Selves: The View from Panpsychism

Nešić, Janko (2015) Selves: The View from Panpsychism. In: Proceedings of The First International Philosophical Dialogue EAST-WEST (SCIENCE AND RELIGION). Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, pp. 97-106. ISBN 1857-9302

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Abstract

In this paper I will pose the question of the nature of subjects of experience or selves in the context of Russellian panpsychism. In order to solve the subject-summing problem in panpsychsim delationary views about subjects are indorsed. Delationary views about the nature of subjects have been defended by Hume, James, Parit and Strawson among others. On such views subjects of experience are not persistent through time as we pre-theoretically conceive of them, though they have synchronic unity. Strawson’s delatory transience view of the self is examined and criticized on the ground that it sufers from the problem of self-identiication. Strawson’s view is problematic in light of phenomenal holism. Since synchronic experiential ield as a whole is prior to its parts, there is only one holistic experience to which a subject is identical to. Even if a subject is identical to its stream of consciousness, on the base of diachronic unity, it cannot be short-lived.

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