Galen Strawson - Panpsychism

Panpsychism

Strawson has argued that what he calls realistic physicalism entails panpsychism. He writes that "as a real physicalist, then, I hold that the mental/experiential is physical." He quotes the physicist Arthur Eddington in support of his position as follows; "If we must embed our schedule of indicator readings in some kind of background,at least let us accept the only hint we have received as to the significance of the background - namely that it has a nature capable of manifesting itself as a mental activity." The editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, Anthony Freeman, notes that panpsychism is regarded by many as either plain crazy, or else a direct route back to animism and superstition." Panpsychism, however, has a long tradition in western thought.