With the deepening crisis of physicalism and the decline in its status as a sustainable research programme, philosophers of mind have begun to investigate the alternative idea—now commonly designated panpsychism—that consciousness is a fundamental feature of nature, and that the mental states, properties, and events exhibited by human beings are metaphysically grounded in the conscious actuality of reality’s most basic entities. Cosmopsychism is the thesis that the cosmos as a whole displays psychological properties, cosmopsychological properties as we might call them, (...) and that the mental states of human beings, and indeed human beings themselves as individual subjects of experience, are metaphysically grounded in the cosmopsychological properties of the cosmos. Richly sophisticated varieties of cosmopsychism can be found in the ancient Sanskrit classics, the Upaniṣads, and more particularly in those Vedānta philosophers who provide interpretations of these texts. The papers in this issue are explorations of the connections and explanatory potential between contemporary work on cosmopsychism and arguments from the Sanskrit tradition. (shrink)

Physical processes manifest an objective order that science manages to discover. Commonly, it is considered that these processes obey the “laws of nature.” Bergson disputes this idea which ultimately constitutes a kind of Platonism. In contrast, he develops the idea that physical processes are a particular case of automatic behaviors. In this sense, they imply a motor memory immanent to matter, whose actions are triggered by some perceptions. This approach is obviously panpsychist. It gives matter a certain consciousness, even if (...) the latter is different in nature from our consciousness. In some respects, this approach is similar to contemporary panpsychism because it claims that the psychic is a fundamental characteristic of nature, causally active. But it is also original because it does not constitute a theory of the origin of mind in nature. (shrink)

The notion of “semiotic scaffolding”, introduced into the semiotic discussions by Jesper Hoffmeyer in December of 2000, is proving to be one of the single most important concepts for the development of semiotics as we seek to understand the full extent of semiosis and the dependence of evolution, particularly in the living world, thereon. I say “particularly in the living world”, because there has been from the first a stubborn resistance among semioticians to seeing how a semiosis prior to and/or (...) independent of living beings is possible. Yet the universe began in a state not only lifeless but incapable of supporting life, and somehow “moved” from there in the direction of being able to sustain life and finally of actually doing so. Wherever dyadic interactions result indirectly in a new condition that either moves the universe closer to being able to sustain life, or moves life itself in the direction not merely of sustaining itself but opening the way to new forms of life, we encounter a “thirdness” in nature of exactly the sort that semiosic triadicity alone can explain. This is the process, both within and without the living world, that requires scaffolding. This essay argues that a fuller understanding of this concept shows why “semiosis” says clearly what “evolution” says obscurely. (shrink)

Panpsychism, the view that the material elements of the universe have mental properties, has until quite recently remained in the periphery of the philosophical mainstream due to its blatant contradiction of normative Cartesian dualities, which divided the world into mental properties and material properties, that are devoid of value and sentience. The recent geological shift to the Anthropocene Age, in which human culture can be found in pesticide resistant mosquitoes and the ozone heavens, has undermined the foundations of Cartesian dualism, (...) making panpsychism a credible alternative. Yet some panpsychists go too far by conflating all distinctions between living and nonliving, human and nonhuman, evolved and made entities. Using Whitehead's process philosophy, this article will defend panpsychism and develop the philosophical criteria of causation, relationality, unity and intentionality to differentiate between natural living forms, natural nonliving forms, and human artifacts. (shrink)

Peirce’s philosophy can be interpreted as an integration of mysticism and science. In Peirce’s philosophy mind is feeling on the inside and on the outside, spontaneity, chance and chaos with a tendency to take habits. Peirce’s philosophy has an emptiness beyond the three worlds of reality , which is the source from where the categories spring. He emphasizes that God cannot be conscious in the way humans are, because there is no content in his “mind.” Since there is a transcendental (...) 3 nothingness behind and before the categories, it seems that Peirce had a mystical view on reality with a transcendental Godhead. Thus Peirce seems to be a panentheist. 4 It seems fair to characterize him as a mystic whose path to enlightenment is science as a social activity. (shrink)

For some two millennia, Western civilization has predominantly viewed mind and consciousness as the private domain of the human species. Some have been willing to extend these qualities to certain animals. And there has been a small but very significant minority of philosophers who have argued that the processes of mind are universal in extent, and resident in all material things.

