William James, Nishida Kitaro and Modern Panpsychism

Abstract

In this paper we examine physicalistic panpsychism as one of the trends of modern philosophy of mind. We regard it as modern panpsychism and put it into dialogue with the classical philosophy of panpsychism up to the first half of the 20th century. In this context, we will clarify the significance of James and Nishida as panpsychical philosophies. 　　The question of why mind, a completely different kind of mode of existence, arises from matter is the “hard problem of consciousness”, which has become a hot topic in recent years, and panpsychism was presented as one of its solutions. Panpsychism, however, has also presented problems such as opposition of mind against physical closure or difficulty in compounding units of consciousness. 　　In contrast, W. James, who is included in the panpsychism of the first half of the 20th century, positioned the physical only as the objective aspect of reality. He proposed a stream of experience prior to rational thought executing contradictory opposition between realities, and thus tried to solve the problem of combination of consciousness. We can call this a contradictory de-rationalistic panpsychism. Nishida also advocated a contradictory self-identifying panpsychism that places the action of identifying metaphysical contradictions at the root of reality. 　　While these represent solutions to some of the problems of modern panpsychism, they also leave the question of how to reconcile panpsychism with physicalism.