Panpsychism and the Combination Problem

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What is consciousness and where does it begin? Panpsychism and the Combination Problem elucidates and evaluates one historically significant but recently neglected answer to these questions: panpsychism, the view that consciousness is ubiquitous in nature. Panpsychism is contrasted with emergent physicalism, the most common view of our times on the nature of reality and consciousness. The book covers some of the most critical problems facing emergent physicalism, and moves on to describe panpsychism and its most common variants.

After an in-depth discussion of the infamous ‘combination problem’ for panpsychism, the different variants of panpsychism are assessed in terms of their competence in answering this problem. The book ends with a discussion of the most helpful solutions to the problem, and of the possible ways forward for the panpsychist.

Panpsychism and the Combination Problem is tailored especially to a readership already familiar with some of the terminology and conventions of contemporary philosophy of mind. The book works well as an introduction to the topic of panpsychism and some of its core issues.