experience, mind, mental state, what-it-is-like, qualia, nous, psyche. (18)

In the end, of interest is that this hierarchy does not lower humanity to the level of inanimacy, as many conventional scientific theories of a mechanistic, unthinking world do; rather, it elevates the position of inanimate objects to a minimum of "experience" quality: rocks remain incapable of decision-making, but gain a degree of participation in the overall experience of existence. Students and scholars in need of research material on panpsychism, as well as those interested in the subject in general, will benefit most from Skrbina's thorough and lucid survey, historical to modern day representation.

David Skrbina's "Panpsychism in the West" presents the historical emergence of panpsychism within western philosophy: from the ancient Greeks, the Renaissance, the eighteenth century, and up to modern times. Skrbina gives a very comprehensive treatment, worthy of five stars despite my criticism. Nevertheless, I want to point out some subtly that Skrbina missed, and this is not to detract from Skrbina's fine work. My sharper focus depends on two concepts of my own making: the word game; and the meaning of panpsychism.

First, the word game: It cannot be that we merely define systems into being, say materialism and idealism, leaving the systems identical in all respects except for the select definitions. The definitions by themselves don't automatically present something that is self evident. For example, renaming red into blue, and blue into red, gives us nothing. In the sense that we get hung up on prior definitions (and categories) we are playing only a word game, and getting no closer to the truth. Rather it must be that what we discover with our definitions is only a tension, and it is that somehow the tension is able to resolve itself. Therefore, truth is not defined into being. Truth is discovered as tension resolves itself.

Now, the meaning of panpsychism: Correcting for word games that are common to definitions of panpsychism (e.g, as Skrbina provides) gives us the most frugal meaning. In my view, awareness necessarily finds an agreement between an active (will-like) feeling that imprints on a passive (matter-like) substrate, until something self evident is revealed. The slightest feeling holds an awareness. Panpsychism is saying that some awareness exists in animals, plants, (rocks, worlds, and the universe). Because awareness is pervasive, awareness is more generally a property of matter as well as the entire universe. Hence, panpsychism is consistent with a vitalism where both active and passive constituents permeate the universe. An innate feeling takes the provisional into the universal, and revealing what is self evident.

Panpsychism finds a middle way between materialism and idealism. Because the validity of panpsychism is itself self evident, materialism and idealism are discovered as bodies of expressions that have not yet reached a sufficient threshold of self awareness, but this realization is getting far ahead. The bottom line is that we can in principle put both materialism and idealism on the psychologist's couch, revise their truth claims and recover evidence for panpsychsim. It is with this revisionist attitude that I read "Panpsychism in the West". This revisionist attitude supports a universal grammar, something already noted by the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl.

Writing on the mutual interaction of mind and body, Skrbina (page 13) notes how this interaction is plausible: "Only in the naive intuitive argument that `mind clearly exists', `(human) body clearly exists,' and `I know that my mind affects my body and vice versa'. Unfortunately in the 400 years since Descartes no one has produced a satisfactory explanation as to exactly how this would work." This is again more confusion coming from the word game, and Skrbina forgets that Husserl fixed Descartes' view. What comes with self evidence does not require a necessary explanation. Rather it is philosophy that is a derivative of self evidence, and it is a presumed objectivity that questions the mind-body interaction that is found naive.

Skrbina (page 21) tells us that a "pantheism can be confused with panpsychism," and that pantheism is a "monistic concept of mind" that is closer "to a traditional theistic view-point". However, if panpsychism wishes to remain viable it must resolve itself with pantheism. Pure pluralistic panpsychism fails because a fragmented plurality forgets that it is only an imprint in something pervasive and immanent. Moreover, it must be possible for the plurality to reach a shared understanding, and this can only be achieved by way of the feeling of empathy.

Skrbina (page 9) picked up on the word game, noting that "functionalism [a class of materalistic monism] can be seen to shade into panpsychism." Then he (page 11) fails to note that idealism provides a similar loophole writing that "one can be an idealist without being a panpsychist" and while referring to Hegel as an example. Hegel was a trinitarian more than an idealist, and his system grew out of Schelling's transcendental idealism. Skrbina (page 115) places Schelling close to being a panpsychist, but where Schelling goes so does Hegel. Moreover, how Hegel describes life in the "Science of Logic" can only be seen as an endorsement of vitalism. Vitalism cannot be separated from the meaning of panpsychism, and we find nothing but the word game preventing the recognition of Hegel's panpsychism. Skrbina (pages 58, 60) connects the trinitarian concepts of the Logos and the Holy Spirit to panpsychism, so how he misses this is hard to fathom.

