Panpsychisms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The philosophical view that all entities possess some form of consciousness or mental aspect
2. A belief proposing that minds or mental properties are inherent in all aspects of the universe, including inanimate matter
3. The doctrine suggesting that every part of the physical world has a form of subjective experience or awareness

Etymology: The plural here is simply the ordinary plural of "panpsychism," used when philosophers speak of several versions of the doctrine at once. The base noun traces to a Renaissance coinage. In 1591, the Italian philosopher Francisco Patrizi, in his "Nova de Universis Philosophia," used the New Latin "pampsychia" for the idea that everything has a mind or soul, which is why the term reads as a deliberate invention rather than a word that grew up over centuries. Patrizi built it from Ancient Greek parts: "pan" meaning "all" and "psukhe" meaning "mind, life force, soul." The Greek adjective "pampsukhos," meaning "in full life," shows the same building blocks, so the coinage drew on existing Greek vocabulary rather than inventing new sounds. The English form arrived by way of German, where "Panpsychismus" appeared in 1874, and English "panpsychism" is a calque, a word-for-word translation of that German term.

Synonyms: panpsychism, universal consciousness, mind-body dualism