The many constraints of outer space experience challenge the human ability to coexist. Paradoxically, astronauts assert that on the international space station there are no conflicts or, at least, that they are able to manage their differences, behavioral as well as cognitive, in full respect of human rights and the imperatives of cooperative living. The question is: Why? Why in those difficult, a-terrestrial, and therefore almost unnatural conditions do human beings seem to be able to peacefully and collaboratively live together? (...) What is there beyond terrestrial boundary conditions that allows for such a result? And what can we learn from the astronauts’ experience about the effectiveness of human rights on Earth? My proposal is that the a-terrestrial dimension deeply alters the mind/body indexical framework and, in this way, disentangles the human inclination to semiosis from the cognitive and behavioral habits of categorization and territorialization inherent in the experience on Earth. If analyzed through the spectrum of an interdisciplinary approach involving anthropology, semiology, law, and human geography, I think that outer space enterprises can offer many insights into the cognitive and ethical/political hindrances to the effectiveness of human rights and their intercultural uses. Meanwhile the compulsive greed for a possessive territorialization of outer space and celestial bodies is growing by leaps and bounds. It haunts and imbues both astropolitics and space law. The astronauts’ semio-anthropological experience of human rights and cooperative coexistence seems to have been left in orbit. The future requires awareness and action by anthropologists, semioticians, cognitive scientists, geographers and lawyers, working all together in an interdisciplinary effort to move beyond approaching the experiential with a territorial mindset. The hope is that the “dark dream” of human exploitation/colonization of outer space will not turn from a political and legal speculation into a future reality. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to explain why Charles Sanders Peirce’s evolutionary metaphysics would not have seemed strange to its original 1890s audience. Building on the pioneering work of Andrew Reynolds, I will excavate the scientific context of Peirce’s Monist articles—in particular “The Law of Mind” and “Man’s Glassy Essence,” both published in 1892—focusing on the relationship between protoplasm, evolution, and consciousness. I argue that Peirce’s discussions should be understood in the context of contemporary evolutionary and physiological speculations, many of (...) which were featured in late- 1880s issues of Open Court, sister journal to the Monist. (shrink)

У статті розглядаються основні ідеї метафізики видатного американського логіка та філософа Чарльза Пірса. Показано, що значну частину його «наукової метафізики» становить еволюційна космологія, що характеризується, зокрема, істотною роллю випадковості у світі. Серед інноваційних ідей еволюційної космології вирізняється ідея хаотичного початку Універсуму. У статті показано, що ця ідея перегукується з деякими сучасними проблемами квантово-релятивістської космології, і насамперед із проблемами, як і раніше, популярної «інфляційної моделі», в якій ідея хаотичного початку еволюції Всесвіту є однією з центральних.Метою цієї статті є визначення низки паралелей (...) між «науковою метафізикою» Пірса та інфляційними космологічними моделями.Методом дослідження є проведення порівняльного аналізу сценарію еволюції Всесвіту з еволюційної космології Пірса – з одного боку, та сценарію еволюції Всесвіту в інфляційній моделі – з іншого боку, на основі виявлення загального елемента обох сценаріїв хаотичного початку еволюції Всесвіту. В результаті були виявлені зазначені вище паралелі.У першому підрозділі «Детермінізм та «наукова метафізика» Ч. Пірса» коротко відзначені ті філософські течії, які найбільше вплинули на формування та еволюцію поглядів Пірса. Розглянуто деякі загальні питання детермінізму як філософської течії про впорядкованість у світі. Зокрема, також розглянуто питання про співвідношення необхідності та випадковості у детермінізмі, а також трактування Пірса про співвідношення цих категорій. Докладно описано задум Пірса побудувати «наукову метафізику» як альтернативу її традиційним версіям.У другому підрозділі «Еволюційна космологія в «науковій метафізиці» Пірса» обговорюється зміст його еволюційної космології як найважливішої складової його «наукової метафізики». Акцент робиться на процесі еволюції Всесвіту від її початкового хаотичного стану. Ставиться питання про нетрадиційний стосовно механістичної картині світу підхід до природи випадковості. Суть нетрадиційного немеханістичного розуміння випадковості у процесі еволюції пов’язана з конструктивним її розумінням.Третій підрозділ «Тихізм Пірса та сучасна космологія» присвячений опису зв’язку «наукової метафізики» Пірса та сучасної квантово-релятивістської космології. Дається короткий опис еволюції сучасної квантово-релятивістської космології та становлення в її рамках інфляційних моделей. Також коротко дається її зміст та аналіз сценарію еволюції Всесвіту, починаючи з хаотичного стану.Знайдені паралелі сприятимуть поглибленню наукової картини світу, зокрема – прогресивному впливу конструктивного розуміння випадковості, особливо в еволюційних процесах.У такому контексті представлені паралелі здійснені, наскільки нам відомо, вперше як у вітчизняній, так і в зарубіжній літературі. (shrink)

Peirce’s system may be identified as one of a family of “organic memory” theories which flourished during the period in which he developed it, especially in the Monist journals which published much of his late work. “Organic memory” theories were vigorously opposed in their own day and are remembered in our own, if at all, only in connection with discredited theories such as racial memory and Lamarckian inheritance. When read in the context of their own time, however, “organic memory” theories (...) stand revealed as among modernity’s first attempts at a still-unrealized, post-nominalist re-foundation of science. Being thus closely related to Peirce’s own project both in time and in spirit, they deserve to be understood on their own terms. The synthesis of these theories in the book Das Gesetz der Serie (1919) by the Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer (1880-1926), a prominent representative of organized Monism's European branch, provides insight into the systematic unity of the various aspects of Peirce's thought, especially the close relationship between pragmatism and what is now called “emergence.”. (shrink)