Panpsychism and Priority Cosmopsychism

Abstract

This chapter explicates a version of holistic panpsychism, “priority cosmopsychism,” which is understood as a holistic alternative to classical micropanpsychism. Priority cosmopsychism inherits the idea that there is—ontologically speaking—the whole as well as its respective parts from Schafferian priority monism. Despite this quasi-realistic concept of the respective parts, priority monists claim that the whole is fundamental in the sense that the parts are dependent on or derivative of the whole. To this is added a panpsychistic foundation: the cosmos as a whole is mentally—and in particular ‘phenomenally’—propertied. The chapter asserts that priority cosmopsychism is theoretically more advantaged than panpsychism. They conclude their paper discussing some problems exclusive to Priority Cosmopsychism: the inexplicability of a cosmic consciousness, counterintuitiveness, and the seeming estrangement from science.