panpsychism
/panˈsʌɪkɪzm/US/pænˈsaɪˌkɪzəm/
panpsychism noun: the belief that all matter is conscious in some form.
Noun
panpsychism (countable and uncountable, plural panpsychisms)
- The belief that all matter is conscious in some form.
- In very general terms, the thesis of panpsychism is that throughout nature there is mentality, that the mentality of which each of us is aware in our own thoughts and experiences is present in various forms in a wide range of natural bodies... Those that have minds (souls) are those whom we...2004, David S. Clarke, “Introduction”, in Panpsychism, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 1 & 3
- For such thinkers there is no reason to limit mind to humans and (perhaps) higher animals; in fact, they have reasons—both intuitive and rational—to claim that mind is best conceived as a general phenomenon of nature. As such, mind would exist, in some form, in all things. This concept is called...2005, David Skrbina, Panpsychism in the West, MIT Press, →ISBN, pages 2–3
- Synonym of panexperientialism, the particular form of panpsychism that holds experience but not cognition as universal.
- Synonyms:
- panexperientialism
- A particular form of panpsychism.
- Whitehead devised such a conception, which to my mind definitely supersedes the panpsychisms of the history of metaphysics.1961, Victor Lowe, “The Approach to Metaphysics”, in Ivor Leclerc, editor, The Relevance of Whitehead, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), published 2013, →ISBN, page 207
- The genius of modern panpsychisms has proved to be their capacity to incorporate rather than reject the mechanistic point of view.1975, John Howie, Thomas O. Buford, editors, Contemporary Studies in Philosophical Idealism, C. Stark, →ISBN, page 75
panpsychism meaning in Tamil and Indonesian
panpsychism in Tamil
- உண்மை உள்ளத்தளவு எனும் கோட்பாடு
panpsychism in Indonesian
- doctrine that all matter is conscious in some way
- panpsikisme
Examples of panpsychism in a sentence
- Depending on how these principles [fundamentality and ubiquity] are more exactly specified, many different forms of panpsychism can be developed.2014, “panpsychism”, in Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans, & Patrick Wilken, editors, The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Oxford University...
- This seems to be due to one factor that they all—the various idealisms, phenomenalisms, positivisms, and panpsychisms—have in common: They reject, or at least fail to endorse, the idea of “matter.”1997, David Ray Griffin, Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration, State University of New York Press, →ISBN...
Synonyms of panpsychism
Forms of panpsychism
| plural | panpsychisms |
|---|---|
| alternative form | pampsychism |
Origin of panpsychism
From pan- + psychism, a calque of German Panpsychismus (1874), from New Latin pampsychia coined by Francisco Patrizi in his 1591 Nova de Universis Philosophia, from Ancient Greek πᾰν- (păn-, “all”) + ψυχή (psukhḗ, “mind, life force, soul”) + -ία (-ía, “-ia: forming abstract nouns”). Cognate with Ancient Greek πάμψυχος (pámpsukhos, “in full life”) and Modern Greek παμψυχισμός (pampsychismós, “panpsychism”).
Questions about panpsychism
- What does panpsychism mean?
- Panpsychism means the belief that all matter is conscious in some form.
- What is panpsychism in Tamil?
- Panpsychism in Tamil is உண்மை உள்ளத்தளவு எனும் கோட்பாடு. See Panpsychism meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use panpsychism in a sentence?
- Depending on how these principles [fundamentality and ubiquity] are more exactly specified, many different forms of panpsychism can be developed.
- What part of speech is panpsychism?
- Panpsychism is a noun.
- How do you pronounce panpsychism?
- Panpsychism is pronounced /pænˈsaɪˌkɪzəm/ (US).
- What is the plural of panpsychism?
- The plural of panpsychism is panpsychisms.
Words near panpsychism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: panpsychism (page history and authors); panpsychism (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-panpsychism.wav.
Cite this entry: “panpsychism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/panpsychism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.