Philip Goff swimming against a strong current of subjectivism in moral judgment has written on Panpsychism’s inherentist position in the online magazine <i>Nautilus</i>
I driving in my new tomato coloured Datsun begin to notice how many of them are around.
Goff writes:
<blockquote>This is where panpsychism can help. On a non-panpsychist form of the container view, Reality is a general form of being, which can manifest as either mental or non-mental entities. On a panpsychist version of the container view, Reality can be thought of as pure, undifferentiated consciousness, while particular manifestations of Reality are specific forms of that pure and undifferentiated consciousness.</blockquote>
This version of panpsychism seems to me very like the Advaita Vedanta view in which individual realities are forms of limitation (upadhis) of pure consciousness. The mind/body of the individual consciousness is also an upadhi and can receive inputs from ‘external’ reality as mental modifications (vritti) which are ‘true’ to the external because they are in the same substratum. In this way the paradox of idealism and scepticism about the external world are obviated. This ties into the concept of Dharma and rta or the order of reality.
Though often represented as subjective idealism Advaita is thoroughly realistic. We can have a non-numerical identity between the inner and the outer which is corrigible because there is always something more to know.
I have seen panpsychism traduced as an abdication of reason or a new madness.
This purported newness is the result of an ignorance of the history of ideas. Panpsychism is probably the most ancient philosophy there is.
1 comment:
I notice that Goff and another eloquent panpsychist -- Peter Sjöstedt-H -- skate close to Asian ideas but studiously avoid them. I cannot figure out why exactly. I suspect some sort of reflexive atheism might taint Eastern thought in their minds. This is the charitable interpretation. :P
Post a Comment