{"id":{"repo_id":"mississippi","oai_identifier":"oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1748"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mississippi/oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1748","repository":{"repo_id":"mississippi","name":"University of Mississippi","base_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Panpsychism And Mind-Dust","abstract":"It is only recently that panpsychism has emerged as a viable position in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. As such, the exploration and defense of it is not yet on par with some competing views. The current project is a step towards a remedy to this unfortunate state of affairs. It concerns one of the most important objections to the view, which I label the 'mind-dust' objection in homage to William James. It is essentially the conceptual difficulty of how proto-experiential being at the micro-level is supposed to 'sum' in a way that forms the consciousness with which we are intimately aware. I argue that the objection is more forceful than some suppose, and attempt to explicate a way around it. A possible route to circumvent the problem, I explain, is to develop a suggestion made by Grover Maxwell almost forty years ago. The insight is to conceive of proto-experiences not as particles or bits but as fields of influence. The end result is a position that looks in many ways similar to the epistemic neutral monism of Bertrand Russell, but is also a novel version of panpsychism. The suggestion is simply this: it might be the case that we should think of the world as inherently and ontologically qualitative in nature. I call this resultant position panqualiaism and hope that it represents a step forward.","abstract_html":"It is only recently that panpsychism has emerged as a viable position in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. As such, the exploration and defense of it is not yet on par with some competing views. The current project is a step towards a remedy to this unfortunate state of affairs. It concerns one of the most important objections to the view, which I label the 'mind-dust' objection in homage to William James. It is essentially the conceptual difficulty of how proto-experiential being at the micro-level is supposed to 'sum' in a way that forms the consciousness with which we are intimately aware. I argue that the objection is more forceful than some suppose, and attempt to explicate a way around it. A possible route to circumvent the problem, I explain, is to develop a suggestion made by Grover Maxwell almost forty years ago. The insight is to conceive of proto-experiences not as particles or bits but as fields of influence. The end result is a position that looks in many ways similar to the epistemic neutral monism of Bertrand Russell, but is also a novel version of panpsychism. The suggestion is simply this: it might be the case that we should think of the world as inherently and ontologically qualitative in nature. I call this resultant position panqualiaism and hope that it represents a step forward.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Hamilton, John Heath"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"M.A. in Philosophy","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Philosophy and Religion","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Donovan Wishon","Robert Barnard","Steven Skultety"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2013,"date_issued":"2013-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2013-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:05:53Z","subjects":["Panpsychism","Philosophy"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/749","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Donovan Wishon","Robert Barnard","Steven Skultety"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Hamilton, John Heath"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2019-06-20T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Philosophy and Religion"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.A. in Philosophy"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Panpsychism","Philosophy"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/749"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["It is only recently that panpsychism has emerged as a viable position in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. As such, the exploration and defense of it is not yet on par with some competing views. The current project is a step towards a remedy to this unfortunate state of affairs. It concerns one of the most important objections to the view, which I label the 'mind-dust' objection in homage to William James. It is essentially the conceptual difficulty of how proto-experiential being at the micro-level is supposed to 'sum' in a way that forms the consciousness with which we are intimately aware. I argue that the objection is more forceful than some suppose, and attempt to explicate a way around it. A possible route to circumvent the problem, I explain, is to develop a suggestion made by Grover Maxwell almost forty years ago. The insight is to conceive of proto-experiences not as particles or bits but as fields of influence. The end result is a position that looks in many ways similar to the epistemic neutral monism of Bertrand Russell, but is also a novel version of panpsychism. The suggestion is simply this: it might be the case that we should think of the world as inherently and ontologically qualitative in nature. I call this resultant position panqualiaism and hope that it represents a step forward."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Panpsychism And Mind-Dust"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Donovan Wishon","Robert Barnard","Steven Skultety"],"dc:creator":["Hamilton, John Heath"],"dc:date.available":["2019-06-20T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["It is only recently that panpsychism has emerged as a viable position in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. As such, the exploration and defense of it is not yet on par with some competing views. The current project is a step towards a remedy to this unfortunate state of affairs. It concerns one of the most important objections to the view, which I label the 'mind-dust' objection in homage to William James. It is essentially the conceptual difficulty of how proto-experiential being at the micro-level is supposed to 'sum' in a way that forms the consciousness with which we are intimately aware. I argue that the objection is more forceful than some suppose, and attempt to explicate a way around it. A possible route to circumvent the problem, I explain, is to develop a suggestion made by Grover Maxwell almost forty years ago. The insight is to conceive of proto-experiences not as particles or bits but as fields of influence. The end result is a position that looks in many ways similar to the epistemic neutral monism of Bertrand Russell, but is also a novel version of panpsychism. The suggestion is simply this: it might be the case that we should think of the world as inherently and ontologically qualitative in nature. I call this resultant position panqualiaism and hope that it represents a step forward."],"dc:identifier":["https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/749"],"dc:subject":["Panpsychism","Philosophy"],"dc:title":["Panpsychism And Mind-Dust"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Philosophy and Religion"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.A. in Philosophy"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:05:53Z"}