Theories Of Idealism, And Panpsychism

Chapter 4. Idealism, Solipsism, and Panpsychism

Here’s something that might sound crazy, but is nonetheless taken seriously by many philosophers: Not only do humans and other animals have minds, but even plants and bacteria have minds. Further, even so-called inanimate objects like grains of sand, droplets of water, and even individual atoms each have their own minds. Maybe the mind of a grain of sand is simpler than the mind of a human being, but it is a mind nonetheless. Everything has its own mind. This is panpsychism.
Here’s another crazy sounding idea that has been a topic of many serious philosophical discussions: Suppose that the only thing that actually exists is your own mind. Suppose that there aren’t any other things in existence,
They disagree about whether there is more than one mind. According to solipsism, there’s only one.
Solipsism is a version of a more general view that we can call idealism. According to idealism, everything is either a mind or something that depends on a mind. Solipsistic versions of idealism hold that there is only one mind. Nonsolipsistic versions of idealism hold that there are multiple minds.
Panpsychists don’t have to believe in idealism. Idealists say that everything either is a mind or something that depends on a mind. Panpsychists say instead that everything has a mind. Stated this way, panpsychism leaves open whether there might be nonmental physical properties of the things that have minds. So, in addition to having a mind with its various mental properties, perhaps a rock also has nonmental aspects. Maybe, says the panpsychist, the rock’s mass or shape is a strictly mind-independent property. An idealist would disagree with such a view. According to the idealist, even the mass and the shape of the rock must depend on someone or other’s
For instance, a solipsistic idealism according to which my mind is the only mind and so-called physical atoms are just ideas in my mind can’t be argued against on the basis of combinations, since solipsism doesn’t hold that my mind arises out of any combination. My mind is the only thing in existence, so there aren’t multiple things to combine. Other kinds of idealism are similarly immune. Examples are the idealisms of Berekely and Leibniz whereby there are multiple minds, but each mind is simple, meaning that each mind is in no way composed of parts.

Conclusion
Idealism, solipsism, and Panpsychism are united in seeing mind as a much more widespread phenomenon than common sense dictates. Indeed, solipsism sees the entirety of existence as restricted to a single mind. Despite their counterintuitive nature, these philosophical positions are highly intriguing, and their opponents have sometimes struggled to spell out exactly what might be wrong with them. Panpsychism, for instance, offers a special kind of challenge to those philosophers interested in the explanation of consciousness: Why isn’t it true that everything has its own form of consciousness?

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