Skrbina (page 65) writes: "Monotheism was in direct conflict with panpsychism, and thus it effectively suppressed any advance in panpsychist philosophy. The Christian worldview, along with aspects of Aristotelian natural philosophy, dominated Western intellectual thought for about 1,300 years." However, Skrbina equivocates badly with the word "Christian". "Christian" is not to find its meaning from the most power hungry theologians that gave us the inquisition. The most authoritative theologians do paint a dualistic conception of God that has separated from God's creation, yes this is true. However, it is not the case that Thomas Aquinas (non-panpsychist) is more Christian than Saint Francis of Assisi (panpsychist). What is more important is that when we put Christianity on the couch we find that the mystics are closer to the heart of Christianity, and we find that Jesus was a panpsychist (at least according to trinitarian belief).

Skbina makes several references to design arguments being used to justify panpsychism, referring to Patrizi (page 71), Gilbert (page 77), Campanella (page 79), Mauperuis (page 106), and Fechner (page 126). Skrbina (page 188) writes: "Darwin's theory of evolution initiated a series of new scientific arguments for panpsychism." Skrbina forgets the meaning of panpsychism and he misses the fact that Darwin's theory of evolution is opposed to design arguments. However, Darwinism does not escape the couch. Darwinism makes only a caricature of life, attempting to explain what is vital rather than describing something that can only be described. It is that felt vitality is a precondition for natural selection, it is not that natural selection explains the vital; this confusion comes from the word game. Moreover, monads are non-passive so they don't just go along for the ride provided by natural selection thereby making panpsychism redundant. The controversial movement of intelligent design provides the strongest arguments against Darwin's theory, and their evidence is turned into support for panpsychism once these folks are also led to the couch. Skrbina is strangely silent on intelligent design.

Skrbina (page 118) writes: "Schopenhauer thrust the concept of will into a central ontological role. Will, for him, was not merely the equivalent of human desire but was more generally a universal force, a drive, something that impelled all things and sustained all things." Skrbina (page 137) also correctly interprets Nietzsche's "will to power" as an endorsement of panpsychism. Nietzsche embroiled himself in the study of nihilism, not that he himself was a nihilist. Nevertheless, he was easy to associate Christianity with nihilism which led to a confusion that reached its high point with the remark "God is Dead." We find yet another example of the word game.

Skrbina writes about my favored panpsychists: C.S. Peirce; A.N. Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, and C. Hartshorne. He makes a very impressive case for panpsychism, taking us into modern time. His book is must reading. Nevertheless, a stronger case can be made with the couch.

Disclosure: My agenda is declared in my profile.

Skrbina presents a masterful history of panpsychism and its more modern cousin, panexperientialism. He also provides solid arguments of his own as to why the universe we dwell in is very likely panexperiential. His book, with David Ray Griffin's Unsnarling the World-Knot (which I came to by reading Skrbina's book) provided me the inspiration and intellectual arsenal to write my own book challenging the prevailing "crude materialism" of our times. Highly recommended reading for laymen and academics.

Skrbina writes a book about theories, not a theory, he claims (p.2). He restricts his discussion to the notion of "mind" as it has been understood from various perspectives in living and non-living things in this philosophical history. Panpsychism, as a philosophical perspective, links beings and mind in a way no other system does, he maintains. However, due to the data and context in which he philosophizes he is confined to discussing his position from within a Hellenized philosophical perspective. His work is a western philosophical treatise and this is reflected in the title words, "in the West." Perhaps, at a later date, a book might appear entitled, Panpsychism in Philosophy. With that as a possibility, I view, Skrbina's work as a preamble to a discussion on "mind" within a de-Hellenized, that is, Western conception of epistemology uninfluenced by Greek notions. I view Skrbina's perspective on Panpsychism, as part of an evolutionary process leading to a possible de-Hellenized understanding of mind. Whether or not such de-Hellenization is his intent is conjecture on my part. However, he hopes to introduce us into a broader concept of mind that may arise from considering "the evolution of panpsychist thought from the time of the pre-Socratics through the present" (p. 22). He does this successfully within the Hellenist heritage. As a sub-stratum to theology, my own discipline, Skrbina's critical philosophical history provides theologians with the incentive to re-visit the philosophical underpinnings of western theology although this is not his intent (p.2). Even though Panpsychism in the West, as a theory about theories, does not attempt a philosophical de-Hellenization it does offer to theologians a sub-stratum from which to re-conceive the person as sharing in mind-like qualities with the rest of its environment. From my perspective, the broader concept of mind Skrbina seeks may be found in a de-Hellenized worldview.