Leibnizian Panpsychism: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Panpsychism

Russellian panpsychism holds that all fundamental physical entities have inner experiential properties. A major challenge is the combination problem: how micro-experiences combine into the unified experiences of larger beings like humans. This paper defends a Leibnizian version of panpsychism, which denies that micro-experiences ever combine. The authors address two objections: that denying combination (mereological nihilism) is implausible, and that Leibnizian panpsychism implies human experiences are simple physical entities. They argue both objections can be answered and that this view deserves serious consideration as a theory of consciousness.

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Abstract

Russellian panpsychism, the view that concrete reality is entirely physical and fundamental physical entities are intrinsically experiential, is faced with the combination problem – the challenge of explaining how the experiences of microphysical entities combine to form the experiences of macro-physical entities such as humans. While such combination is deemed impossible by critics of panpsychism, a ‘Leibnizian’ response to the problem – that microphysical (and micro-experiential) entities never combine – has received little attention. This paper seeks to evaluate the viability of such a Leibnizian panpsychism. After motivating the view, we outline and respond to two kinds of objections a critic of the view might have: (a) mereological nihilism, the view that individuals never combine, is an unviable position independent of panpsychism, (b) Leibnizian panpsychism entails the unacceptable view that human experiences are physical simples. We argue that both sets of objections can be addressed, and that Leibnizian panpsychism ought to be taken more seriously as a metaphysics of consciousness.