Panpsychism, or the Question “What Is the Subject of Experience?”
Oxford Scholarship Online July 19, 2018 Ursula Renz
Spinoza's claim that all things are animated is often taken as evidence that he believed every entity has a mind, a view called panpsychism. This chapter examines the key passage usually cited for that interpretation and argues instead that Spinoza meant something different: that rational intelligibility extends throughout the universe without exception. The author contends that Spinoza's universal animation does not ascribe minds to every being but rather asserts that everything is understandable through reason, closing any gap in the rational order of nature.