Fundamental Perception in Leibniz’s Philosophy and Contemporary Panpsychism

Perception is a fundamental ontological category in G.W. Leibniz's philosophy, and it connects to modern panpsychism. Modern panpsychism struggles to define protopsychic properties—the basic mental features that combine into higher-level consciousness. Drawing on Leibniz's monadology, the author proposes that protopsychic properties represent all reality vaguely, preventing high-level psychic properties from emerging, and that mental properties are states of partially blocked protopsychic properties rather than combinations of them. Three strategies are offered to adapt these ideas to naturalistic panpsychism: treating physics as structural phenomena derived from monads, positing a non-causal relationship between monads, or adopting naturalistic pantheism with God as a mediator.

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Abstract

This article examines the fundamental ontological significance that the category of perception has in philosophy of G.W. Leibniz, and establishes the connection between the category of perception and modern panpsychism. There is a problem of definition of protopsychic properties in modern panpsychism. The problem is expressed not only in the absence of such a definition, but also in the absence of a good strategy for finding possible candidates for the role of protopsychic property. To solve this problem, the author considers the status of the monad as the center of perception in Leibniz’s monadology, as well as the question of the relation of different monads to each other. Based on Leibniz’s ideas, the following modifications for modern panpsychism have been proposed, among others. First, it was proposed that protopsychic properties be viewed as properties that represent all reality in some vague way, preventing the emergence of high-level psychic properties. Second, it was proposed that mental properties be viewed not as a combination of protopsychic properties, but as state of protopsychic properties. This means that to form high-level mental properties, protopsychic properties must not only form some system, but must also be partially blocked. The author also considers the question of whether it is possible to borrow the proposed ideas in modern panpsychism. The problem for this is the ontological differences between modern naturalistic panpsychism and Leibniz’s classical panpsychism. The article proposes three different strategies for dealing with this problem related to three interpretations of Leibniz’s philosophy. First, it is possible to limit ourselves to considering physics as a set of structural phenomena derived from the activity of monads. Second, it is possible to try to show that there is some other, non-causal, type of relationship between the monads. Third, it is possible to consider this system as naturalistic pantheism and assume that God is a mediator and a common non-spatial coordinate system through which the monads agree with each other.