How Exactly Does Panpsychism Help Explain Consciousness?
Journal of Consciousness Studies April 1, 2024 P. Goff
Panpsychism has recently regained attention as a theory of consciousness that might avoid the problems of physicalism and dualism. Panpsychism comes in two forms: strong emergentist and weak emergentist, each facing challenges similar to those of dualism or physicalism, respectively. This paper develops a new hybrid view where subjects of experience are strongly emergent but their phenomenal properties are weakly emergent. The author argues that this hybrid avoids the difficulties that plague both physicalism and dualism, as well as the analogous challenges undermining standard panpsychist views.