Panentheism and Panpsychism: Philosophy of Religion Meets Philosophy of Mind ed. by Godehard Brüntrup, Benedikt Paul Göcke and Ludwig Jaskolla (review)

Panentheism and panpsychism do not entail one another. Nevertheless, the structural similarities are striking. While panentheism distinguishes without separating God and cosmos, panpsychism does the same with mind and matter. Both seem to mediate between dualism and monism. With the rise in popularity of panpsychism among analytic philosophers of mind, the time was ripe for a careful and critical interdisciplinary conversation. Panentheism and Panpsychism ably facilitates this meeting and mines the explanatory potential of combining two forms of unity metaphysics.

The book opens with an introductory chapter written by the editors. Their stated aim is "to examine the benefits which panpsychism and panentheism offer to one another; which problem-solving proposals are made possible by a synthesis of the two; and where the limitations of their interplay need to be demarcated" (1). The introduction also includes a beneficial summary of the thirteen essays, which are organized in two sections. Roughly equal in length, "Panentheism and Panpsychism in Philosophy" precedes "Panentheism and Panpsychism in Theology" with seven essays against the latter's six.

Leading off for the philosophy group, Theodore Walker Jr.'s "Interdisciplinary Convergences with Biology and Ethics via Cell Biologist Ernest Everett Just and Astrobiologist Sir Fred Hoyle" attempts to supplement panpsychism and panentheism with biology and ethics. For Walker, it is crucial to recognize with biology the importance of mutual aid and co-operation throughout nature. Countering what he judges to be an overemphasis upon the competitive struggle for existence and focusing on the whole of reality (eschewing the partialist fallacy) enables Walker to affirm a kind of ethical realism rather than mere idealism. If God is the one all-inclusive whole of reality, we need not give up realism to love our neighbors and enemies as we love ourselves. Indeed, we cannot conform to reality without doing so.

Sequencing an edited volume is no simple task. I suspect Walker's offering is first because of its attention to empirical questions and actual examples from Biology's history. This quality is a unique contribution alongside the philosophical deductions that characterize many of the other essays. Co-editor and contributor Benedikt Paul Göcke, for example, argues that panpsychism combined with transcendental panentheism can overcome two theoretical aporias of the former: the problem of the absurd multiplication of subjects of experience and the combination problem. In "Panpsychism and Panentheism," he finds that the works of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and Arthur Schopenhauer hint at a solution. In abandoning the assumption that there are numerically distinct subjects of experience in favor of only one subject (the Absolute), Göcke thinks he can explain a panpsychist reality's ontological unity.

Joanna Leidenhag's "Deploying Panpsychism for the Demarcation of Panentheism" provides much-needed conceptual clarity by sharpening the demarcation between panentheists and their theological rivals utilizing panpsychism (variously understood). Her careful disambiguation of multiple brands of panpsychism, panentheism, and their possible combinations exemplifies the kind of precision necessary for successful interdisciplinary dialogue. Next in line is David Skrbina's "God as World-Mind: Some Theological Implications of Panpsychism." Following the maxim "as above, so below," he concludes that God's Mind is the sum total of all mind. This essay illustrates how panpsychism does not inevitably lead to panentheism. For Skrbina and others, the pull toward pantheism is even stronger.

In "Universal Consciousness as the Ground of Logic," Philip Goff postulates that universal consciousness exists necessarily (grounding logical laws) and relates to contingent entities, thereby accounting for the intimate relationship truths of logic bear to the physical universe. Karl Pfeifer's "Naïve Panentheism" problematizes the "in" of panentheism, arguing that it cannot be conceived as mere containment. Without (substantive) parthood, he thinks panentheism collapses into theism. Finally, Uwe Voigt's entry brings part one to a close. In "What a Feeling? In Search of a Metaphysical Connection...