What a Feeling? In Search of a Metaphysical Connection between Panpsychism and Panentheism

Abstract

manner: What it is like to be in an atmosphere is the same as what it is like to be in space. If phenomenal bonding is possible in a way conceivable to us, this also is the fundamental content of the according mental states of the involved microsubjects. It may be surprising to assume that it is like something to be in space, that being in space is a qualitative perspective on the world, but this very assumption has been endorsed and elaborated by Immanuel Kant in a way which is pertinent to the present discussion51. For Kant, space is the pure form of external intuition52, whereby ›external‹ characterizes the way the objects encountering in this way are intuitively apprehended: namely as different from the subject perceiving them. Accordingly, to be in space is to be confronted with something different from oneself. This intuition is not based on conceptual insight, which would be a privilege of rational subjects; on the contrary, it is the foundation of any sensual faculty and thereby can be presupposed to be at work wherever qualities are sensed. So even microsubjects below the human level need not lack the intuitive knowledge (in a minimal sense) that there is something different from them, e.g. something they can be addressed by, they can combine and form arrangements with. What it is like to be in space, understood thus, is being open to atmospheres, as something not identical with oneself but at the same time mental, and what can happen within them. This is what it is like to be a natural subject; this is like what it is to be in the mental state which is God. What it is like to be in that mental state, however, is different and therefore to be distinguished from what it is like to be that mental state, in this case: to be God. We know that difference only from one of its side53, namely from our side as human and therefore natural subjects: We know what it is like that we can encounter something (or someone) else, we know what it is like that there can be otherness. We can approach the other side of this difference at best in a negative way, like Nicolaus Cusanus did it by calling God, considered in Himself, non-aliud, the »Not-Other«, thus in the final analysis staying on our side of the difference (where else could we stay or go, at least under our natural conditions?) and acknowledging it as only one side of it. These considerations allow to resume the initial question: Could it be the case that there is a metaphysical connection between panpsychism and panentheism? They even allow to give as a preliminary answer: Yes. This answer can be justified as follows: As suspected, the searched metaphysical 51 For the following, cf. Voigt 2016. 52 Cf. Critique of Pure Reason: B42/A26. 53 On the conception of a difference with only one (available) relatum, see Zorn 2016: 119-129. Uwe Voigt 9783957437303 Heruntergeladen von Brill.com05/19/2020 01:23:06AM via free access